More than 44,000 people have signed a petition on the MoveOn.org sebsite calling for the Departmnet of Justice to arrest some House Republican leaders for their roles in the givernment shutdown and debt-ceiling debacle. As The Hill reports [6], the petition singles out Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House majority leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), as well as "other decision-making House Republican leaders," for the crime of "seditious conspiracy against the United States of America." While careful to point out that it does not "necessarily endorse the contents of petitions" we thought it ironic that more people successfully completed the petition to arrest the GOP for trying to abolish Obamacare than have successfully signed up for the new law.
Click image for petition
[7]
Via The Hill [6],
“The House GOP leadership's use of the Hastert Rule and H. Res 368 to shut down the government and threaten the U.S. economy with default is an attempt to extort the United States government into altering or abolishing the Affordable Care Act, and thus, is self-evidently a seditious conspiracy. Arrest the perpetrators in Congress immediately and bring them to justice,” the petition reads.
...Merely reaching the goal doesn’t guarantee the liberal advocacy group will circulate the petition to its email list, which includes the White House, Congress, governors and state legislators. According to its website, MoveOn asks its members directly which petitions should be circulated.
MoveOn says it does not “necessarily endorse the contents of petitions” posted on its site.
And some more explanatory thoughts on this farce from Andfrew McCarthy of The National Review [8],
...
The petitioners claim the GOP’s recent strategy, leading to a government shut down and “threaten[ing] the U.S. economy with default,” constitutes “an attempt to extort the United States government into altering or abolishing the Affordable Care Act.” That, they proclaim, “is self-evidently a seditious conspiracy”
...
I suppose I should break it to these newfangled patriots that seditious conspiracy is, in essence, about the use or planned use of force against the nation. In fact, Congress first codified the crime during the Civil War to address terrorist acts committed by confederate sympathizers. The Supreme Court explained in the 19th century that the law prohibits forcible aggression, and appellate courts have referred to it as the crime of “waging a war of urban terrorism” against our country.
The statute (Section 2384 of the federal penal code), which is very straightforward and easily accessible online, targets those who conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or levy war against them, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States[.]…
Although the statute’s title is “seditious conspiracy,” you’ll notice that the word “sedition” does not appear in the text that defines the offense. That owes to the unsavory legacy of the Alien and Sedition Acts – a fact the Left is quick to remind us about when the statute is used against its obviously intended targets, terrorists.