Posted on 03/06/2013 8:04:23 PM PST by Kaslin
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let's go to the audio sound bites, because it appears, Mr. Snerdley, that Ted Cruz actually goaded Holder into admitting that killing Americans with drones on US soil is unconstitutional. We've got three bites. I don't think I can get 'em all in, but we'll get started because these are great. Ted Cruz is fearless. This is a lesson for conservatives everywhere. They've been writing Holder letters. They've been doing all kinds of things, but Ted Cruz challenged him face-to-face this morning in Washington during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
HOLDER: I would not think that that would be an appropriate use of any kind of lethal force. We would deal with that in the way that we typically deal with a situation like that.
Sen. Ted Cruz Q&A with Attorney General Eric Holder - 03/06/2013
CRUZ: With all due respect, General Holder, my question wasn't about appropriateness or prosecutorial discretion. It was a simple legal question: Does the Constitution allow a US citizen on US soil who doesn't pose an imminent threat to be killed by the US government?
HOLDER: I do not believe that -- again, you have to look at all of the facts. But on the facts that you have given me -- and this is a hypothetical -- I would not think that in that situation the use of a drone or lethal force would be appropriate, because --
CRUZ: General Holder, I have to tell you, I find it remarkable that in that hypothetical -- which is deliberately very simple -- you are unable to give a simple one-word, one-syllable answer: "No."
RUSH: That's exactly right, exactly right. And then Cruz said, "You keep saying appropriate, Mr. Holder. My question isn't about propriety. It's a simple question about whether something is constitutional or not. "As Attorney General, you're the chief legal officer of the country. Do you have a legal judgment on whether it would be constitutional to kill a US citizen on US soil in those circumstances using a drone?"
HOLDER: A person who is not engaged as you described -- this is the problem with hypotheticals, but the way in which you have described this person sitting at the cafe, not doing anything imminently, the use of lethal force would not be appropriate, would not be something --
CRUZ: I find it remarkable that you still will not give an opinion on the constitutionality. Let me move on to the next topic, 'cause we --
HOLDER: Translate my --
CRUZ: -- we've gone round and round.
HOLDER: Let me be clear. Translate my appropriate to no. I thought I was saying no, all right? No.
RUSH: So he got him to say no, it wouldn't be constitutional. But he didn't want to. But this is how you do it. Cruz isn't afraid. He wasn't afraid of public opinion. He wasn't afraid of what would be said about the fact he was attacking an African-American attorney general. He had no fear. These guys want to kill American citizens with drones, and he wants them to stand up and admit that they think they've got the right to do it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So Eric Holder, in the last sound bite, "Okay, you want a one-word answer? No, it isn't constitutional to kill somebody sitting in a cafe that's not provoking anybody with a drone." Ted Cruz takes a little victory lap in the next sound bite.
CRUZ: Well, then I am glad. After much gymnastics, I am very glad to hear that it is the opinion of the Department of Justice that it would be unconstitutional to kill a US citizen on US soil if that individual did not pose an imminent threat. That statement has not been easily forthcoming. I wish you had given that statement in response to Senator Paul's letter asking you it. And I will point out that this week I will be introducing legislation in the Senate to make clear that the US government cannot kill a US citizen on US soil absent an imminent threat; and I hope, based on that representation, that the department will support that legislation.
RUSH: We'll see. We'll see. I am not gonna hold my breath. Eric Holder wants to take away our guns. Oh, speaking of that, let me see if I can find this real quick. I got so much paper here, folks. I've got a story here, a guy named John Lott Jr. knew Obama back in the early 2000s... here it is. This is a story from the Cybercast News Service.
"In his new book, At the Brink, economist and author John Lott Jr., assesses the presidency of Barack Obama and recalls conversations regarding gun laws they had while working at the University of Chicago. In Chapter Three, Mr. Lott discusses gun-control and takes the reader back to his time at the University of Chicago, where he and then-professor Barack Obama spoke on numerous occasions about guns in America. 'I don't believe people should be able to own guns,' Obama told Lott one day at the University of Chicago Law School."
So this would be back in the early 2000s. "I don't believe people should be able to own guns," Obama told Lott. Lott explains that he first met Obama shortly after completing his research on concealed handgun laws and crime. 'He did not come across as a moderate who wanted to bring people together,' Lott writes." Well, it makes sense. He's not that. He doesn't want to bring people together! I gotta tone it down. I'm trying to reinvent myself here just a bit to be less threatening to 24-year-old women. I realize I raise my voice and say, "He doesn't want to bring people together!" (imitating 24-year-old women) "That scares me. I don't want to hear that, please." Okay.
The evidence is clear. We've looked at this now, we're into our fifth year, the country is more divided than ever, no bipartisan. The president said that he wanted to get rid of the old politics, bring in this new era. It's only gotten worse. He's not interested in bringing people together and he's got this quote from Obama and we've got all kinds of Obama interviews from back then where he's told his union buddies how he's gonna get single-payer health care. How he's gonna worm this and worm that, if he ever became president, how he would do it, and he's doing it, doing everything that we've heard him say at earlier periods in his life. And now John Lott quotes him in a new book, "I don't believe people should be able to own guns."
You think he's changed his mind?
