Assault Rifles Didn't Destroy the Twin Towers

If you were President Obama, and you were serious about keeping the U.S free from radical Muslims jihadists, how would you go about  it? Ban assault rifles? Ban radical Muslims from entering the country? I suggest if you ban assault rifles, and let radical Muslims in, you will fail to protect America.

What  has been constant in all the radical Muslim attacks in the U.S. to date?

1. On Dec. 2,  two Muslims, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik attacked a Christmas party in San Bernardino, Calif., using two  AR-15-type semiautomatic rifles. Malik pledged allegiance to the ISIL leader on Facebook. Farouk and Malik fired 65-75 bullets. So, would a law banning assault rifles have made a difference? Probably not.

According to federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) officers, both weapons -- though legally acquired - had been illegally modified under California law. One had been modified to enable it to fire in fully automatic mode; the other, to allow use of a large-capacity magazine

The two flouted laws against modification; would they have obeyed laws that prohibited acquiring?

Fourteen civilians were killed. Would the attack not have occurred if Farook and Malik had been unable to acquire AR-15s? Both were also armed with 9 mm. semi-automatic pistols, and pipe bombs --  some of which were placed at the scene.

2. On Feb. 26, 1993, a 1,300-pound truck bomb was detonated below the World Trade Center in New York City, with intent to send the North Tower crashing into the South Tower,  bringing both towers down and killing thousands of people.

Six people were killed and more than 1,000 injured. The attack was planned by a group of Muslim terrorists including Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal A. Ayyad, Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ahmed Ajaj. They received financing from Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, Yousef's uncle.

3. On 9/11/2001, 19 Muslim terrorists used box cutters and four hijacked passenger airliners, which they flew into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon; 2,977 Americans were killed, over 6,000 injured.

4. On Nov. 5, 2009, Maj. Nidal Hasan, yelling "Allahu Akbar!" attacked U. S. soldiers at Ft. Hood Texas. Hasan was armed with a pistol, fitted with two laser sights. He murdered 13 and injured 32.

5. On April 15, 2013, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev perpetrated the Boston Marathon massacre using two pressure-cooker bombs. In the subsequent shootout, 9 mm. pistols were used. Three spectators were killed at the scene; 264 were injured. Later two police officers were killed by pistol fire.

6. On July 16, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez attacked a recruiting center, and a U.S. Navy Reserve center in Chattanooga, Tenn., while armed with an  AK-47-style semi-automatic rifle and a 9mm handgun. A 12-gage shotgun was also recovered from his vehicle. Four marines and a sailor were killed; two others, injured.

7. On Nov. 4, Faisal Mohammad stabbed four people at the University of California Merced campus, using a hunting knife. In a handwritten manifesto, Mohammad, vowed “to cut someone’s head off," and wrote five reminders to "praise Allah!"

These are seven significant r terrorist attacks that I recall. I have refreshed my memory using Wikipedia. Only two of the seven involved assault rifles. All seven involved radical Muslim terrorists. When the president focuses on assault rifles and not on the radical Muslims perpetrating these atrocities mainly on our civilian population, he misidentifies the problem.

Of the 3,020 Americans murdered in these  seven terrorist attacks, only 19 were killed in two of those attacks with assault rifles.

For every one American killed in these attacks by assault rifles, 158 were killed with other weapons. At present, airlines used as weapons by the terrorists have killed 150 people for every one killed by an assault rifle. Is the solution to ban civilian airliners? Box cutters? Pressure cookers? Pipes? Hunting knives?

Mr. Obama, and those who blithely follow, tell the American people that we will vet the 50,000 Syrian refugees Mr. Obama wants to bring into this country to weed out the radical jihadists. Compare that with the Congressional testimony under oath of Assistant FBI Director Michael Steinbach:

 “The concern in Syria is that we don’t have systems in places on the ground to collect information to vet ... on those  individuals. ... You’re talking about a country that is a failed  state, that is -- does not have any infrastructure, so to speak. So all of the data sets -- the police, the intel services -- that normally you would go to seek information, don’t exist.”

So is admitting 50,000 unvetted Syrian Muslims an act of Christian charity, or a game of Russian Roulette? Clearly, banning assault weapons would have saved 19 lives. But it isn't a substitute for properly vetting Syrians, when polls tell us that as many as 25 percent of Muslims worldwide support jihad.

