Another Reason To Loathe Lieberman

As is their usual MO (and emo) Politico provides a platform for any loony idea that seems critical of the Democratic administration of President Obama. Naturally, Pete King (perennial spouter of "teh stupid") gets space and somehow taken seriously:

New York Rep. Peter King, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, wants to know whether the Justice Department consulted with the intelligence community before it decided to hold his trial in civilian court.“I hope that Holder did discuss this with the intelligence community. If they believe they got enough from him, how much more should they get? Did they Mirandize him? I know he’s an American citizen, but still,” King told POLITICO.


“I hope that if they did read him his rights, and if they are going for an indictment as opposed to a tribunal, that he did discuss it with the director of national intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, all the component parts of the intelligence community,” King said.


King acknowledged that Shahzad’s case is different. “It is different from the Christmas Day bombing because, one, this guy is an American citizen; it appears that most of the work was carried out here in the United States as opposed to [with] Abdulmutallab, who was flying in,” King said. “That said, before there’s a rush to indict him, I think they should make an effort to figure out what is the best venue for him.”

"But still..." WTF? Miranda is about legal notification in the US, not about citizenship, it is in fact - regardless of it. But still; I'm just ... uh, flabbergasted. What the hell does the CIA have to do with legal process? Did we somehow become a police state with secret police? I admit that for some time I've wondered if this guy has two live brain cells that talk to each other.

Then you get to one of my least favorite political figures, the LIEberman. I don't know what would pass his threshold of media whoredom, but I would think this piece of absolute stupidity would have gotten there.

“I’m now putting together legislation to amend that to [specify that] any individual American citizen who is found to be involved in a foreign terrorist organization, as defined by the Department of State, would be deprived of their citizenship rights,” Lieberman said Tuesday.


Such a law would potentially cover terror suspect Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born American citizen charged in connection with the attempted car bombing in New York City’s Times Square. He was apprehended Monday night at the city’s John F. Kennedy airport after he boarded a flight to Dubai.


“If you have joined an enemy of the United States in attacking the United States and trying to kill Americans, I think you sacrifice your rights of citizenship,” Lieberman said.

First comes the objection of standing - Miranda has not squat to do with citizenship. "...found to be involved in a foreign terrorist organization," seems broad enough to include most of his friends in the GOP. A real hard search of their campaign contributions should show that it isn't all domestic money and their behavior of terrorism of the electorate is long standing. "Involved" is one of those words. Does it mean taking bomb classes or does it include hitting one of their sites and actually reading it? I've said a number of times that Israel makes some of its problems with Palestinians and Arabs/Muslims on its own, since something like Hamas has said the same thing does that make me lose my citizenship? Would calling LIEberman a POS for his Israeli-centric politics strip me? How about supporting Lefty Democratic policies in the face of asswipes like him and King? The First Amendment is now stripped of its freedom of assembly clause? I guess calling these guys pissants and cowards probably ought to be forbidden speech and any of you that want to hang-out with me should be barred on pain of citizenless status.

Could we at least manage to ignore these buttheads or castigate them at all possible occasions? What possible political gain justifies letting Hoe LIEberman caucus with Democrats?