The FISA Amendments Act, which codified Tha Bush Mobb's warrantless wiretapping program into law, may finally receive a Constitutional challenge. Our government has notified at least 10 terror suspects that some of the evidence against them came from warrantless wiretapping -- and a lawyer for two of them says he'll try to get that evidence thrown out. You have to wonder why our government suddenly started notifying suspects they're being warrantlessly wiretapped. If you're an eternal optimist, you might conclude that this is Barack Obama's way of finally killing the program dead, by getting judges to do it for him. Entertaining as that notion is, I'm not sure I'm that much an optimist.
At least two Oklahoma courts assert in a criminal case that if a girl gives oral sex while unconscious, it's not "forcible sodomy." under the law. Apparently, state law does not list "incapacitation due to the victim drinking alcohol" as one of the ways to put the force in "forcible sodomy." "We will not, in order to justify prosecution of a person for an offense, enlarge a statute beyond the fair meaning of its language," the appeals court said. Left unanswered is how an incapacitated person could possibly consent to sex, or how the "fair meaning" (not the "literal meaning," you notice) of "forcible sodomy" fails to include, well, forcing yourself on someone who's too drunk to fight you off.
Bill Scher, writing at Politico, offers Minnesota Sen. Al Franken as the best choice for Democratic Vice President. I'm by and large impressed with Sen. Franken -- he's written a lot of great bills that haven't become law mainly because Republicans hate good government -- but the idea that he's somehow "politically incorrect" in the manner of Donald Trump is as ludicrous as the idea that Rachel Maddow is a "liberal version of Sean Hannity." And the "liberal" media won't back off on this alleged "political incorrectness" just because they've given Mr. Trump a pass to say far worse things -- they'll report on them like they're "just as bad," because that's what's "fair." But yes, he's more liberal than Mrs. Clinton, Democrats don't have very many great choices, et cetera.
Consultant working for Sen. John McCain's re-election campaign gets busted after police find a meth lab, one within the reach of small children no less, in her home. Emily Pitha has, apparently, been a mainstay of Arizona Republican politics for many years, having also worked for former Sen. Jon Kyl and his successor, current Sen. Jeff Flake; the McCain campaign, of course, terminated its relationship with her after the arrest. None of this will surprise you if you watch House of Cards, and I don't expect this will be an issue in his re-election campaign, but if something this bizarre happens to him, say, two more times, that might be a sign he's done.
Finally, Donald Trump delivers an allegedly substantial foreign policy address that, in the words of BBC reporter Anthony Zurcher, is "essentially a calmly intoned reprise of the views he has expressed throughout the campaign." Mr. Trump may have figured out what Republican establishment-types have really been telling him: that if you say what's in the hearts of angry white dudes without sounding like an angry white dude, you'll do a lot better. He even read from a teleprompter this time, I understand. Of course, when Mr. Trump says he won't tell ISIS how he's going to beat them, he forgets -- just like they all do! -- that he's supposed to account to us, the American people, about things like that.
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