Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Obama Suffers From An Arrested Development Personality. Therefore, The Next Two Years For Israel Could Be Both Contentious and Increasingly Dangerous!



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Netanyahu begins Sunday to craft a government that he hopes will be stable. (See 1 below.)

Netanyahu has won and our JV president does not have the decency to call Netanyahu and congratulate him.  

You would expect an American president would demonstrate this act of decency considering Israel is one of our strongest and  most reliable allies.

However, in Obama's case it would be an act of contrition because he did everything he could to defeat 'Bib,i' whom Obama chose to make his anointed  'pinata' after G.W.

I am not a psychiatrist but Obama seems to suffer from an arrested development personality and over the remaining two years of his presidency there is no telling how dangerous the world will become.
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Dershowitz explains Obama is not CIC when it comes to Foreign Policy. (See 2 below.)
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I believe the next two years will be very contentious and  dangerous for Israel. Partly because Obama is going to lash out against Israel.  Maybe not visibly but more like under the radar in a stealth manner. He has skin thin and does not like being challenged.  He suffers from an arrested development personality. (Has it already begun with taking Hamas, Hezballah off the terrorist list and now Iran as part of a quid pro quo?)

Israel is one of our closest, strongest and most reliable ally yet our 'pissy fanny  JV president' has not picked up the phone to congratulate his nemesis : "Obama  won't call Netanyahu. Who did he force to make the congratulations call? "  Kerry was made to make the call!

Second, Iran will continue to arm and control proxy terrorist organizations that are slowly, but assuredly, surrounding Israel.

Finally, Iran will continue to pursue its nuclear ambitions and should it achieve its goal its ability to transfer these weapons enhances Iran's existential threat to Israel.

The ultimate threat Israel could face  from conventionally armed rockets, with improved range and greater accuracy, could force Netanyahu to respond in its own nuclear manner and then the Geni is truly out of the bottle.

For those who have not been to Israel its population is heavily concentrated and the nation is the size of Rhode Island. You could walk the narrowest width of Israel in three or four days.  (See 3 below.)
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It is now proxy time and every year the size of the proxy material I receive grows because of complexities forced by The SEC, tax laws and because of even greater complexities demanded in describing executive and director compensation.

I own a good bit of AT&T, and their 2014 proxy statement was 65 pages of which more than 45% was devoted to explaining the various compensation plans.

I have railed against the size of executive compensation for decades. Once corporations were no longer held to The Common Man Rule of Law, which was supplanted by statutory law, consultants were given the job of determining executive compensation and this began the myriad of ways to escalate pay.  Consultants are theoretically independent but their retention is tied to how nice they are to their employer(s) , ie.the executives to whom they dispense goodies.

The entire process has gone beyond sanity and/or justification.  Few executive are worth the tens of millions they receive each year, the parachutes that compensate them  for poor performance, and if stockholders believe they actually have a say they are dreaming.

Capitalism is something I believe in , made my living from and support but out sized compensation provides a strong platform for disagreement by those who oppose our economic system based on free markets, as successful as it has proven to be and the best man has devised.

Obama has used executive compensation as a wedge issue.  I seldom agree on anything this man stands for and/or does but on this issue I am somewhat sympathetic to his views but not using it as he has for political discord.
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Dick
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1)
President’s consultations with the elected parties, on the formation of the next government, to commence Sunday

President’s consultations with the elected parties, on the formation of the
next government, to commence Sunday
(Communicated by the President’s Spokesperson)

President Reuven Rivlin will, on Sunday (22 March, 2015), at the President’s
Residence, a series of consultations with the parties elected to serve in
the 20th Knesset. A letter was sent this evening to the parties, by the
Director General of the Office of the President, Harel Tubi, inviting the
representatives to the consultations - at the end of which the President
will award the task of forming the next government to one of the candidates.