France bans assault weapons. Did that stop the Paris attacks? Does any sane individual really believe banning assault weapons in the U.S. will stop terrorists from getting them as long as our southern border -- 1,989 miles -- remains open? The Mexican gangs smuggle cocaine and heroin in by the tons. Is it harder to smuggle AR-15s?


Updatd Post: 12:00 am, Sat Jan 2, 2016.QCOnline
By John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2015
 John Donald O'Shea

Can We Beat ISIS Without Doing Collateral Damage?

During the Republican presidential debate, a number of the candidates brushed against the key issues in the “War on Terror,” or maybe I should say, pussyfooted around them.
Muslim terrorists recognize no limits as they make war on us; they kill our non-combatants without an iota of compunction. The men, women and children killed in the 9/11 attacks were civilians. The Twin Towers were not  legitimate military targets. The Americans massacred at San Bernardino were non-combatants. The Inland Regional Center was hardly a military target. Under the Geneva Convention it is a war crime to knowingly make war on non-combatants.

Debate moderator Hugh Hewitt asked Ben Carson if he approved of carpet bombing to kill ISIS fighters, if it would cause civilian deaths: “So, you are OK with the deaths of thousands of innocent children and civilians?” The question should have been put to each of the candidates, and put again until they directly responded.

Rand Paul later warned that the Geneva Convention prohibited making war on civilians -- on non-combatants. Sen. Paul correctly pointed out that America was a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and that we would first have to withdraw before we could undertake carpet bombing, if it would involve killing non-combatants. The senator’s remarks were a decent short-hand statement of our obligation. Donald Trump replied, “So they can kill us, but we can’t kill them?”


Mr. Trump’s rhetorical question, as well as  the moderator’s, were not academic questions. How does one kill enemy soldiers who do not wear uniforms, who blend into into the non-combatant civilian population, and who indeed take cover among the civilian population, knowing that America is bound by the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949?


It is one thing to carpet bomb an organized enemy army dug-in in the desert, as we did in the first Gulf War in Operation Desert Storm.  It is an entirely different thing to carpet bomb a city to kill the Islamic State fighters who are in the city operating and/or hiding among women and children.


Mr. Trump’s question more precisely put is really this: If the Islamic State is going to make war on our civilian population, are we barred from making war on their civilian population?


In World War II when the Germans bombed London and Coventry, Britain, and later the U.S. responded by bombing every German city conceivably aiding the German War effort. Additionally, we bombed Japan with conventional bombs, and culminated our efforts by dropping two atom bombs. Those two bombs destroyed Japan’s will to fight and resulted in their unconditional surrender.


In doing so, we didn’t worry about collateral damage or women and children. At Nagasaki we killed some 20,000 soldiers and perhaps 150,000 civilians. At Hiroshima we killed perhaps 280,000. In the process, we avoided the million casualties estimated in an invasion of Japan. In those days there was no 4th Geneva Convention. In the “Gathering Storm,” Winston Churchill asked how a democracy is to respond when attacked by an enemy who ignores the rules of war? He answered that question by writing five more volumes detailing what the allies did.


So how do we get at the Islamic State’s soldiers within the cities they control?


One suggestion is to send in foreign troops. But why would foreign troops fight for us, if we won’t send our own troops in to fight for ourselves?


Another is to send in either our special forces or our ground troops. If we do that, we are guaranteed dead, wounded and maimed American troops.


A third alternative would be to wait forever until the enemy is dumb enough to send its troops out into the desert to fight another “Mother of Battles” with us, and then for us to carpet bomb them into oblivion. But is ISIS stupid enough to repeat Saddam’s blunder?

The ultimate method would be to obliterate, annihilate, and/or wipe out all living beings in cities and town held by the Islamic State -- after “withdrawing” from the Geneva Convention.


I do not believe the American people are yet ready for that last alternative. But that could quickly change with a new president and another attack on the U.S., -- especially if that attack results in massive American casualties.


I cannot see President Obama saying to the Islamic State -- and meaning it -- that “unless you observe the Geneva Convention as to our civilians, we are going to withdraw from the Geneva Convention and kill your civilian population.


Three key questions went unasked:

-- Can we destroy ISIS by fighting a “limited” war, while they observe no such limitations and kill our women and children without compunction?

-- Would you carpet bomb cities held by ISIS if that resulted in massive collateral damage -- the deaths of thousands of women and children?


-- Would you do what is required by the 4th Geneva Convention, before doing so?

