"One statement from the ministry urges people to be wary of strangers wearing masks or goggles, driving pickup trucks and carrying large bags or filming around military, industrial, or residential areas."

"Elsewhere, a poster published by the state-affiliated Nour News – which is close to Iran’s security apparatus – singled out for suspicion people who wear 'masks, hats, and sunglasses, even at night' and those who receive 'frequent package deliveries by courier.' The poster asks people to report 'unusual sounds from inside the house, such as screaming, the sound of metal equipment, continuous banging' and 'houses with curtains drawn even during the day.'..."

From "Iran’s Mossad paranoia grows, amid fears of Israeli spies wearing 'masks, hats and sunglasses'" (CNN).

"You are a traitor"/"Traitor? Elon, if you don’t understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do."

That's Elon Musk and Mark Kelly, quoted in "Elon Musk calls Sen. Mark Kelly a 'traitor' over his social media posts in support of Ukraine/Kelly, a former Navy combat pilot, responded to the tech billionaire’s remark by saying 'he’s not a serious guy' and should 'go back to building rockets'" (NBC News).

Musk's accusation was a reaction to this:

   

And this, tweeted by Kelly: "Donald Trump is trying to weaken Ukraine’s hand and we are owed an explanation. If Putin gains ground he won’t agree to a ceasefire and will eventually threaten a NATO ally and this puts American troops and the American people at risk."

"Let's get our fact straight. There's no crisis at the border. C'mon..."

Funny:

Still brilliant, never not been brilliant... pic.twitter.com/VWPlm59l6N

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) March 5, 2024

Not so funny:

Treason indeed! Ushering in vast numbers of illegals is why Secretary Mayorkas was impeached by the House.

They are importing voters. This is why groups on the far left fight so hard to stop voter ID requirements, under the absurd guise of protecting the right to vote. https://t.co/WhtVFyS6sa

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 5, 2024

By the way, Elon's position — that Democrats are rigging the 2024 election by strategically dispersing immigrants (presumably to cities in swing states) — feels like a new version of the 2020 "election denial." He's getting the jump on the accusation of "treason." 

The funny/terrifying mix is painfully strong.

"If the story of 'Dumbass' General Mark Milley... is true, then I assume he would be tried for TREASON..."

"... in that he would have been dealing with his Chinese counterpart behind the President’s back and telling China that he would be giving them notification 'of an attack.'... The good news is that the story is Fake News.... Remember, I was the one who took out 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. Milley said it couldn’t be done! For the record, I never even thought of attacking China—and China knows that...."

Wrote Donald Trump (on his website). 

"The reason bribery is now the Democratic impeachment word of choice has less to do with the law than with politics."

"The Washington Post reports that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently conducted focus groups in key House battleground districts to test 'messages related to impeachment.' Voters were asked whether 'quid pro quo,' 'extortion' or 'bribery' were more compelling.'The focus groups found "bribery" to be most damning,' according to the Post. Democrats got the message because last weekend they began using 'bribery' almost in unison to describe Mr. Trump's conduct. Mr. Schiff's NPR riff is an attempt to make the noncrime fit the political spin."

From "Adam Schiff, Founding Father," a Wall Street Journal editorial.

If the focus group found "bribery" the strongest word, I suspect it was because the definition they had in their head was a narrow one, in which some private citizen hands the accused politician X amount of dollars in exchange for a specific act of government power. If you change the definition of the word so that the accused politician is the one paying the money — and the money is the government's money — and the recipient is another government — which is supposed to do something with its governmental power — then you're not talking about the same thing the people were thinking about when they were asked about the word.

People may continue to think bribery is terrible, but the central question becomes is this bribery? The risk is, once you've said it's a question of bribery, you're focusing us on the definition of bribery, and when it looks like you're trying to stretch the definition so it fits whatever it is Trump did, it seems dishonest. I mean, look at Schiff, selling his expansive definition of "bribery":

"Well, bribery, first of all, as the Founders understood bribery, it was not as we understand it in law today. It was much broader. It connoted the breach of the public trust in a way where you're offering official acts for some personal or political reason, not in the nation's interest...."

Seen in that light, is there anything politicians do that is not bribery?

ADDED: Trump does a similar thing with the word "treason."

His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 29, 2019

"The Cease-Fire in Syria Worked (More or Less)/Whatever the agreement was, it left the status quo in place, at least for the time being."

