Here’s the centerpiece of my Thursday column:
In a senate hearing yesterday, far-right Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) grilled Eric Holder about his letter to Rand Paul, repeatedly asking Holder if he thought it was constitutional to use a drone to kill a citizen who was drinking coffee at a cafe on American soil. Yes, really.
It’s an absurd line of questioning given that Holder strictly confined the use of lethal military force to imminent, emergency situations on the level of 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. Holder continuously responded that it’s inappropriate under the Constitution to use any other means beyond typical law enforcement methods if this hypothetical coffee-drinker happened to merely be planning a terrorist attack. Holder wrote the same thing in his letter to Rand Paul and, other than a brief salutation, the law enforcement policy description encompassed the entire first half of the letter. But not once has any Republican, including Cruz and Rand Paul, mentioned anything about ending the war on terrorism or repealing the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). The lack of nuance, as well as the lack of a sense of history on both the far-right and far-left is eerily coincidental. [continue reading here]