Posted: Saturday, December 26, 2015 12:00 am. QCOline.com

By John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2015

John Donald O'Shea

How Many Jihadist Refugees Are Too Many?

"Intelligence and law enforcement agencies have disrupted countless plots here and overseas, and worked around the clock to keep us safe.

"I've ordered the Departments of State and Homeland Security to review the visa (waiver) program under which the female terrorist in San Bernardino originally came to this country." 

                            -- President Barack Obama, Dec. 6 Oval Office address.

In the wake of one Muslim terrorist attack after another, President Obama has two proposals: (1) Keep guns out of the hands of U.S. citizens, and (2) Bring 50,000 more Muslims "refugees" into this country. He promises they will be "thoroughly vetted."

How does the U.S. go about vetting refugees to insure that NONE are jihadist terrorists? Suicide bombers? Religious zealots intent on slaughtering American infidels?

A day after the president's address, the Trump campaign responded with this news release:

Syria is in utter chaos. Is it possible to get records from Syria? Can we rely on Syrian records to be accurate? Or do we have to take each refugee at his word?  Would a Muslim terrorist intent on killing Americans tell a fib to get into our country?

A day after the president's address, the Trump campaign responded with this news release:

"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on. According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing '25 percent of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad' and 51 percent of those polled, 'agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah.' Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won’t convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women."

It quoted Mr. Trump as saying, "Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.”

Do you recall the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center? The 9/11/01 attacks? The Ft. Hoot Shooting massacre? The Boston Marathon bombings? The Chattanooga Recruiting Office? The San Bernardino  massacre? Were all perpetrated by Muslim terrorists? All done in the name of Allah? All justified by Islamic religious beliefs?

The president calls those religious beliefs a "perverted interpretation of Islam." But is it? Or is it the very form of Islam that made war against the "infidels" throughout the Middle East, North Africa and as far into Europe as Tours and Vienna? That conquered Constantinople, the Balkans and Greece?

It's clear that not all Muslims adhere to this jihadist strain of Islam. But a great many do. AND,  there are 1.57 billion Muslims in the world! 

A Nov. 20 Pew poll concludes that 63 million Muslims support ISIS in 11 countries. In Pakistan, 9 percent support ISIS; in Turkey, 8 percent, in the Palestinian Territories, 6 percent. Additionally, there are another 287 million in those 11 countries who "haven't formed an opinion on whether they support ISIS or not." The survey did not cover Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq or Iran.

 Mr. Trump also cites a June 155 poll by the Center for Security Policy in which 600 Muslims living in the U.S. were interviewed and 51 percent of U.S. Muslims polled believe either that they should have the choice of American or sharia courts, or that they should have their own tribunals to apply sharia. Nearly a quarter believe that, “It is legitimate to use violence to punish those who give offense to Islam by, e.g., portraying the prophet Mohammed.”

Nearly one-fifth said that the use of violence in the U.S. is justified in order to make sharia the law of the land in this country.

Even the liberal Daily Beast says that worldwide "only about 12 percent of Muslims support terrorism."

So is Mr. Trump hysterical? Or is he rational? Consider:

If only 1 percent of 50,000 Syrian refugees come to America to make jihad" we would be admitting 500 terrorists adhering to what the president calls a "perverted interpretation of Islam"

Mr. Obama  ridiculed Republicans for fearing women and children. He assures us we can properly vet Syrians then concedes that the San Bernardino woman terrorist was properly vetted. If the government can't vet one woman from Pakistan, how can we be confident we can vet 50,000?

Two great values are at stake in this debate.

First, our forefathers came to America for religious freedom. Our constitution guarantees to people of all faiths, absolute freedom of belief, but limited free exercise.

That free exercise is rooted in toleration. Free exercise does not go so far as allowing a professed cannibal to eat his neighbor, or a professed Muslim jihadist to fly jets into the Twin Towers.

Second, the idea of admitting immigrants who come to bomb and shoot us, or to eat us is insane. Our constitution is not a suicide pact.

The difficulty is telling in advance which Muslims are entering the country to wage jihad. If one Pakistani woman can kill 14, and if 19 Saudis can kill 3,000, it makes no sense whatsoever to admit 500 potential jihadists. Or even 50.

It comes down to a question of probabilities and risks. Is it probable if we admit 50,000, that 500 are terrorists? 50? Two? If so, is it worth the risk?