Writes Kathy Gilsinan in The Atlantic.

[I]t more or less worked... in the very narrow sense of stopping the worst of the Turkish onslaught against the Syrian Kurds for a time. Now there’s a different kind of order in place of the fighting: Syrian Kurdish forces have withdrawn from a chunk of territory near Syria’s border with Turkey; Russia has vowed to help Turkey push them from an area twice as large....

[I]t’s only become clearer that each of the key players—the U.S., Turkey, and the Syrian Kurdish leadership—all believe they agreed to different things....

By "all believe they agreed to different things," she means all assert something different about what was agreed to. No one is speaking the truth straight from their brain. Anything anyone says is to advance their interests.

Despite accusations that the United States had abandoned the Kurds, they seemed to have no intention of abandoning the United States....

Erdoğan may have received enough guarantees, from enough international backers, to maintain the cease-fire—or whatever it is—for now. He has managed to pull both Russia and the United States into effectively guaranteeing Turkish security along its border with Syria. He has, through three separate incursions into northern Syria since 2016, chopped up a stretch of contiguous Kurdish-held territory they had hoped to keep autonomous....

Of course, I don't know what is really happening, but I hope for the best. I hope Trump's decision works out well, and I wonder if Trump's antagonists are hoping it goes badly, hoping Trump fails.

It was in that context that I undertook the search of the archive discussed in the previous post. How awful it is for Americans to be rooting for the failure of an American military effort because that's how much they hate Trump and want him proved horribly, irrefutably wrong! That made me want to look back at what I'd written when Rush Limbaugh said — on the occasion of Obama's inauguration — "I hope he fails."

ADDED: It wasn't the Atlantic article that got me thinking in these terms this morning. It was this Trump tweet:

Big success on the Turkey/Syria Border. Safe Zone created! Ceasefire has held and combat missions have ended. Kurds are safe and have worked very nicely with us. Captured ISIS prisoners secured. I will be making a statement at 11:00 A.M. from the White House. Thank you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2019

Bill Weld stands out in the Trump derangement crowd by saying Trump committed treason and the "only penalty" for treason is death.

Fox News reports.

“Talk about pressuring a foreign country to interfere with and control a U.S. election, it couldn’t be clearer. And that’s not just undermining democratic institutions, that is treason," Weld said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "It’s treason pure and simple. And the penalty for treason under the U.S. Code is death. That’s the only penalty.... The penalty under the Constitution is removal from office, and that might look like a pretty good alternative to the president if he could work out a plea deal.... The only penalty for treason is death, it’s spelled out in the statute.”

While the U.S. Code does list the death penalty as a punishment for treason, Weld’s claim that it is the only penalty is false. Treason is covered by 18. U.S. Code § 2381, which says that a person guilty of treason “shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”

"It now seems the General Flynn was under investigation long before was common knowledge. It would have been impossible for me to know this but..."

"... if that was the case, and with me being one of two people who would become president, why was I not told so that I could make a change?"

Tweeted Trump this morning.

Earlier this morning, in a less sober tone:

My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on. Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics. A really bad situation. TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!

"You have always been loyal to your nation. And now you have a President who is loyal to you — 100 percent."

"You rejected the failed political establishment that shipped away your jobs, sold out your sovereignty, and tied us down in endless foreign wars, which we're now winning and getting out.... You stood with me.... You took back your country. You recaptured your destiny. You defended your dignity. And you proudly reclaimed your freedom. Maybe for a second time. You have always been loyal to your nation. And now you have a President who is loyal to you — 100 percent. The Democrats took the people of Michigan for granted. But with us, you will never ever be forgotten again. You will never be take for granted — ever ever ever."

Trump's rally last night in Grand Rapids:



This is President Trump's argument to the people of Michigan, why they should vote for him again in 2020. What counterargument can the Democrats make to Michigan (and who among the Democrats can make it)? Listening to Trump's pitch, I felt it was so upbeat, so admiring and praising of people who usually hear that they're washed up and pathetic. Democrats seem only to offer empathy for their predicament — all their losses, their bad water, their victimhood. But Trump is building them up. They're the best people, the smartest people, the most loyal people.

I wish I had a transcript of the entire speech so I could count how many times Trump said "loyal." He combined loyalty to country with readiness to vote again for Trump. And he expressed loyalty to the country and loyalty to the voters.

