"The real question surely should be: what are the rules of engagement away from active combat? Test any rules you want to propose against the Seal Team strike against Osama bin Laden. Was the strike on bin Laden in Pakistan legal or illegal?" If there's a state of war between nations, not only is it legal to kill members of the other nation's army away from active combat, but you're expected to try to do it if you can. It gets trickier, certainly, if the state of war is with an organization that exists independently of any nation, but the idea still holds. The hard part is accurately determining whether a given person is part of that organization. In Bin Laden's case, there was obviously no question about it. But what to do about everyone else that the U.S. government regards as part of that organization is a damned good question. Here's what I'd suggest: 1) The government maintains a public list of those persons it regards as members of al-Qaeda and allied organizations, with citizenship where known. If someone on the list isn't an American, the embassy of his country can object through public and/or diplomatic channels as it sees fit. 1a) In some cases, the government will not want to make it publicly known that it regards an individual as a target. In those cases, it should still be required to notify the target person's government that it regards that person as a target, so that that person's government may defend that person's interest if it is so inclined. In some cases, the government in question may let the target know that he is a target. That's life. 2) Obviously, American citizens are left out of this arrangement. American citizens that belong to organizations that take up arms against the U.S. government are committing treason. The government should be required to charge them with that crime or with lesser crimes associated with their membership in these organizations, and try them in absentia if they are unwilling to appear for trial. If acquitted, they must be dropped from the list. If convicted, they should be given 30 days to turn themselves in to a U.S. embassy for transport back to the U.S. to serve their sentence. If they do not do so, then they are outlaws and legitimate targets.

A belated happy unorthodox Easter!!

Thanks for reminding us of just how long it's been since Barone lost it. He writes regularly in the Washington Examiner, which is distributed for free on the DC Metro, so I am frequently exposed to his get-off-my-lawn rants. He used to be different, but that was many years ago.

Jonah 4:10-11: But the Lord said, "You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?" Substitute (1) "Harry Potter" for "this plant," (2) "was completely fictional anyway" for "sprang up overnight and died overnight," and (3) "the two billion people of the river valleys of Asia" for "the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people." Same message.

If "reporters" would actually REPORT, all the chutzpah in the world wouldn't save his sorry ass.

I don't get how ANY of these arguments are germane. The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution is very simple and straightforward: SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Okay, CONGRESS has this power to enforce this Amendment with 'appropriate legislation.' What are the boundaries of 'appropriateness'? If it hasn't exceeded them by passing the Voting Rights Act, then the Supreme Court should sit down and shut up. Quite a few Constitutional amendments have a section with essentially the same language as Section 2. These are the 13th, 14th, 19th, 23rd, 24th, 26th, and the defunct 18th Amendments to the Constitution. So, how big a grant of authority to Congress is the power to enforce a Constitutional amendment with appropriate legislation? The Supreme Court, discussing the identical section of the 14th Amendment in Ex Parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339 (1879) said at 345-346: It is not said the judicial power of the general government shall extend to enforcing the prohibitions and to protecting the rights and immunities guaranteed. It is not said that branch of the government shall be authorized to declare void any action of a State in violation of the prohibitions. It is the power of Congress which has been enlarged, Congress is authorized to enforce the prohibitions by appropriate legislation. Some legislation is contemplated to make the amendments fully effective. Whatever legislation is appropriate, that is, adapted to carry out the objects the amendments have in view, whatever tends to enforce submission to the prohibitions they contain, and to secure to all persons the enjoyment of perfect equality of civil rights and the equal protection of the laws against State denial or invasion, if not prohibited, is brought within the domain of congressional power. "Whatever legislation is...adapted to carry out the objects the amendments have in view...is brought within the domain of congressional power." How can the Court possibly say the Voting Rights Act fails that test? It is not for them to judge whether the VRA enforces the Fifteenth Amendment in a way they like. It is not even for them to judge whether the VRA's enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment is superfluous at this point in time. It is only for them to judge whether the VRA is "adapted to carry out the objects the amendments have in view." Which it obviously is. The Supreme Court should sit down and shut up before they gut all seven Constitutional amendments that include this language.

What howard said. The people? Who the $#@! are they? They're just lesser beings who need to get by on fewer entitlements. That's the Village view. Remember that New Yorker cover* from many years ago, purportedly showing the New York City resident's view of the world? Kinda like that, only more twisted. * This one: http://strangemaps.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/steinberg-newyorker.jpg

Mahony: "Jesus and Mary, walk with us and show us how to follow you!" Jesus: "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." Mahony's most prized possessions, of course, are the details of how he covered up the trails of the child-molesting priests and made it more difficult for them to be prosecuted. He cannot follow Jesus because, like the rich young man, he has too many possessions. And of a much worse kind than those of the rich young man, who was only hanging onto money. Jesus, again: "And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck." There you go, ex-Cardinal Mahony. There's your marching orders from the Lord.

Aside from Maddow and Dionne, who are connected with everyone else on this list only through Ezra, Ezra's immediate neighbors are connected with each other in several different ways. The person showing up most frequently at distance two from Ezra is some guy named J. Bradford DeLong, who is indirectly linked to Ezra via each of Drum, Yglesias, Chait, and Krugman.

Off topic, but as the father of a 5 year old boy, I wonder how big a pile of money I'd have if I had a dollar for every time I've heard the phrase "Scooby snacks" in the past 3 years. I'm guessing somewhere in the low to mid four figures.

Brad, pardon the nitpick but I think you meant to consider the single-unit *intersection* of those two sets.

"That decision does not even qualify as a "technicality" in my book. It is just a straightforward analysis and reconciliation of the competing sources of law with particular importance falling on the meaning of the word "fugitive"." That is exactly the sort of thing that nonlawyers tend to regard as 'technicalities.'

