1

Treason is the only crime specifically mentioned in the US Constitution. Article III, Section 3:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Someone may try to argue that this letter was "aid and comfort" but it wasn't, not even close.

2 Absolutely.  The crazies do not like being told that.

3

The reason that clause is in the Constitution was that "treason" in most of Europe could be charged for cases where people criticized the nobility or tried to protest against them. That's still true in some places; in 2001 in Sweden four kids tried to hit the King in the face with a cream-cake. All four were convicted of treason.

Treason was commonly used as a way of getting rid of people who opposed the current party in power.

The American founders wanted to preserve the ability of free citizens to complain (see e.g. the First Amendment) and this clause in the Constitution was part of that. Treason is very narrowly defined, quite deliberately.

It isn't something that people are charge with very damned often. There were a couple of cases in the last fifteen years were it should have been used, but wasn't for various reasons.

Adam Gadahn has been indicted for treason, but we don't have him. He's probably in Afghanistan.

4 Also, Adam Gadahn is the first person to be indicted for treason in the US since WWII.

5 The post for which I got Reddit Gold was explaining just that point to someone suggesting that treason could relate to offences against the president as well as against the United States.  He took precisely the L'État, c'est moi line; I pointed out that the United States was founded on the principle of the hell you are.

The left seem to neither understand what the Constitution says, nor why, nor do they appear to care when they are the ones in power.

I also described those calling for the 47 senators to be arrested and charged with treason as fascists.  That did not go down well.

6 It's fair to point out that it is virtually impossible to try a sitting legislator for a crime that consists of making a statement. It's just about the perfect intersection of the first amendment, congressional immunity, and the political question doctrine.

(Could mention Rick Perry here - but the governor of Texas is bound rather more securely by the state constitution than the federal one, though the case against him is still trumped-up balderdash...)

It's a good thing to remind the president from time to time that he does not have the power to bind the nation on his word alone; only a treaty can do that, and for that he needs the Senate behind him. Obama wouldn't be the first one to go out on a branch and have Congress saw it off behind him. Woodrow Wilson could tell him all about it.

My brother, who fits into the political climate of Berkeley well enough, is of the opinion that Iran getting the bomb would be a good thing - that they're rational enough to realize that they'd be facing total annihilation if they were to use it, or if one were to get "lost" and used against a certain inconvenient Mediterranean country south of Lebanon, say. Yet he's 100% against making that an explicit point of doctrine - because it's okay to wipe out the entire nation for crossing a line but anathema to tell them where that line is in advance, apparently? Pointing out that sometimes nations make disastrously bad judgments of what's in their best interests (Hitler WW2, Stalin WW2) and/or of what the international community is prepared to tolerate (Saddam 1990) has yet to gain any traction in his mind.

7 I've been reading a lot of other things that could be considered against the Logan act. Apparently in 1984, a bunch of Democrats signed a nice friendly letter starting "Dear Commandante" to Noriega.  And John Kerry went down to have a chat with Daniel Ortega.

Not to mention all the field trips Jimmy Carter and Jesse Jackson have taken to hob-nob with enemy leaders.

That Memory hole must be getting pretty full.

8 And more recently, Nancy Pelosi's little trip to Syria in 2007.

9 In the runup to the Iraq war, a Congressman from Washington State went to Baghdad and visited Saddam.

10 Sounds like an interesting discussion to read. Which thread?

11 This one, in /r/news.

12 When I was in US public school, they spent time each year going over the history of the US, and the checks and balances designed into the Federal government. Based on my discussions with most young people these days, that sort of information just isn't taught in public schools anymore.

Considering the leftward tilt of the teachers union, I wonder if dropping that from the curriculum wasn't a deliberate act to aid their long-term political strategy.

13 I am genuinely delighted to glance at this blog posts which carries plenty of helpful facts, thanks for providing these kinds of statistics.