You stood with me.... You took back your country... You have always been loyal to your nation. And now you have a President who is loyal to you.

Using the word loyalty rather than, say, patriotism, allows this combination of feeling for the country and for the individual human being. You could write an essay about the potential in this combination. Loyalty to a person may seem like something you have within families (and it also has a whiff of crime families). Loyalty to the country reminds us of its opposite — disloyalty. Treason.

I've transcribed a quote from the very end of the long oration, but the beginning was full of accusations of treason for those who perpetrated the Russia hoax in — as he sees it — a plot to overturn the result of the election.

So look for this "loyalty" theme. It has great potential to inflate the spirits of the people and to encourage them to stand with him "a second time." And it has great potential as an attack on his opponents who were — in his view — disloyal to their nation.

If this is a news story, why can I detect a point of view just looking at the headline and the photograph?

I'm looking at this in the NYT:



The artful photograph looks like a Madonna and Child. The woman is beautiful, serene, and intensely and spiritually maternal.

The headline tells us she's an Alabaman and she's being excluded from "Home."

Now, I'll read the text. I'm beginning at the beginning and will put an ellipsis when I make a cut:

President Trump said Wednesday the United States would not re-admit an American-born woman who traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State and now wants to come home. The woman, Hoda Muthana, does not qualify for citizenship and has no legal basis to return to the country, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said.

In 2014, Ms. Muthana, then a 20-year-old student in Alabama, traveled to Turkey, hiding her plans from her family....

Is she a citizen of Alabama or was she simply a student, temporarily in Alabama?

In fact she was smuggled into Syria, where she met up with the Islamic State and began urging attacks in the West. Now, with the militant group driven out of Syria, Ms. Muthana says she is deeply sorry, but American officials appeared intent on closing the door to her return.

She joined our military enemy, so is she asking to be prosecuted? I don't get how "deeply sorry" can work, especially coming only after the group's military defeat.

Mr. Trump said in a post on Twitter that he had directed the secretary of state “not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the Country!” Mr. Pompeo issued a statement declaring that she “is not a U.S. citizen and will not be admitted into the United States.” Mr. Pompeo said Ms. Muthana did not have “any legal basis, no valid U.S. passport, no right to a passport, nor any visa to travel to the United States.” Ms. Muthana says she applied for and received a United States passport before leaving for Turkey. And she was born in the United States — ordinarily a guarantee of citizenship....

She was born in the United States, but her father was here as a diplomat (from Yemen), and diplomats' children are an exception to the rule that those born here are citizens. Her lawyer, the article says, argues that she's not within the exception because she was born after her father lost his job as a diplomat. She was issued a U.S. passport:

After she joined the Islamic State, [her family's lawyer says], Ms. Muthana’s family received a letter indicating that her passport had been revoked. Her father sent the government evidence of his nondiplomatic status at the time of his daughter’s birth, but did not receive a response. 

After she joined the Islamic State... but was it because she joined the Islamic State? Was it that the issuing of the passport was a mistake, because she was never a U.S. citizen, or was it a consequence of her action, joining our military enemy?

Another lawyer who is advising the family says that she "is trying to turn herself in to federal authorities and face consequences for her actions."

And a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, David Leopold, says that if her passport is "legitimate," she has an "irrebuttable presumption of citizenship in this country." He says the government can revoke citizenship — a conviction for treason would be enough — but (in the words of the NYT) "taking an oath of allegiance to a terrorist group or committing a crime like providing one with material support would not be enough."

So, the article quotes 3 legal experts who are taking Muthana's side but no one who argues the other side. It does link to Secretary of State Pompeo's statement, which says:

Ms. Hoda Muthana is not a U.S. citizen and will not be admitted into the United States. She does not have any legal basis, no valid U.S. passport, no right to a passport, nor any visa to travel to the United States. We continue to strongly advise all U.S. citizens not to travel to Syria.

Based on the last sentence, I'm inclined to understand the U.S. government's position to be that Muthana was a citizen but lost her citizenship. So I'm simply guessing that the key question is when the government can revoke your citizenship, the point discussed by Leopold, above. Did the NYT seek out legal opinion from an expert who might take a different view?

Want to be able to do things the easy way or not?

Tweets Alan Dershowitz this morning.