I think this is what Mr. Trump means. I hope that is what Mr. Trump means.

So what exactly does the president mean?

Posted: Saturday, December 12, 2015 12:00 am - QCOnline.com

By John Donald O'Shea


Copyright 2015

John Donald O'Shea

To Go to War or Not? For Presidents, the Question Isn’t Academic

I have often wondered what President Obama would have done had he been in President Lincoln’s shoes on the eve of the American Civil War.

Like President Lincoln, President Obama would not have had foreknowledge of the “magnitude or the duration” of the coming Civil War. Neither would he have known that 112,000 union soldiers would be killed in action or die of wounds; that 25,000 more would die in confederate prisons, and that 282,000 would be wounded and maimed.

Nor that when deaths from illness and other causes were added in, the total number of union dead would be 385,000. And he would not have known that confederate losses would be 260,000 dead and 137,000 wounded.

He would not have known the final cost to free the 4 million slaves, and/or to save the union would be a half million dead and 400,000 wounded.

So what would President Obama have done when South Carolina seceded from the union? When Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, etc., followed? When South Carolina demanded the evacuation of Ft. Sumter?

President Lincoln ordered the Star of the West, an unarmed merchant vessel, to carry federal troops and supplies to the fort. Would President Obama have done that much?

What would President Obama’s response have been when secessionist troops fired on the fort? President Lincoln declared a “state of insurrection” and called for “75,000 volunteers to enlist for three months” of service to quell the insurrection. Would President Obama have done likewise?

Mr. Lincoln ordered a naval blockade of all confederate forts. Would Mr. Obama have done that?

President Lincoln ordered federal troops to engage the confederate army in the first battle of Manassas. The union army was beaten and retreated. Would President Obama have ordered union forces into battle? Would he have continued the war, or would he have withdrawn to avoid further loses?

Fourteen months later, Lincoln’s union forces engaged the confederates in the battle of Antietam in which 2,108 union soldiers were killed, 9,540 were wounded, 546 confederates were killed and 7,752 were wounded. Would President Obama still have been pursuing the war? Would he have quit after the carnage of Antietam?

President Lincoln saw the war through.

If we speculate and assume that President Obama would not have fought the Civil War, or that he would not have fought it through to the bitter end, would his decisions have been better or worse than President Lincoln’s? More or less moral?

Was preserving the union worth 500,000 deaths? Over 400,000 wounded and maimed?

Was freeing 4 million slaves worth such casualties? Would the slaves still be slaves today, or would changing economic or other social conditions caused its demise by 1900? 1930? 1945?

Is it moral to kill to preserve a political union that supposedly is based on the “consent of the governed?” Is it moral to use deadly force to end slavery?

On March 4, 1865, 150 years ago, President Lincoln delivered a sober and reflective second Inaugural Address.

“On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it.

“Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. ....

“Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. ....

“The prayers of both could not be answered. ... neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. ....

“If God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword ... it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”

I cannot believe, given his unwillingness to make war shown during his years in office, President Obama would have called up troops and gone to war to preserve the Union.

Nor do I have any evidence to believe Mr. Obama would have embarked upon the Civil War to free the slaves. Consider his remarks when Russia intervened/invaded Ukraine: “Russia is on the wrong side of history.” Would he have said, “The Confederate States are on the wrong side of history in seceding, and keeping slaves?” Would he have chosen to employ for “diplomatic and economic steps” to isolate the Confederacy? Would he have been wrong? I don’t know.

Was it wrong or immoral to pursue a war that resulted in nearly a million casualties, not to mention the destruction of families and property, to advance in time the emancipation of 4 million slaves. At Galesburg, President Lincoln labeled slavery as a “moral, social and political evil.” He believed the use of deadly force was justified to end that evil, and to save the union.

Because I, like Mr. Lincoln, would not want to be a slave, and without the advantage of hindsight, I (to free the slaves) would have supported President Lincoln’s course of action. How about you?
To go to war, or not?

The question is not academic. It is the question that President Obama faces every time he is asked to make war, or put “boots on the ground.” But history shows that the euphoria at going to war soon is replaced by a generation-long misery for all those touched by the war.

Posted: Monday, December 7, 2015 6:44 am. QCOnline.com

By John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2015

John Donald O'Shea

Corporate vs.Iindividual Speech, Part II

(Editor's note: This is the second of two parts examining the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision.)