So my point is, Eric Holder and Obama, if they could, I'm convinced if they could, they would eliminate the right to own weapons. And until Ted Cruz forced the issue, they wanted to try to make the case to kill Americans with drones. And yet somehow I'm the extremist. Somehow American conservatives are the extremists, when it took Ted Cruz a half hour to get Holder to admit it's unconstitutional to just randomly kill an American with a drone. I'll tell you, there's another conservative out there, actually four. Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Ken Cuccinelli, who is running for governor in Virginia. I interviewed him for the upcoming issue of the Limbaugh Letter.
I'm interviewing Angelo Codevilla today, he of the Ruling Class article fame. I'm interviewing him this afternoon for the next issue of the Limbaugh Letter. Cuccinelli was great, and I have a couple of sound bites from him. But Cuccinelli, Ted Cruz, these guys are take no prisoners. They're exactly what is necessary. They're fearless. They're unafraid to define Obama and the Democrats as they are and for who they are, what they're doing. They're fearless. You just heard Cruz, not afraid of Holder at all. He wasn't afraid of being called a racist.
END TRANSCRIPT
I fail to see how it makes any kind of difference whether you use a sniper or a drone.
It's the killing that would be unconstitutional, not the mechanism.
Huge difference between a sniper and a drone. You can protect your home from intruders. You can keep guns at home to defend yourself from an attacker. But a drone can demolish your home in a second with a rocket. Your guns are entirely useless against a drone.
Cruz’ speech in the senate today was great. He’s a real patriot. No sign of John and Lindsey. They’re probably making out.
I’d love to hear of someone shooting down a drone with a .50 BMG and claiming self-defense because the drne was armed.
Better yet, I’d love to hear of a drone being shot down by a round (or 2 or 3) from a .50 BMG and no one getting arrested for it.
The drones have been successful because it is almost silent, and can operate in dark of the night.
It's like a scene out of a 'Terminator' movie. Incredibly, it's being discussed as a near-term possibility...
Holder?...He’s white...look at him.
There’s nothing black about him.
Good point.
Consider the Federal Sniper shooting of a mother and baby at Ruby Ridge - - - - .
Nonsense. Your guns are useless against heavy weaponry, not heavy weaponry mounted on a drone.
You can keep guns at home to defend yourself from an attacker.
The 2nd Amendment might, or might not, mean Americans as a people have sufficient firepower to defend themselves against a government turned tyrannical. Hopefully it will never reach the point we find out.
But it is nonsense on stilts to pretend that an individual American family will be able to defend itself successfully against overbearing LEOs or military. If you initially repel an attack, which is arguably what happened at Ruby Ridge or Waco, the government doesn't crawl away and lick its wounds. It brings in as many reinforcements and as much heavy weaponry as is necessary to take you down.
Weapons in the home may be highly useful against criminal intruders. A firefight with LEO or military will not have a happy ending.
You can make a decent case that going down fighting makes it a good day to die, but don't deceive yourself that you won't be going down. Possibly you will spark a rebellion that will eventually win, but you and probably your family won't be there to see it.
Its pretty wild we’re openly talking about this now.
I quite agree.
But I think fixating on drones is the wrong issue. A drone is a vehicle. The same weaponry can be carried on a helo, a manned plane, a ground vehicle, or often even by a man on foot.
The circumstances under which it is proper to use that weaponry does not vary with the vehicle used to carry it.
I agree that drones pose a lot of privacy and civil rights issues, but this “drone-strike” issue isn’t one of them.
Wholeheartly agree. The real issue here is: Does the President of the US have the authority to order a drone strike or any other strike to kill an American on foreign or domestic soil without going through the courts.
A sniper kills one person usually. Drone strikes have generally killed more than one person. A drone strike uses explosives(Hellfire) to kill.
You need to look at real world examples in order to draw reasonable scenarios and conclusions.
After Kaddhafi gave the order to his army to fire on Libyans, 75% of the army deserted and returned to their provinces to protect their families. On their way home, they emptied out the armories.
What remained were officers in Kaddhafi’s elite guard and raw recruits with few weapons. They were completely incapable of carrying out any effective military operation. Many of the officers left the recruits to fend for themselves, and they headed for the Niger border, loaded with stolen loot. Kaddhafi had to order out his southern mercenaries in an effort to quell the Libyan revolt. When his mercenaries opened fire on students at a university, all hell broke loose.
The army deserters teamed with provincial militias and attacked the Kaddhafi dictatorship and his mercenaries. The mercenaries were executed and hanged from lampposts. Their towns were burned to the ground. The militias organized patrols to track down and capture Kaddhafi loyalists. The chief of the army was dragged into a courtyard and executed, as were other army officers loyal to Kaddhafi.
Khaddiafi himself was snared by a desert patrol and executed on the hood of an SUV with his gold-plated Browning. Here’s a picture of it:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/10/qaddafis-love-affair-golden-guns/43938/
They were out to dinner with the One last night. I think they called it a wintery get away. BO invited abobut 8 or 10 R senators to dinner last night while Rand Paul was filibustering by himself.
"Gee! It looks as though that total electric house had a gas leak."
Isn’t the real issue using military drones on American soil? It really bothers me to think there could be a drone above my property checking out my land and resources. The EPA was caught flying drones above farms in the midwest, spying on them to make sure they were complying with all the rules and regs being imposed.
True enough. But while we might eventually get some or even a lot of desertions from American military if ordered to attack American civilians, that is going to be little comfort to the first few people who fight back.
THEY will be dead, or possibly in custody.
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