It is unconstitutional to use the 25th Amendment to circumvent impeachment provisions. The 25th can be used only if POTUS is physically or psychiatrically incapacitated. Any other use is unconstitutional. I challenge anyone to argue differently'

And here he is last night on Tucker Carlson, saying the same thing much more vehemently (replete with the word "treason"):



Meanwhile:

Trump just said; “I didn’t need to do this. But I’d rather do it much faster.”

Whatever a national emergency may be, that’s not it.

That quote is going right in the lawsuit. https://t.co/FzwS4xIaMw

— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) February 15, 2019

Want to be able to do things the easy way or not?

Yes, bypass Congress with emergency powers for the wall and the 25th am. to oust even a non-incapacitated President.

No, you have to do it the hard way, legislation to fund the wall and impeachment to oust a non-incapacitated President.

Use emergency powers for the wall, but not the 25th to oust a non-incapacitated President.

No to emergency powers for the wall, but yes to the 25th instead of impeachment.

A more subtle balancing of factors is needed, so none of the above.

pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: Poll results:

"Her custom was..to come into the dining-room to him in her treason-gown, (as I called it,) I telling him, that when she had that gown on, he should allow her to say anything."

It sounds a little like "And when you're a star... you can do anything," doesn't it?

The quote is from "Memoirs of the court of England : during the reign of the Stuarts, including the protectorate by Jesse, John Heneage, 1815-1874":

I found that through the Oxford English Dictionary, where I was researching the word "treason," because I'm seeing some people using it to denounce Donald Trump and other people insisting it has only a very narrow meaning that obviously cannot apply.

I'm keeping my distance from the hysteria of the day. Oh? Does "hysteria" have a special narrow meaning to which I ought to confine myself?

The theory of a wandering uterus was developed in Ancient Greece, being mentioned in many sections of the Hippocratic treatise "Diseases of Women". Plato talks of the uterus as a separate being inside women, while Aretaeus described it as "an animal within an animal" (less emotively, "a living thing inside a living thing"), which causes symptoms by wandering around a woman's body putting pressure on other organs. The standard cure for this "hysterical suffocation" was scent therapy, in which good smells were placed under a woman's genitals and bad odors at the nose, while sneezing could be also induced to drive the uterus back to its correct place....  

I decline the confinement and will go wandering, like an errant womb.

"Treason," according to the OED, is "The action of betraying; betrayal of the trust undertaken by or reposed in any one; breach of faith, treacherous action, treachery." The use of the word hinges on an understanding of the trust, the faith. All politicians take on a trust and all are continually subject to the accusation that they are betraying it. It's a strong-sounding word, but a speaker can choose to let loose with a strong word, and it's for the listener to decide how excited to get about it. I've heard too many strong words in the last 2 years, and they have very little effect on me now.

When Jon Huntsman said "to say that you can't secure the border I think is pretty much a treasonous comment."

I'm motivated to dredge up that old quote by this front-page display at HuffPo:



The link goes to "Trump’s Russia Ambassador Is Having A Very Bad Week/Jon Huntsman has spent decades cultivating a reputation as a pragmatic Republican. Now some of his allies are urging him to ditch the Trump administration."

I'm not recommending that you read that article. I'm just showing you what's out there — the idea that a person with a great reputation must abandon Trump. The target of such a message is buttered up — what a great reputation you have — for the purpose of delivering the message that he's going to lose it if he doesn't quit his job. The reader isn't supposed to think about whether the author ever admired the target or would give a damn about him if he abandoned Trump. One suspects that if Huntsman quit at this point, the new message wouldn't be anything positive about Huntsman, but gloating about how no one wants to be associated with Trump and Trump is so despicable that he's nearly entirely isolated now and ought to resign or be impeached.

But I just want to show you what Jon Huntsman said in the GOP debate on September 12, 2011. This is something I ran across yesterday as I was surveying the use of the word "treason" in public discourse over the last 13 years (searching my own archive). The moderator, Wolf Blitzer, had already already asked Governor Rick Perry if he'd stand by something he'd said about the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. Perry — who'd said that it was "almost treacherous – or treasonous" to do quantitative easing in the run-up to the election — answered, "if you are allowing the Federal Reserve to be used for political purposes, that it would be almost treasonous." So the word "treason" was already in the discourse of the debate.

Blitzer then got the audience to boo by making Perry affirm that he has supported in-state college tuition for people in the country illegally. Blitzer then brought in Huntsman, reminding him that he'd supported "driving privileges to illegal immigrants." Huntsman answered:

Well, first of all, let me say for Rick to say that you can't secure the border I think is pretty much a treasonous comment.