"Alec MacGillis ‏@AlecMacGillis: Barone: contraception controversy helped win Obama "the Lena Dunham generation, about which the less said the better." #NRISummit #outreach Justin Green ‏@JGreenDC: I adore Michael Barone, but after this I'm not certain he's still in touch with America on demographics: http://washingtonexaminer.com/barone-going-out-on-a-limb-romney-wins-handily/article/2512470 #NRIsummit" There may have been reason to be a Michael Barone fan 20 years ago, but I'd be interested to know whether Justin Green can point to anything he's written in the past 4-5 years that would justify the least bit of adoration. The Washington Examiner is handed out free to people entering or leaving the Metro system in DC, so someone usually brings it in and sets it on a nearby counter, and I occasionally read Barone for s**ts and giggles. Shorter everything I've read by him during that time: "Get off my lawn!" He's totally lost it, assuming he was any good back in the day, and my high opinion of him wasn't based on the much less finely honed critical thinking skills I had back then.

Well, you never really reject the alternative hypothesis in favor of the null, no matter how many times you fail to reject the null. What really seems to happen is that when enough tests have shown no statistical difference that nobody's going to fund any more experiments, the whole thing kinda peters out with almost everyone scientifically inclined accepting that there's no real case for the alternative hypothesis. There are some tests out there that allow one to prove the null hypothesis and reject the alternative hypothesis (I did a short literature review for my boss about these about 10 years back) but they seem to be used almost never.

Upcoming: the C.J. gets to answer his own question.

Nothing to say, other than to express my delight that the Kenyan Muslim socialist usurper is now a two-term President. As with Bill Clinton, he'll be finished with his second term as President in his mid-50s, with a lot of good years ahead of him. Yet everything he accomplishes in the public sphere during the rest of his life will be small change compared to what he did as President. It must be a weird situation to be in.

Brad - as far as I can tell, we left our home timeline in Nov/Dec 2000. I can't find the way back home either.

I already don't think Sullivan's worth it often enough to bother to visit the Daily Dish more than once in a blue moon when someone I trust links to it.

The problem with this deal is that the sequester isn't really dealt with; it's only postponed for two months. So this deal - just like 2011! - is only the first GOP bite at the apple, if it passes. (Cantor's against it, and Boehner's noncommittal at this time, so maybe we'll get lucky and the Teahadists will sink it.) The second bite would be the sequester negotiations in February. Maybe the GOP doesn't want those defense cuts, but they're willing to hang tight and bet that we're far more afraid of the $55 billion in cuts to the non-defense discretionary budget, where successive rounds of budget-cutting over the past few decades have eliminated practically all traces of fat, than they are of $55 billion in cuts to the larded-up defense budget. And the sequester is great from a PR standpoint for the GOP, because it's already wrapped up in a package that the Dems helped wrap back in 2011. Nobody can blame those cuts on the GOP. They'll let the sequester take effect unless the Dems give them an offer they like better, in which case it'll pass with Dem votes and a few dozen Republicans not present in the House. And then the GOP can run against the specifics of the Dems' sequester-replacement bill in 2014. As our esteemed host keeps saying, "Can't anybody here play this game?" And that's not even counting the debt ceiling. I think we actually have the upper hand there, if Obama plays it right - but who would expect him to, at this point? Instead, it'll be the GOP's third bite at the apple. Now excuse me while I party like it's 2011, by banging my head against a wall.

Let's not sugarcoat it, Brad: relative to today's Republicans, there's stuff growing on the leftovers in the back of your fridge that constitutes a morally superior civilization.

What's the "string-dollar doctrine"? I can't say I'm familiar with it. Does it have anything to do with string theory in physics?

I have relatives in the Arkansas City, KS area, literally a short walk from the Oklahoma border. We used to go out there for Christmas every year. Sometimes it would be mild - 30s and 40s - but more often we'd see teens and single digits, and winds that seemed to have come straight from the North Pole. And there really isn't a single thing besides distance in between the Arctic and Arkansas City to slow down a cold front from the north: no mountains, few trees, just open plains. It's a furnace in the summer, and an icebox in the winter.

Let me explain about politics. Or life, for that matter. Situations where you get everything you want for free are rare. This isn't one of them. One quick note: I'm not talking about whether it's better to wait until after Jan. 1 to make a deal. I'm OK with that. The question here is, what's the best deal - at whatever point over the next couple of months - that we can get out of the Republicans? What tradeoffs are good, and what tradeoffs are not so good? Which deals are better, and which ones worse, than leaving the 'fiscal cliff' tax hikes and sequestrations in place all year? Yes, chained CPI is bad policy. But raising income taxes on the poor is bad policy. Failing to extend unemployment compensation is bad policy. Failing to get any new stimulus spending is bad policy. Failing to extend the payroll tax cut is bad policy. And raising the Medicare eligibility age would be really, really bad policy. Chances are we don't get to avoid all of these bad policies. The question I raise is, which ones are the least bad? Or is there something else we can trade to avoid all of these other bad policies. If so, what? The answer from the crowd here seems to be "Nuts to that! We don't have to trade anything." Pardon me, but I thought this was a discussion between members of the reality-based community. Apparently I was mistaken.

So you are willing to increase taxes on the poor, and deny unemployment compensation to the unemployed, in order to (hopefully) score wins at the polls in 2014? One of the reasons I feel the Republicans are evil is exactly this willingness to see harm done to people's lives for political benefit. I'm afraid our discussion is over; we have nothing more to talk about.

I'd be satisfied with "can't bring a majority of his caucus" but in general this seems like a winning play.