Mark Levin: 'You should be very proud of your president, a real commander-in-chief'

Washington Examiner ^

[Windflier]

Search can be your friend.

And smug self righteousness is no friend to anyone. I was actually listening to you, right up to that point.

[redinIllinois]

Marklevinshow.com

Has a listenlive button so that you can listen in real-time on
A smartphone or computer, and there is a link posted after the
Show that cuts out the news time and most of the commercials, so it’s less than two hours to hear the whole program

[Windflier]

Can you kindly enlighten us as to why a sovereign nation cannot make things “work this way”?

Surely, yours is a rhetorical question. I doubt you're seriously seeking enlightenment on this.

[Fledermaus]

Poor Mark, he must be devastated you don’t like him holding anyone, including Trump, accountable.

When is Obamacare being repealed??????

Promises mean things. And not in “phases” to be lied about later.

[Fledermaus]

No, it’s now national populism.

[Windflier]

Sheesh why do you want this “Invade the World, Invite the World” crap?

You've got a lot of nerve assigning those motivations to me, when I never voiced a single word of support for any such thing.

I never figured you for the dishonest type, but if that's how you want to steer this discussion, we're done.

[Chgogal]

WTF?

There are 5 million Syrian Refugees. One family is a neighbor of mine now because of Obama. Thank you for supporting Obama’s Feckless Foreign Policy and pissing on Trump.

Meet the Khalid Family:
http://montrose.realkitchenchicago.com/khaled/

[mass55th]

"Pearl clutches can be almost anything politically. They are those who spend their time getting the vapors and running around in circles."

I think we need a few cases of Laudanum.

[mass55th]

"Why would Assad be so stupid? "

Why wouldn't he? He got away with it before.

[Nifster]

Nicely played. 😆

[Hostage]

Well listen no more and I will follow suit.

Nice how that works eh?

Bye-Bye

[madison10]

Nothing to do with accountability. Mark was trashing Trump before he got into office and had not done anything. NOW when we bomb with Syria, Mark is all for it, even though minding our own business was a campaign promise.

[PTBAA]

Why did you oppose Obama? I opposed him because of his repeated Unconstitutional actions, including this very one, attacking a Sovereign nation, which had not attacked us, without a declaration of war.

It was wrong then, it is wrong now.

[PTBAA]

Provide evidence of the “many times [I] said that [I] want the Middle East to be an ice skating rink” or apologize for calling me a hypocrite.

Else, I will call you what I have clear evidence to call you, a liar.

[TheStickman]

One surgical strike does not equal “war mongering”. Epic logic fail.

[PTBAA]

Had the Japanese stopped at Pearl Harbor so that it was: “not an incursion nor a sustained bombing mission. It is a single strike intended to get people’s attention”, would that have been OK for them to do? Would that have fallen short of an act of war against us?

The fact that you can get away with a wrong action (at least in the short term) does not justify doing it.

I wish people that people would apply the Golden Rule as a very important decision criterion when deciding on a course of action.

Full disclosure, I would have been in favor of turning Mecca and Medina into “ice skating rinks” on the afternoon of 9/11. We were attacked by agents of a foreign power and that would have been (to me) a totally justifiable response and use of the War Powers Act.

What happened in Syria was clearly not.

[semantic]

It amuses me when some posters become caught up in debates with paid trolls. Why don't you do yourself a favor and review some of TE's posts? Or, ask yourself why TE is so active on this thread? Who responds/attacks to such a degree in this fashion?

You'll also notice TE is largely absent during most discussions, but jumps right in to read the neo-cons' script when needed. For all I know, TE might just be another sock puppet account for the other boot lickers and holster sniffers. You can see the leather fetish freaks coming out of the woodwork during these kinds of events.

My advice? Don't waste your time; Let them do their job but ignore them. It's not like something so transparent has any real influence on anyone who has a clue.

[Pravious]

Just no way they could gather evidence that quickly. Yesterday he was blaming Assad before he even knew anything crying about “beautiful babies” - sadly he acted without full intelligence.

---

Wow. I didn’t know you had a spot in the Oval Office, and a direct connection to the workings of Donald Trump’s mind. That’s amazing!

[nathanbedford]

Even though I agree with your conclusion and even though I am too often guilty of the same method of disputation myself, I feel compelled to say that it is equally fallacious, or should be regarded so, to appeal positively to an authority as to appeal negatively against the authority.

In other words, I agree Mark Levin is right, the limited strike is constitutional as authorized by the war Powers act. My point is that it ain't constitutional because Mark Levin says so, nor would it be unconstitutional because Senator Rand Paul says that. Depending on how you want to handle the semantics, it might or might not be constitutional depending on how at least five Supreme Court Justices come down on the matter.

I have heard Mark Levin say that just because the Supreme Court declared a matter to be constitutional, does not mean it is so. On the other hand, it is hard argue in today's climate that holdings of the Supreme Court declaring a law or executive action constitutional or unconstitutional will not be honored as the final word.

