Joe Katzman has an excellent post on why we cannot expect, or (sadly) even hope for, the “international community” to prevent genocide, and why there must be a universal right to bear arms.

From a long, but interesting scholarly paper by Kopel et al:

…civilian armament has historically been very effective at preventing genocide. Indeed, genocide scholars have found that genocides are carried out almost exclusively against populations which have first been systematically disarmed. Because genocidal regimes consider prior disarmament the sine qua non for beginning a genocide, it seems indisputable that civilian armament deters genocide in most cases. Part IV considers the practical possibilities of arming the Darfur genocide victims…

…we carefully analyze the international law implications of arming genocide victims. Genocide victims who acquired arms, and persons who supplied arms to genocide victims, would almost certainly be in violation of the gun control laws in the country where the genocide was taking place. In addition, the arms acquisition might violate international treaties against bringing arms into a nation without the consent of the national government. Under international law, could the genocide victims and their arms suppliers claim that their actions were nevertheless legal? We answer

Andrew Sullivan yesterday:

Yes, I preferred him to Bush last November. I’ve never believed that low Ivy grades are somehow an impediment to high office. But then you find out that Kerry’s refusal to release his military records prevented him from disseminating lots of glowing tributes from the Swift Boat maniacs. Dumb and dumber.

Emphasis mine.

I couldn’t let this pass. Andrew simply has a huge blind spot when it comes to the credibility of the Swift Boat vets, because and (as far as I can tell) only because he doesn’t want to believe them. I’m confident that he hasn’t read the book, or he couldn’t possibly write this sort of nonsense.

When it comes to “maniacs,” let me present exhibit A: Lawrence O’Donnell, face red, veins bulging out of his neck, in a complete on-air meltdown, repeatedly screaming “Liar”” and “Creep!” at a calm, collected John O’Neill on Scarborough Country late last October. And Andrew calls the Swift Boat vets maniacs?

[Update at noon eastern]

Thomas Lipscomb asks whether Kerry really released the records. If I were a betting man, I know where my money would be…

Andrew Sullivan yesterday:

Yes, I preferred him to Bush last November. I’ve never believed that low Ivy grades are somehow an impediment to high office. But then you find out that Kerry’s refusal to release his military records prevented him from disseminating lots of glowing tributes from the Swift Boat maniacs. Dumb and dumber.

Emphasis mine.

I couldn’t let this pass. Andrew simply has a huge blind spot when it comes to the credibility of the Swift Boat vets, because and (as far as I can tell) only because he doesn’t want to believe them. I’m confident that he hasn’t read the book, or he couldn’t possibly write this sort of nonsense.

When it comes to “maniacs,” let me present exhibit A: Lawrence O’Donnell, face red, veins bulging out of his neck, in a complete on-air meltdown, repeatedly screaming “Liar”” and “Creep!” at a calm, collected John O’Neill on Scarborough Country late last October. And Andrew calls the Swift Boat vets maniacs?

[Update at noon eastern]

Thomas Lipscomb asks whether Kerry really released the records. If I were a betting man, I know where my money would be…

Andrew Sullivan yesterday:

Yes, I preferred him to Bush last November. I’ve never believed that low Ivy grades are somehow an impediment to high office. But then you find out that Kerry’s refusal to release his military records prevented him from disseminating lots of glowing tributes from the Swift Boat maniacs. Dumb and dumber.

Emphasis mine.

I couldn’t let this pass. Andrew simply has a huge blind spot when it comes to the credibility of the Swift Boat vets, because and (as far as I can tell) only because he doesn’t want to believe them. I’m confident that he hasn’t read the book, or he couldn’t possibly write this sort of nonsense.

When it comes to “maniacs,” let me present exhibit A: Lawrence O’Donnell, face red, veins bulging out of his neck, in a complete on-air meltdown, repeatedly screaming “Liar”” and “Creep!” at a calm, collected John O’Neill on Scarborough Country late last October. And Andrew calls the Swift Boat vets maniacs?

[Update at noon eastern]

Thomas Lipscomb asks whether Kerry really released the records. If I were a betting man, I know where my money would be…

New French PM de Villepin says that France can be restored through “Gallic genius.

Hate to break it to you, Dominique, but “Gallic genius” is exactly what got you into the mess you’re in in the first place…

John O’Neill says that the latest modified, limited hangout from Kerry doesn’t answer the mail:

We called for Kerry to execute a form which would permit anyone to examine his full and unexpulgated military records at the Navy Department and the National Personnel Records Center. Instead he executed a form permitting his hometown paper to obtain the records currently at the Navy Department. The Navy Department previously indicated its records did not include various materials. This is hardly what we called for. If he did execute a complete release of all records we could then answer questions such as (1)Did he ever receive orders to Cambodia or file any report of such a mission (whether at Christmas or otherwise); (2) What was his discharge status between 1970 and 1978 (when he received a discharge) and was it affected by his meetings in 1970 and 1971 with the North Vietnamese? (3)why did he receive much later citations for medals purportedly signed by Secretary Lehman who said he did not know of them; (4) Are there Hostile Fire and Personnel Injured by Hostile Fire Reports for Kerry’s Dec. 1968 Purple Heart (when the officer in charge of the boat Admiral Schacte, the treating Surgeon Louis Letson, and Kerry’s Division Commander deny there was hostile fire causing a scratch) awarded three months later under unknown circumstances.