Perry hadn't said we can't secure the border. He'd only said that building a wall across the southern border was "just not reality." Perry said the answer was more law enforcement personnel but Huntsman jumped at the opportunity to make Perry look as though he didn't believe the border could be secured, and then, later in the debate, when the question was how to treat people who'd made it across the border, Huntsman returned to the issue of Perry and border security and lobbed the word "treasonous."

Treason talk.

Let's look back before this week, to "treason" as it has appeared within the lifetime of this blog. In chronological order:

April 27, 2005: Discussing the "blood" metaphor in constitutional law, I quoted Article III: "The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted."

May 28, 2006: I wrote about the protest singer Phil Ochs declaring the Vietnam War over:

So do your duty, boys, and join with pride
Serve your country in her suicide
Find the flags so you can wave goodbye
But just before the end even treason might be worth a try
This country is too young to die
I declare the war is over
It's over, it's over

July 1, 2006: "The editors of The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times explain how they decide when to publish a secret... Baquet and Keller have written a lengthy defense of their behavior, behavior that they know has been severely criticized, even called 'treason.'"

September 20, 2006: "To me, that's treason. I call it treason against rock-and-roll, because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics," said Alice Cooper, indicting rock stars who were telling people to vote for John Kerry.

August 3, 2007: Markos Moulitsas says that in 2002, "Dissent against the president was considered treason."

August 11, 2007: A 9/11 truther criticizes me for declining to debate him, which he took to mean that I know I'm "complicit in covering up mass murder and high treason."

May 12, 2008: A scholar assures us that the Muslim world would view Obama, the son of a Muslim father, as guilty of apostasy, which has "connotations of rebellion and treason," which is considered "worse than murder."

September 12, 2011: I'm live-blogging a debate in which "treason" is thrown around casually: "Perry stands by his 'almost treasonous' remark, referring to the use of the Federal Reserve for political purposes... Huntsman accuses Perry of treason for saying we can't secure the border."

May 8, 2012: "Isn't it funny, this 'treason' incident?" Mitt Romney, running for President, failed to chide a woman who asked whether Obama should be tried for treason. I brought up (as I did today), the 1964 book "None Dare Call It Treason." I also quoted the casual use of "treason" by Chief Justice John Marshall  Cohens v. Virginia to refer to doing something unconstitutional. ("We have no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given than to usurp that which is not given. The one or the other would be treason to the Constitution.") And a commenter brought up an even more venerable use of the word, Patrick Henry's "If this be treason, make the most of it." That made me say: "The country was founded on treason. We celebrate the treason we like."

Also on May 8, 2012: "Obama supporters who express outrage over the use of the word 'treason' seem to think the word means nothing but to the crime defined in law — as if the woman Romney talked to wanted Obama tried and executed. It's as if people who say 'property is theft' are freakishly insisting that property owners be prosecuted for larceny. Think of all the words we use that have more specific legal meanings that do not apply: This job is murder... The rape of the land... Slave to love..."

June 17, 2013: Edward Snowden explains why he left the country: " [T]he US Government... immediately and predictably destroyed any possibility of a fair trial at home, openly declaring me guilty of treason and that the disclosure of secret, criminal, and even unconstitutional acts is an unforgivable crime. That's not justice, and it would be foolish to volunteer yourself to it if you can do more good outside of prison than in it."

July 26, 2013: From a post about the death penalty: "Here's the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court case, Kennedy v. Louisiana, which found the death penalty for rape (even rape of a child) to be unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. No one has been executed in the U.S. for a crime other than murder since the 1960s, though the Kennedy case leaves open the possibility of capital punishment 'for other non-homicide crimes, ranging from drug-trafficking to treason.'"

April 22, 2014 : Above the Law had hyperventilated, "Justice Scalia Literally Encourages People To Commit Treason," and I punctured it, saying Scalia was just giving his usual speech about the Constitution, which is always subject to the right of revolution explained in the Declaration of Independence. I bring up Patrick Henry's "If this be treason, make the most of it."

February 23, 2015: "'Edward Snowden couldn't be here for some treason,' said Neil Patrick Harris, the Oscars host, when the documentary about him won an award." I said: "I liked the joke, because of its language precision and because it seemed at least a tad risky in the context of Hollywood celebrating itself."