              “The Democrats have the ultimate super PAC, it is called the mainstream media.”
                             -- Marco Rubio, CNBC Republican Debate, Oct. 28.

In Part I of this piece, I discussed what the U. S. Supreme Court in Citizens United said about the political speech rights of individuals vs. corporations. In Part II I discuss what the Court said about political speech rights of ordinary corporations vs. media corporations.
In the case, the court began by setting out the law:

"Before the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), federal law prohibited -- and still does prohibit -- corporations and unions from using 'general treasury funds' to make (1) direct contributions to candidates, or (2) independent expenditures that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate, through any form of media, in connection with certain qualified federal elections."

BCRA amended federal law "to prohibit any electioneering communication' as well. ... An electioneering communication is ... 'any broadcast, cable, or satellite communication' that 'refers to a clearly identified candidate for Federal office' and is made within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election."

In Citizens United, the court recognized that while ordinary corporations, large and small, were barred from political speech" while giant (as well as "small")  media corporations were universally recognized as possessing that right. NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and the New York Times, etc., have it within their power to campaign day after day, right up to the day of the election, against McDonald's serving unhealthy fried foods, and to call for the passage of laws prohibiting the sale of Big Macs right up until election day. At the same time under the campaign reform act, as amended, the McDonald Corp. would face fines or imprisonment if it paid for ads on TV opposing the election of a candidate promising to implement the NY Times' views.

So, should media corporations have a monopoly on political speech, or should ordinary corporations and labor unions -- both of which are "associations of citizens" --- have the same right to protect and/or advance their interests?

Consider the following: On Oct. 28, CNBC "moderated" the third Republican debate.

Given the questions asked, I was expecting the moderators to eventually ask, "Why are you still beating your wife?" The questions themselves were either intended to assassinate the candidates (regardless of the answers given), or to cause Republican candidates to eviscerate each other, while keeping the moderators hands seemingly blood-free. Did you hear a single open-ended question such as, "How exactly are illegal immigrants harming the country?"

Under the BCRA, no ordinary corporation could expend its corporate funds to rebut the perceived harm done to its favorite candidate by the CNBC moderators.

What happened on CNBC conclusively demonstrates that every corporation and union -- that is, every "association of citizens" (including Republicans and Democrats associations ) has to have the same right to engage in political speech possessed by media corporations and conglomerates, and that Citizens United was providently decided.

The court in Citizens United saw that the BCRA "interferes with the 'open marketplace' of ideas protected by the First Amendment.... It permits the Government to ban the political speech of millions of associations of citizens. ... Most of these are small corporations without large amounts of wealth.

"By suppressing the speech of [many] corporations, both for-profit and nonprofit, the Government prevents their voices and viewpoints from reaching the public and advising voters on which persons or entities are hostile to their interests. Factions will necessarily form in our Republic, but the remedy of 'destroying the liberty' of some factions  is 'worse than the disease'” The Federalist No. 10, p. 130 (J. Madison). Factions should be checked by permitting them all to speak, and by entrusting the people to judge what is true and what is false."

In America  all individual and "associations of individuals" need to be able to engage in political speech. As stated in Part I, the Citizens United court did not create PACS. It merely struck down the provisions of the BCRA that gave a monopoly on political speech to the PACs and to the media corporation, so as to put all corporations, unions and PACs on equal footing.

In taking a second look at it, the Citizens United court saw the real and inherent danger in its earlier Austin decision. The court saw the lurking danger of the Austin holding to America's free press -- to its media corporations:

"The chilling endpoint of the [Austin] Court’s reasoning is not difficult to foresee: outright regulation of the press. ... Media corporations have 'immense aggregations of wealth,' and the views expressed by media corporations often have little or no correlation to the public’s support for those views. ... Thus, under the Government’s ['antidistortion'] reasoning, wealthy media corporations could have their voices diminished to put them on par with other media entities. There is no precedent for permitting this under the First Amendment."

Simply put, if the political speech of some corporations can be barred, why not that of the media corporations?

Posted: Saturday, November 14, 2015 12:00 am. QCOnline.com

By John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2015

John Donald O'Shea

Corporate vs. Individual Speech, Part I

(Editor's note: This is the first of  two-parts examining the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision.)


"An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment." 
                                       Justice Hugo Black, concurring opinion,  New York Times Co. v. U.S.

