: re: Obama Is Pressed to Open Military Front Against ISIS in Libya

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 9:40 AM
Subject: re: Obama Is Pressed to Open Military Front Against ISIS in Libya
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

    In recent decades, the U.S. has given the Egyptian military over $100 billion in aid. In 2013, we even threw the Egyptians' elected president under the bus to keep that investment in hands of our choosing.  The day has come, a use has been found for our proxy force. Let el-Sisi take out the Islamists he so fears in Libya. Or let him explain where all that money has gone.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/world/africa/isis-libya-us-special-ops.html?_r=0

: re: Hillary Clinton’s Dutiful Slog

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 8:22 AM
Subject: re: Hillary Clinton’s Dutiful Slog
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

    Even as she lays claim president Obama's mantle, Hillary Clinton serves us a campaign that looks back, and not forward. In the mode of the first president Bush she urges us to "stay the course" unbothered by "that 'vision' thing".  But as this voter looks at that past, he sees that when she sat on WalMart's board of directors, she didn't change that companies predatory practices. And when she drove the national discourse on healthcare, nothing was accomplished. What did she accomplish as the senator from New York? Her years as secretary of state have been wholly eclipsed by John Kerry's record since then.
   Elections are about the future. For this voter, that requires a leader with a vision. That requires Bernie.
Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/opinion/campaign-stops/hillary-clintons-dutiful-slog.html

: re: New Technologies Give Government Ample Means to Track Suspects, Study Finds

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 9:02 AM
Subject: re: New Technologies Give Government Ample Means to Track Suspects, Study Finds
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

   

   an Internet-of-Things would be a boon

to spies who don't care for your privacy

by putting microphones in ev'ry room

they'd mock the notion of Land of the Free

if George III commanded such a tool

the Colonies would still by in his fist

no matter how unjust might be his rule

there'd be no way the People could resist

"Leviathan" taught us we need a State

to keep our baser passions well in hand

but still left room that we could legislate

some Civil Liberties throughout the Land

once SkyNet's integrated in our homes

our dreams of Liberty collapse like foam



Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/01/us/politics/new-technologies-give-government-ample-means-to-track-suspects-study-finds.html?_r=0

: re: Ex-Department of Justice Lawyer Faces Penalties in Leak of N.S.A. Program

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 6:41 PM
Subject: re: Ex-Department of Justice Lawyer Faces Penalties in Leak of N.S.A. Program
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

     The excesses of the Nixon White House provoked the Church Commission to lay bare a pattern of Executive infringements on the civil rights of Americans. The FISA statute of 1978 (as amended in '79) codified the privacy rights that could only be infringed by order of a court so that that should never happen again. In extremis, that could even be a post-facto warrant by the secret FISC.  What Thomas Tamm is accused of revealing is a pattern of criminal activity directed by the Attorney General of the United States (at least) in direct violation of this criminal statute. That revelation was then squelched by the White House for over a year, to be published only after the presidential election cycle.

    What we need Attorney General Loretta Lynch to prosecute are the warrantless wiretaps against American citizens and the cover-up of those crimes. Thomas Tamm is a whistle-blower to grave crimes. He deserves protection and plaudits.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/28/us/politics/ex-department-of-justice-lawyer-faces-penalties-in-leak-of-nsa-program.html

: re: Bernie Sanders’s Big Turnout Problem: He’s Reliant on Infrequent Voters

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 8:55 AM
Subject: re: Bernie Sanders’s Big Turnout Problem: He’s Reliant on Infrequent Voters
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

    A poll such as this article describes that discounts voters who didn't participate in the 2008 caucuses clips off every voter who will be between 18 and 25 yrs old in our coming presidential election, but who was ineligible two rounds ago. That's about 15% of the electorate,and it's a demographic that's overwhelmingly for Bernie Sanders. With such an omission, a reported edge of 9% for secretary Clinton can't be more than the margin of error.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/upshot/bernie-sanders-is-very-dependent-on-infrequent-voters.html

: re: How Change Happens

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 10:34 AM
Subject: re: How Change Happens
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:
     Professor Krugman astutely observes that Bernie Sanders claims the mantle of candidate Obama, while Hillary Clinton claims the mantle of president Obama. I would add to that that--to get president Obama--we had to vote for candidate Obama.

     The inherited machinery of government will always drag a new president towards policies that further entrench those who already have power. As Acemoglu and Robinson illustrated ("Why Nations Fail") for case after case over the last couple of millenia, that path leads ever downwards.

 Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/opinion/how-change-happens.html

: re: It May Be Time to Resolve the Meaning of ‘Natural Born’

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 10:00 AM
Subject: re: It May Be Time to Resolve the Meaning of ‘Natural Born’
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

    It has been established since Marbury v. Madison (1803) that the U.S. constitution means what our Supreme Court says it means. But in two centuries since it was mandated that a president must be a "natural born citizen" of the U.S., no federal court has ruled on what that means.  A strict originalist might lean on Blackstone to disallow anyone born outside the dominion of our union. A Shakespearean might disallow anyone born by caesarean section. If we are to live by the rule of law, it cannot be enough to enact law; we will need a court to tell us what that means.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/us/politics/it-may-be-time-to-resolve-the-meaning-of-natural-born.html