February 29, 2016: Trump hesitated to "unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election" after Duke it would be "treason to your heritage" for a white person not to vote for Trump.

October 14, 2016: "Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree," said Ezra Pound, who was charged with treason in WWII. He was disaffected after WWI, moved to Italy, felt inspired by Mussolini, and went on the radio criticizing the U.S., FDR, and the Jews.

December 21, 2016: I quoted the official course description for "The Problem of Whiteness," a course offered in the African Cultural Studies department of my university, the University of Wisconsin–Madison: "In this class, we will ask what an ethical white identity entails, what it means to be #woke, and consider the journal Race Traitor’s motto, 'treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.'"

January 16, 2017: I quote someone talking about Chelsea Manning: "He is a member of the military who knowingly committed treason. His, or her, gender status has nothing to do with his conviction for treason."

February 10, 2017: I quoted Trump (before his election) talking about Edward Snowden: "I think he's a total traitor and I would deal with him harshly," "And if I were president, Putin would give him over," and "Snowden is a spy who should be executed." I wondered: "But maybe you think Trump will end up looking good forefronting the iniquity of treason."

February 7, 2018: Trump had used the word "treasonous" to describe the Democrats who didn't applaud during his State of the Union Address. Yeah, it was a joke, but: "He's President and in the position of enforcing the law, and from that position punching down. He really should not be joking about treason. And I get that he's punching back, and that's his style. But people aren't just idiots if they feel afraid of a President who isn't continually assuring us that he's aware of his profound responsibilities."

April 17, 2018: I quoted Neil Gorsuch, concurring — and voting with the liberals ‚ in a case about immigration: "Vague laws invite arbitrary power. Before the Revolu­tion, the crime of treason in English law was so capa­ciously construed that the mere expression of disfavored opinions could invite transportation or death. The founders cited the crown’s abuse of 'pretended' crimes like this as one of their reasons for revolution. See Declaration of Independence ¶21."

May 4, 2018: A conservative commentator sarcastically said he was "waiting for the Left to scream treason" over John Kerry's "quiet play to save Iran deal with foreign leaders."

July 17, 2017: I quoted Byron York: "Would it have been appropriate for the Trump campaign to try to find the [Clinton] emails?... What if an intelligence operative from a friendly country got them and offered them? And what about an unfriendly country? Would there be a scale, from standard oppo research on one end to treason on the other, depending on how the emails were acquired?"

"The reaction by most of the media, by the Democrats, by the anti-Trump people is like mob violence. I've never seen anything like it in my life."

"This is the president of the United States, doing what every president... since FDR in 1943 with Stalin, meeting with the head of the Kremlin. And every president since Eisenhower, a Republican by the way, has met with the leader of the Kremlin for one existential purpose: To avoid war between the two nuclear superpowers. Today, in my considered, scholarly, long-time judgment, relations between the U.S. and Russia are more dangerous than they have ever — let me repeat, ever — been, including the Cuban missile crisis. I want my president to do -- I didn't vote for this president-- but I want my president to do what every other president has done. Sit with the head of the other nuclear superpower and walk back the conflicts that could lead to war, whether they be in Syria, Ukraine, in the Baltic nations, in these accusations of cyber attacks. Every president has been encouraged to do that an applauded by both parties. Not Trump. Look what they did to him today. They had a kangaroo court. They found him guilty. And then you had the former head of the U.S. CIA, who himself ought to be put under oath and asked about his role in inventing Russiagate, calling the President of the United States treasonous. What have we come to in this country? And what is going to happen in the future?"

Said NYU Russia expert Stephen F. Cohen (speaking on Tucker Carlson's show Monday).

Cohen is a contributing editor at The Nation, a left-leaning publication. In the interview, he said to  Carlson, "Let me ask you a question, you know D.C., why do these people dislike Putin, the president of post-communist Russia more than they ever seemed to dislike the communist leaders?" Carlson just repeated the question, and Cohen said "There is an answer but we'd need a lot more time and a psychiatrist."

Note: The transcript at the Real Clear Politics link was full of little errors. I watched the video (embedded there) and have corrected the text. Nothing substantive.

ADDED: In a similar vein, there's Rand Paul:

You know, I think engagement with our adversaries, conversation with our adversaries is a good idea. Even in the height of the Cold War, maybe at the lowest ebb when we were in the midst of the Cuban missile crisis, I think it was a good thing that Kennedy had a direct line to Khrushchev. I think it was a good thing that we continue to have ambassadors to Russia even when we really objected greatly to what was going on, even during Stalin’s regime.