Bill Gates is a wealthy individual. His net worth was $79.2 billion as of Nov. 2. Gates can use his entire $79.2 billion, anytime and anywhere, to engage in political speech -- that is, to create political ads for or against causes and candidates. And if you and your friends disagree with what Gates is saying, you can pool your individual resources to engage in counter-speech. But could you set up a not-for-profit corporation and use its corporate funds to engage Gates in political speech?

Before, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Citizens United case, the answer was an unequivocal "NO!" In the court's words, "Wealthy individuals and unincorporated associations can spend unlimited amounts on independent expenditures. ... Yet certain disfavored associations of citizens -- those that have taken on the corporate form -- are penalized for engaging in the same political speech."

The court saw a problem with that because whatever else a corporation is, it is an "association of citizens." The Citizens United court then criticized its own earlier decision in the Austin Case.
"The Austin majority undertook to distinguish wealthy individuals from corporations on the ground that '[s]tate law grants corporations special advantages -- such as limited liability, perpetual life, and favorable treatment of the accumulation and distribution of assets.' ... This does not suffice, however, to allow laws prohibiting speech. 'It is rudimentary that the State cannot exact as the price of those special advantages the forfeiture of First Amendment rights.'”

So, what associations of citizens do you think should be allowed to engage in political speech to influence elections in America? All associations? Or, only some associations? Should citizens who have associated to form National Rifle Association prohibited from expending NRA corporate funds (general treasury funds)  to create political ads to defeat a candidate who campaigns on a platform of abolishing the 2nd Amendment and confiscating all guns?

Should Planned Parenthood be prohibited from placing TV ads on behalf of pro-choice candidates? Should a movie maker be prohibited from showing his film on a cable channel if the film places the entire blame for the Benghazi fiasco on Hillary Clinton? Should the Catholic or Baptist churches be prohibited from airing on TV political ads supporting candidates who support traditional marriage, or oppose abortion?

All of these are associations of citizens, and all, because they were corporations, prior to the Citizens United decision of the U. S. Supreme Court, were barred, under the threat of criminal prosecution by the provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), from using their corporate funds to engage in the sorts of political speech enumerated above.
That same BCRA, however, and not the Supreme Court, created what we have come to know in America as PACS -- political action committees. (Those who blame the court for creating them are simply uninformed and wrong.)

In the BCRA, Congress also forbade ordinary corporations (excluding media corporation) and labor unions from using their general treasury funds to engage in political speech for or against political causes and/or candidates, during certain time periods preceding primary and general elections (e.g., buy radio and TV ads, or make movies, etc.).

The BCRA, however, at the same time authorized corporations, unions and others to set up new entities -- PACs,  to use “separate segregated funds," and to raise and expend those funds to engage in political speech for or against the political causes and/or candidates, without any time constraints. That which was forbidden to corporations and unions, was permitted to the PACs.

But in the Citizens United decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, the court explained the problem of being required to set up PACs in order to engage in political speech.

"As a practical matter, however, given the complexity of the regulations and the deference courts show to administrative determinations, a speaker who wants to avoid threats of criminal liability and the heavy costs of defending against FEC [Federal Election Commission] enforcement must ask a governmental agency for prior permission to speak. ... These onerous restrictions thus function as the equivalent of 'prior restraint'  by giving the FEC power analogous to licensing laws implemented in 16th- and 17th-century England -- laws and governmental practices of the sort that the First Amendment was drawn to prohibit."

Recent history shows that if the IRS can be used to silence tea party organizations who apply for tax-exempt status, there is no reason to believe that tea party organizations who ask the FEC to "speak" will receive any better treatment.

For those willing to take time to read  Citizens United, the issue is no more complicated than this:
If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.

Posted: Friday, November 13, 2015 12:00 am. QCOnline.com

By John Donald O'Shea  

Copyright 2015
John Donald O'Shea 

We Must Heed the Lessons of Nixon's Watergate

Would you ever believe it? The mainstream Republicans are longing for those halcyon days when Richard M. Nixon was president! They list his accomplishments and tell us that but for one “monumental blunder,” Mr. Nixon might be regarded as one of the best presidents of the 20th  century.


“If only Dick Nixon were here today!”

Back in 1974, about the time I was first elected judge (thanks in large part to President Nixon’s Watergate problems), attorney Frank Wallace told me that “without integrity, a candidate for judge might have the finest legal mind, and the best judicial temperament and still be utterly unfit to serve as a judge.

