Two stories caught my eye this morning.
The first:
Howard Dean, a long-time friend of this site, has appeared on a list of high-profile Washington Insiders who have been providing material support to an Iranian terrorist group in exchange for cold, hard cash.
Glenn Greenwald has the details.
The short version is that the U.S. government recognizes Iranian guerilla opposition group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) as a designated terrorist organization. This of course has lots of implications in the way that the U.S. government can and cannot deal with them. But it also puts restrictions on civilian interaction with the group.
Specifically, it makes it a serious crime for American citizens to provide material or other support on their behalf. Several Muslims and Muslim-Americans have been tried, convicted and imprisoned for actions like 1) maintaining a website that had links to jihadist organizations and 2) including a Lebanese television channel sponsored by Hezbollah on a satellite TV package.
The crime that Howard Dean has committed appears to be much more serious. He has actually been paid cash by MEK -- as have several other high-profile Democrats -- and even went as far as to demand that the U.S. government recognize MEK's terrorist leader as the legitimate Iranian president.
I believe that Howard Dean should be investigated and, if there is enough evidence to support it, prosecuted under the current law for aiding terrorists.
Uh ... WAHEE!
That will never happen, will it?
This is because there is an overriding principle in Washington, which dictates that if an insider breaks the law -- it's not really a crime. You see, insiders make up the system. The Washington system is always right. Therefore, whatever these insiders do is inherently legal.
You see ... The anti-terrorism law under which Howard Dean should be prosecuted is meant to protect us from the bad guys! Howard Dean is supporting the good guys, right? Right?
(Well, no.)
The other story is this column by Joe Nocera in The New York Times.
Nocera notes that it looks like the thieves at MF Global will get away with their $1.6 billion dollar theft, while the farmers and other commodities market participates whose money was stolen will be left out in the cold.
The money, a significant portion of which still sits in the vault of J.P. Morgan, waiting to be sped in armored cars onto the estates of Jaime Dimon and his crew, will never be returned to the people who legally own it.
And the executives who stole the money won't just get away without being prosecuted, some are getting bonuses for a job well done.
And so we pass into the next phase of our national drama.
This one is where overt lawlessness among the elites takes hold.