So, I think that it is a good idea to have engagement. And I think that what is lost in this is that I think there's a bit of Trump derangement syndrome. I think there are people who hate the president so much that this could have easily been President Obama early in his first administration setting the reset button and trying to have better relations with Russia, and I think it's lost on people that they're a nuclear power. They have influence in Syria. They're in close proximity to the troops in Syria. They are close to the peninsula of North Korea and may have some influence that could help us there....

"How Trump Withstands So Many Controversies... The word 'treason' is being thrown around..."

"... to describe how President Trump seemed to take Russia’s side during his summit meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin in Helsinki, Finland. But as with every major controversy that Mr. Trump has faced, it’s unclear if anything will happen as a result."

An excellent topic, well-explored on the NYT "Daily" podcast with Michael Barbaro. I recommend listening to the whole thing. There's no transcript, but from the notes on the show:

Under fire for contradicting United States intelligence reports of Russian interference in the presidential election, Mr. Trump asserted on Tuesday that he had misspoken at his news conference with Mr. Putin, and that he had meant to say, “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,” rather than “would.” He added, “Could be other people, also.”

Never in the modern era has the word “treason” become part of the national conversation in such a prominent way. Some of those who voted for Mr. Trump struggled to endorse his approach, but many are reaffirming their support.

On the subject of the prominence of the term "treason," there's a link to an article from yesterday that says:

[John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director... called [Trump's] performance “nothing short of treasonous.” The late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel also invoked treason on their shows. The front-page banner headline for The New York Daily News declared “OPEN TREASON.”

Max Boot, the former Republican who has become one of Mr. Trump’s sharpest critics, noted in a column on Monday in The Washington Post that accusing him of treason was once unthinkable. No longer....

Mr. Trump returned to the White House on Monday night as protesters outside the gate shouted, “Welcome home, traitor.” Even Dictionary.com trolled the president, tweeting out a definition: “Traitor: A person who commits treason by betraying his or her country.”

It later said that searches for “treason” had increased by 2,943 percent. By Tuesday afternoon, the word “traitor” had been used on Twitter 800,000 times and the word “treason” about 1.2 million times....

When I hear "treason" used in political discourse like that, my mind drifts back to 1964 and the rise of Barry Goldwater. One of the key books of that time was "None Dare Call It Treason." I look it up, and what they hell? The first hit is the NYT obituary for its author, dated yesterday!

John A. Stormer, whose self-published 1964 book, “None Dare Call It Treason,” became a right-wing favorite despite being attacked as inaccurate in promulgating the notion that American government and institutions were full of Communist sympathizers, died on July 10 in Troy, Mo. He was 90....

Communists, Mr. Stormer wrote, were bent on infiltrating the American government and had largely succeeded, as evidenced by American and United Nations economic support for Communist countries.

“The Communists have sworn to bury us,” Mr. Stormer wrote. “We are digging our own graves.... From where has the money come to build and finance the vast collectivist underground which reaches its tentacles into education, the churches, labor and the press?” he asked. “Amazingly, the fortunes of America’s most successful tycoons, dedicated by them to the good of mankind, have been redirected to finance the socialization of the United States.”

That was the deployment of the word "treason" that went big in the 60s. People who were not right-wing, of course, viewed it as anti-communist hysteria, a throwback to the McCarthy era, and that's the way I've seen the word "treason" all this time. But John Brennan threw it back into the American discourse and the Trump antagonists have run with it. Nothing else has worked to stop Trump, so why not crack open this 100-foot long gushing fissure?



IN THE COMMENTS: Robert Cook writes:

It's really outrageous and alarming, this tsunami of people shouting "treason" at Trump for...what? Because he disputes our intelligence agencies? That does not fit the definition of treason. And besides, fuck our intelligence agencies!

This must be a coordinated effort to drown Trump in shit to the point where he can't move or speak, where he is immobilized. I don't say this as a fan of Trump--I think he's terrible in just about every way--but to recognize that there are powerful forces who will do whatever they must to stop any president from pursuing courses of action that they do not approve of. The Military/Industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us of, by whatever name it should be known now, is more powerful than ever, and sees itself as sovereign over us all. Those who hate Trump may cheer this now, but they will cry when the same tactics are used by these forces to paralyze the efforts of a president whom they do support.