As Hugh Hewitt points out:

Imagine if in response to the TANG controversy of last year, the president had authorized the Texas National Guard to provide his records to the Dallas Morning News and only the News. Would the furor over their release have subsided?

Of course not, and that’s why the Kerry SF 180 lies have been so interesting to follow in the media –a sort of perfect example of MSM bias in real time. The bias continues, of course, as is evident in the handling of the story today.

[Update a few minutes later]

I’ve always been stupefied at the notion that Kerry was so brilliant, as his campaign attempted to portray him. He always seemed to me to be a subpar intellect, with speechifying that would only appeal to people who mistook ponderous bellowing that never quite gets to the point with oratory “nuance.” In a post appropriately titled “Not Too Swift,” Roger Simon agrees:

Kerry was clearly not the brightest bulb, but we knew that. One of the more interesting obfuscations (deliberate and otherwise) that went on… and continues to go on to some extent… about the last presidential campaign is that Bush was the dumb one. In actuality, I always thought one of the reasons for Kerry’s famous flip-flopping, possibly the key reason, was that the Senator didn’t really understand the issues. I know this sounds rash and almost vicious, but he seemed to have some kind of cognitive disorder. There may be a lot of that in politics. After all, rational discourse is not often rewarded. Talking endlessly around a subject is.

I continue to be amazed that he got as many votes as he did (many more than I expected him to, last summer). It can only be attributable to irrational Bush hatred.

I never thought much of the idea, but I’m now convinced that it would be a bad idea to shut down Gitmo. Jimmy Carter has come out in favor of it.

According to this story (which points out that John Kerry is not the brilliant student that his mythology implies–his grades were actually slightly worse than Dubya’s), Kerry has released his military records to the Boston Globe, which reports:

The military and medical records, however, appear identical to what Kerry has already released.

There’s a follow-up more specifically on it here:

The records, which the Navy Personnel Command provided to the Globe, are mostly a duplication of what Kerry released during his 2004 campaign for president, including numerous commendations from commanding officers who later criticized Kerry’s Vietnam service.

misquoting an expert to do so. Note also that the second piece is by Michael Kranish, one of those “unbiased” Globe reporters who had close ties to the Kerry campaign.

We of course don’t know if these are the complete records, or another selective release, as the first one was (though the article states that they were provided by the Navy). Pardon me if I’d prefer to make the judgement myself, or at least have a few other bloggers, like Powerline, etc., check them out, before I’ll give him a clean bill of health. What, for example, do they say about his discharge status? How do the rest of us get a document dump from the Navy?

[Update a couple minutes later]

Michelle Malkin has more, with other links.

Apparently, the Supreme Court has ruled that the feds can continue to prosecute medical marijuana users:

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the 6-3 decision, said that Congress could change the law to allow medical use of marijuana.

Well, that’s very generous of him.

Under the Constitution, Congress may pass laws regulating a state’s economic activity so long as it involves “interstate commerce” that crosses state borders. The California marijuana in question was homegrown, distributed to patients without charge and without crossing state lines.

Stevens said there are other legal options for patients, “but perhaps even more important than these legal avenues is the democratic process, in which the voices of voters allied with these respondents may one day be heard in the halls of Congress.”

Yes, to hell with the rights of the states. How in the world can they justify this under the Commerce Clause? It seems to me that if they can justify this, they can justify anything, and federalism is truly dead.

Apparently we need to rein in the Commerce Clause, with an amendment, though I’m not sure what it could say that would be more clear than the clause itself, other than to explicitly say that it must deal with interstate activities. And in today’s political climate, how much support would there be for it, anyway?

I’ll be interested in seeing the opinion, and who was in the minority.

This is quite depressing.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s more, from SCOTUSblog:

The Court relied, as the Justice Department had urged in its appeal, upon the Court’s sweeping endorsement of federal Commerce Clause power in the 1942 case of Wickard v. Filburn.

“The case,” Stevens wrote, “comes down to the claim that a locally cultivated product that is used domestically rather than sold on the open market is not subject to federal regulation. Given the Act’s findings and the undisputed magnitude of the commercial market for marijuana, Wickard and its progency foreclose that claim.” The decision came in the case of Gonzalez v. Raich (03-1454).

Wickard v. Filburn was a truly disastrous case for the cause of federalism and liberty. It’s too bad that the court considers precedent so sanctified. There are some decisions that are simply wrong. I can’t imagine that the Founders would have ever conceived the clause being used as an excuse for a nationwide ban on high-octane hemp. Is this precedent the reason why we had to have a constitutional amendment to prohibit alcohol nationwide, but that now Congress can federally and enforceably ban natural substances by simply passing a law?

[Update at 10:50]

Justice O’Connor wrote the dissent:

Justice Sandra Day O