Recently there was a thread in which I made the arguments that without Martin Luther and his 95 theses we would not have had a Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence. That is because Luther's appeal to authority utterly upended the medieval deductive epistemology which was the method to determine how we knew what we thought we know. God in heaven ordained the Pope and clergy who were authoritative by virtue of their position. Equally, king and nobility were divinely ordained and affirmed by Pope and clergy. Those who sought answers to questions of theological doctrine were told the answer and it was never conceded that the individual could can pursue the truth by his own reasoning. The practice was to find truth by deduction rather than by induction, by appeal to authority rather than to reason.

All of that was upended by Martin Luther when he insisted that Sola Scriptura was the source of truth thus enabling every individual to bypass clergy and Pope with the inevitable result, evidently quite contrary to Luther's personal impulse, that the authority of Kings would be equally undermined until it was sublimely expressed by Thomas Jefferson that, "all men are created equal."

It is ironic that the mere mention of Mark Levin's name in this thread's headline excites 271 FReepers to comment, putting the lie to the assertion that he has lost or had lost his following or at least his perceived influence. That assertion of his fading power was made by Trump supporters when he attacked Trump's policies . His antagonists might better have argued in support of the policies, but instead many FReepers resorted to denigrating Mark Levin. A further irony, now that Levin favors Trump policy, is exalted by the same people as a dispositive authority. Hypocrisy is an indelible characteristic of the human condition.

I say I am guilty of the same offense so I guess I am now attempting to purge myself of that hypocrisy with his mea culpa. As you know, I have vigorously defended Mark Levin's reputation on these threads because I thought he made significant contributions to the cause of constitutional conservatism. It is also true, however, that I invoked his name on a few occasions as authority. But Mark Levin has no more insight into the morality of abortion, homosexual marriage or NAFTA then do I and, I venture, then even you do. If the person of Mark Levin is the source of legitimacy for a principle, it is an easy step to make Mark Levin a disreputable source for the very same policy. We can call him a neocon, we can say he is Jewish who has steadfastly stood up for Israel, we can note that he is planning a trip this week or next as a pilgrimage to Israel. We can argue that he argues outwards from a desire to protect Israel. We can say he is doing this to repair falling ratings. But none of these things, all of which I do not believe to be true, have anything whatsoever to do with the constitutionality of Trump's bombing in Syria.

In the specific case, the constitutionality and legality of bombing poison gas facilities in Syria, is an occasion in which I skate dangerously close to coming into agreement with the likes of (gasp!) Diane Feinstein who believes in a living, breathing Constitution. This whiff of hypocrisy from me, a vigorous proponent of the Article V movement which was invigorated by Mark Levin. Normally I have no use for the argument to the effect that when the framers wrote the Constitution they had no idea of telephones, telegraphs, Internet, jet planes etc. and therefore their words can be discarded and modern realities can be brought in vogue. To the contrary, they had the principles well in hand and clearly laid them down quite applicable to new technology. But there is one bit of technology that has changed everything and that is nuclear bombs mounted on ICBMs. As John Kennedy said, we now have the power to wipe out mankind in a single day and we certainly do not have time during that day to deliberate in Congress for a declaration of war while civilization destroying missiles are on route. If there is no ability to retaliate, there is no hope of deterrence and there is no deterrence without rapid decision-making. That means decision-making in the hands of one man, the commander in chief. That has evolved ever since Truman dodged declaring war in the Korean "police action," into a practice which is been codified in the war Powers act to give the president the ability to act for limited amount of time without congressional authorization when national security is at stake. It has been expanded well beyond the ICBMs scenario to actions such as in Syria which are more akin to 19th-century gunboat diplomacy but that is the nature of government. There is enough of a vacuum of constitutional guidance in this brave new technological world for government eagerly to fill.

Unquestionably, the Constitution has been changed, the Article 1 power to declare war has been passed to the Article II executive but I see no other way to secure the survival of the nation. It would be better to amend the Constitution but instead we have the statute because we do not have the will to amend. Note, Congress' power to declare war has now been reduced to the power of the purse and the power of impeachment for waging a war Congress opposes. Unquestionably, the Constitution has been altered but I do not see any way short of an amendment to to operate safely in this new technological world.

Against Pope or presidents, even president Donald Trump or the highly regarded Mark Levin, I stand with Martin Luther, I can do no other.

[Oorang]

I agree that all the wrong people are cheering this.

Which gives me pause. I have faith in Pres. Trump and in some of those advising him. I've long said we need a business person in the White House rather than another career politician and I still believe that is the right tack.
As others have noted, we have put the world on notice, things have changed, Trump is NOT obama, don't mess with America. The world needed to hear and see that message. What will come of it, who knows, but the message desperately needed to be put on the table, IMO.

What also gives me great pause is Jared Kushner and his Soros and Goreleck (sp?) connections.