Frank nailed it.

The same is true of presidents and candidates for president.

LBJ said our ships were attacked in the Tonkin Gulf; war followed and Americans were killed.  When Presidents Clinton and Bush told us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, I believed them. So did a great many other Americans -- in and out of Congress. And more Americans were killed and maimed.

For those who are too young to recall, President Nixon did not make a “monumental blunder.” He flat-out lied to the American public, not to protect the nation from its enemies, but rather to save his own neck.

“People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”
Perhaps not, but he approved the cover up of a burglary at Democratic Headquarters at Washington’s Watergate complex on June 17, 1972, to bug Democrat offices.

Mr. Nixon at first downplayed the scandal, calling it “mere politics.” He labeled news stories linking the White House to the burglary as  “biased and misleading.” He was lying.

But, then, White House aide, Alexander Butterfield, revealed to Congress that Mr. Nixon had a secret taping system in the Oval Office that recorded all his phone calls and conversations. Mr. Nixon provided transcripts of the tapes, but refused to give the actual tapes to Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, claiming executive privilege.

When Cox refused to back down, the president fired him. Eventually, Mr. Nixon’s lawyers turned over the audio tape, but it contained an 18½ minute gap! The president’s personal secretary claimed she accidentally erased that portion of the tape.

Throughout the affair, President Nixon claimed he had no prior knowledge of the burglary, and knew nothing of a cover up. But then, in early 1973, Mr. Nixon’s defense crumbled. A “new tape,” recorded not long after the break-in came, to light showing Nixon had been told of the White House’s connection to the Watergate burglaries soon after they had taken place, and that he had approved plans to thwart the investigation. When congressional leaders told him he would be impeached and convicted, President Nixon resigned.

To call his actions a “monumental blunder” is to convert President Nixon’s course of lies, deceit, and intentional misconduct into a mere mistake of judgment. Nixon was about to be impeached not for some mere lapse of judgment, but rather for intentionally lying to the American people and obstructing justice.

And now it’s happening again. A candidate for president has a secret -- non-official -- email system. When Congress demands to see her Benghazi emails, she labels the investigation “the biggest fairy tale I have ever seen” and rhetorically asks, “What difference does it make?”
When Congress asks for her emails, it is told they were all personal and have been erased, and then she tells the public, “’I think it’s pretty clear ... they ended up becoming a partisan arm of the Republican National Committee.”

Mrs. Clinton is using Nixon’s playbook. Both labeled the congressional investigations partisan politics. Nixon (or an aide) erased minutes from a tape and withheld other tapes. Mrs. Clinton has deleted thousands of emails, and withheld thousands of others from Congress for nearly four years! Mr. Nixon lied to cover up a “third-rate burglary.” Mrs. Clinton lies to keep the public in the dark as to what the American government was doing in Benghazi. All that is presently lacking is her connection to a crime -- such as the Watergate break-in.

But what if it turns out that Ambassador Stevens was, in violation of the law, engaged in smuggling Libyan weapons to the Syrian rebels? Remember the Iran/Contra affair? What if it turns out that the FBI determines that she has lied under oath to Congress, or under oath has intentionally mislead Congress? Isn’t perjuring yourself before Congress a felony?

If Mrs. Clinton intentionally lied to Congress and the people, does that “make a difference?” Shouldn’t our leaders tell us the truth? Or have Democrats forgotten their catchy little jingle, “Bush lied, soldiers died?” Or, is integrity required only of Republicans?

Democrats say the Benghazi hearings have gone on too long. I would suggest that they  would have been over three and a half years ago had Mrs. Clinton simply given Congress her emails when first asked. There would have been no problems for Mrs. Clinton, had the president, Mrs. Clinton or Susan Rice simply told the truth about what our ambassador was doing in Benghazi, rather than inanely blaming an obscure “Internet video.”

Mrs. Clinton’s 11:12 p.m., Sept. 11, 2012 email to her daughter -- the night of the Benghazi attacks — conclusively proves that Mrs. Clinton knew the attack was a terrorist attack, and not video inspired: “Two of our young officers were killed in Benghazi by an al-Qaida-like group.”

If mainstream Republican are really longing for the days of good old Richard Nixon, all they have to do is switch parties and vote for Mrs. Clinton -- the second-coming of President Nixon.

 Posted: Wednesday, November 4, 2015 12:00 am. QCOnline.com

By John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2015

John Donald O'Shea