"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." Thomas Paine

"John Kerry-Iran deal report sparks chatter about potential Logan Act violation."

Headline at The Washington Examiner.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, tweeted in response to the Boston Globe report: "OMG! Logan Act violations!! Send in the G Men..."

Meanwhile, Tom Fitton, who heads the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, said "Kerry making quiet play to save Iran deal with foreign leaders: report. I'm waiting for the Left to scream treason and for Sally Yates to invoke the Logan Act and demand a criminal investigation."

He was referring to former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who was concerned that former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn had violated the Logan Act during the presidential transition period after he discussed policy issues with a Russian envoy....

"The great Body of the People in every Free Government, must always be considered as the Husband of the Constitution thereof, and..."

"... consequently that as long as such Constitution performs the duties of Love Honor and Obedience to Her great Constituent Body, or Political Husband, She is entitled to be Kept both in sickness and in Health, with all possible Love and Fidelity by such her said Husband and that on a breach of her Duty she must expect to incur the Pains and Penalties of Divorce.”

So said William Stuart to Griffith Evans, in the debate about whether to ratify the Constitution. New York, 11 July 1788 (CC Vol. 6, p. 258).  I found that at "Constitutional Metaphors, Similes, and Analogies" at the UW's Center for the Study of the American Constitution, where there are many other fascinating metaphors, all from the debates about ratification.

But are there any metaphors in the text of the Constitution?

The question occurred to me as I was reading the comments to the post about the Seventh Circuit case rejecting an Establishment Clause challenge to a public school "Christmas Spectacular" concert. I happened to mention the metaphor of the wall that should, it is sometimes said, separate church and state. Someone appeared to observe that the constitutional text makes no mention of any wall, and it occurred to me that we really don't want any metaphor in the Constitution or in any other legally operable text.

Is there even one metaphor in the Constitution? All I could think of is "no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood" (in Article III). "Blood" refers to a person's descendants. But that scarcely counts as a metaphor. The use of the word "blood" like that goes all the way back to Old English. You might as well consider a metaphor to use "house" for the houses of Congress.

Metaphor is fine in arguments and explanations, so I think it's fine to say "wall of separation" if you want to speak of a strict interpretation of the Establishment Clause. Its absence from the Constitution doesn't mean that the strict interpretation is wrong, only that you don't put metaphors in a constitution.

But how do you like that William Stuart metaphor? The people are the husband and the Constitution is the wife and the Constitution must love, honor, and obey the people.

I posted something last night without comment, and in the morning, it's obvious what I failed to say.

Here's what I just added to last night's "Another scary day..." (which embedded a Scott Adams tweet, "It’s another scary day for the people who can’t tell when President Trump is joking" about the serious handwringing over Trump's adoption of the word "treasonous" to describe Democrats who didn't applaud during his State of the Union Address):

It can be scary even when you recognize that he was joking. He's President and in the position of enforcing the law, and from that position punching down. He really should not be joking about treason. And I get that he's punching back, and that's his style. But people aren't just idiots if they feel afraid of a President who isn't continually assuring us that he's aware of his profound responsibilities.

Wasn't this scary — even though you know it's a joke?



And — in a would-be President — this:



IN THE COMMENTS: Matthew Sablan said:

I thought it was bad form to joke about auditing your enemies too. But for the most part, no one really cared. Even when Obama's enemies started getting audited. I still think it is bad form to joke about treason, but Trump has never been one to hold himself to rules his opponents won't follow.

I cared about Obama's joke. It was terrible, despicable, and I would have been outraged by the joke on top of the joke It’s another scary day for the people who can’t tell when President Obama is joking.

Here's the video of Obama making the joke to cheers and laughter at Arizona State University in 2009.

ADDED: It's clear to me that Obama must have thought the joke was good because it's making fun of the overstatements of his critics. They are ridiculous to accuse him the way they do, so his talking like them is funny.

Another scary day...

It’s another scary day for the people who can’t tell when President Trump is joking. #POTUS pic.twitter.com/z376yMHVA5

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) February 6, 2018

ADDED: It can be scary even when you recognize that he was joking. He's President and in the position of enforcing the law, and from that position punching down. He really should not be joking about treason. And I get that he's punching back, and that's his style. But people aren't just idiots if they feel afraid of a President who isn't continually assuring us that he's aware of his profound responsibilities.