Once it was engrossed HJ 114 became a Public Law. What it said, in part, was that W had to allow el Baradei’s investigations, and consult Congress before proceeding in any fashion. If you say that’s not so, you dissemble in a Barrackian fashion.

If you’ll quote the part that says Dubya had to allow el Baradei’s investigations, I’ll concede the point.

And if you quote the part that says Dubya had to *consult* Congress before proceeding, I’ll concede *that* point. He does have to notify Congress within 48 hours AFTER using force, but not consult, and not before. And he has to give them reports every 60 days. But that’s not at all what you’re positing.

Once it was engrossed HJ 114 became a Public Law.

There was never an HJ 114. There is no such thing. They have HB (House Bill), HCR (House Concurrent Resolution), HJR (House Joint Resolution), HR (House Resolution), SB (Senate Bill) SCR (Senate Concurrent Resolution), SJR (Senate Joint Resolution) and SR (Senate Resolution). Each of them has their own numbering, which starts over each year.

And if they become public law, the numbering changes.

The last House Joint Resolution 114 was “Making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2005, and for other purposes”. Neither the current congress nor the former one has had 114 joint resolutions. The AUMF is Public Law 107-243, but it is most decidedly NOT “Public Law HR 114″.

And since you don’t know that, you obviously haven’t read it. So why are you chiding US for not reading it?

(Since his link doesn’t work, here’s one that DOES work: http://canthook.com/files/AUMF.pdf You’ll notice that the Government Printing Office puts the proper name at the top of the first page of the document.)

Seating Michigan delegates makes more sense than awarding delegates by caucus states.

Caucuses are undemocratic, because it’s *difficult* for people to express their preference, so it’s better to use a process where it’s *impossible* to express a preference, because there’s only one candidate on the ballot?

NAFTA? Well he told a foreign government that was just window-dressing.

Cite, please.

Who in that foreign government did he talk to?

When and where was this conversation?

Do you have a recording of the conversation, or just a transcript?

Or perhaps are you relying on a summary, written by a non-participant, of a conversation which did not include Senator Obama, which has been refuted by those who *were* participants in the conversation?

Obma knows what the bill said, and he’s admitted that he’d have voted for it given the manufactured evidence. When you write your own myth, you’re probably too close in time to clean up all the inconvenient details.

NAFTA? Well he told a foreign government that was just window-dressing. And the Authorization? He’s about as familiar with what that said as Rush Limbaugh is. Nobody in Congress authorized Shock and Awe. Not Kerry, not Hillary, not anybody but Cheney and Rummy and the aholes that tried talking Clinton intoNeocons this stupidity in 1998. Thanks to later signees Rummy and Cheney, they just went ahead and did it. And then, with Ken Blackwell’s help in Cuyahoga and other Ohio counties, Americans were stupid enough to re-elect thesejerks that figure they can whipe their pimply white asses with the Constitution, or maybe just do that Grover thing and drown the government like unwanted kittens.

Invading Iraq was just the ultimate signing statement. Almost half of American voters voted for this war crimina, after his crimes were painfully apparent. We live in a country where people let Swift Boaters decide their votes. And re-elect Stalinists to export democracy by force. If he had a clue, Johnny Cougar would say “Ain’t that America.” Real Americans are waiting for Independence Day.

But I think a monster is the fellow who killed Nancy Eagleson and left her nude where coon hunters found her. And an even greater monster is the sheriff who knew it was one of his deputies that did it, and didn’t lift a finger to do anything about it.

I had a friend who was a paraplegic, and as a little girl, her mother didn’t bother with a chastity belt for her daughter, she just used a needle and carpet thread. Mama also rented her out to a group of men to make a movie with a goat. I think that group of men were monsters, and her mother even more so. And I don’t think charging them with a felony is appropriate; I wouldn’t want monsters like that getting prison, or even the electric chair. I want to see humungous Osterizers built. Just press the “frappe” button.

But a guy who has a jailbait girlfriend, and french kisses her? That’s almost a model of restraint. My wife disagrees; she thinks the law is necessary, and the punishment appropriate.

So while I wouldn’t call the junior senator from New York a monster, I note that after knowing what was happening in terms of renditions and at the Abu Ghirab prison, she voted to authorize the same force against Iran that she authorized for Iraq.

The link to “Public Law HJ 114″ doesn’t work, and that’s not the name, anyway. The AUMF is not “Public Law” at all, but “H.J.Res.114 of 2002″

And the AUMF allows the president to
1. defend the US against the continuing threat posed by Iraq
and
2. enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions

Given that Iraq does not have the capability of launching an attack on the United States, and is in full compliance with all applicable U.N. Security Council resolutions, the “war” in Iraq is NOT supported by the AUMF.

If I were advising Obama, I’d suggest he introduce a bill in the Senate declaring war on Iraq, pointing out that since the AUMF has long ago expired. That puts the shoe on the other foot. Instead of needing to achieve a supermajority to override a veto, Obama simply needs a majority to vote down the declaration of war.

Random thought: polls overstate Obama’s but understate Clinton’s support. After the NH primary a pollster wrote about the phenomenon (Time or NYT) that people tend to overstate their support of African American candidates to pollsters vs. what they do in the polling booth. (Could this help to explain Obama’s caucus vs. primary results?) And I can see a similar dynamic playing out as pollsters call women voters at home to poll them at the dinner hour. Some wouldn’t be comfortable voicing support for Hillary in front of their husbands, but once they get to the polling booth . . .

It’s different with me; my wife’s the boss.