The letter to the parties stated, “In accordance with Article 7 of Basic
Law: The Government, President Reuven Rivlin will hold a round of
consultations with representatives of the lists of candidates elected to the
new Knesset, and shortly thereafter will bestow the task of forming the
government upon one of the Members of Knesset. In coordination with Central
Elections Committee Chairman Justice Salim Joubran, it is the President’s
intention to open the round of consultations already at the beginning of
next week, out of an effort to conclude the process of establishing the new
government as early as possible – in order to ensure the citizens of Israel
have the assurance of a fully functioning government, in the face of the
present challenges which lie before the State of Israel.”

A full schedule and details of the media arrangements for the consultations
will be issued shortly
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2) President is not Commander in Chief of Foreign Policy



Politicians should stop referring to the President of the United States as "the Commander-in-Chief," as he is often referred to. Most recently, Hillary Clinton, whom I admire, said the following about Republican senators who wrote an open letter to Iran:

"Either these senators were trying to be helpful to the Iranians or harmful to the Commander-in-Chief in the midst of high-stakes international diplomacy."

But the president is not the Commander-in-Chief for purposes of diplomatic negotiations. This characterization mistakenly implies that President Obama — or any president — isour Commander, and that his decisions should receive special deference. This is a misreading of our constitution, which creates a presidency that is subject to the checks and balances of co-equal branches of the government. The president is only the commander in chief of "the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States." This provision was intended to assure civilian control over the military and to serve as a check on military power.


The only people he is empowered to command are soldiers, sailors and members of the militia — not ordinary citizens.

Image source: DVIDSHUB

This important limitation on the president's power is highly relevant to the current debate about Congress having the authority to check the president's decision to make the deal that is currently being negotiated with Iran. The Constitution is clear about this. The President is not the Commander-in-Chief of our nation's foreign policy. When he is involved in "high-stakes international diplomacy," his involvement is not as Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces, but rather as negotiator-in-chief, whose negotiations are subject to the checks and balances of the other branches.


As President, he cannot even declare war, though he can decide how a war should be fought after Congress declares it. He cannot make a treaty without the approval of 2/3 of the Senate. He cannot appoint Ambassadors without the consent of the Senate. And he cannot terminate sanctions that were imposed by Congress, without Congress changing the law. Were he the "Commander-in-Chief" of our country — as Putin is of Russia or as Ali Khamenei is of Iran — he could simply command that all of these things be done. But our Constitution separates the powers of government — the power to command — into three co-equal branches. The armed forces are different: power is vested in one commander-in-chief.


To be sure, when politicians call our president the "Commander-in-Chief," they are using that term rhetorically. But it is a dangerous rhetoric, because it suggests a concentration, rather than a division, of power. Military metaphors are as inappropriate in a democracy as is martial law, which does empower the executive to act as the commander of all people, but only in cases of extreme emergency.


So let's describe the president by his actual constitutional role: the head of the executive branch of our tripod government that stands on three equal legs. As the head of the executive branch, he gets to negotiate treaties, agreements and other bilateral and multilateral deals. But Congress has a say in whether to approve what the president has negotiated.


Turning to the deal with Iran over nuclear weapons, there are sharp disagreements between the executive branch and the legislative branch over the merits of what appears to be the deal now on the table. No agreement has yet been reached, but assume, for argument's sake, that the president negotiates a deal with which a majority of Congress fundamentally disagrees. Who gets the final word? That depends on several factors.


First, of course, is whether the deal negotiated by the president constitutes a "treaty", within the meaning of the constitution. If it does, then it requires the formal ratification of the Senate. The Obama administration has taken the position that this is merely an executive agreement and not a treaty. That of course is a knife that cuts both ways, because treaties are binding until formally revoked, whereas executive agreements can be undone by future presidents. The law is anything but clear as to what makes a bilateral or multilateral agreement a treaty, but this one has elements that are treaty-like in its content. So even if it does not formally meet the definition of a treaty, this agreement should require some form of approval by the legislative branch, particularly if it is to remain an enduring part of American foreign policy.


Another factor that impacts the role of Congress is whether the agreement requires Congress to remove existing sanctions that were put in place by congressional action. If it does, then the approval of Congress for the removal of such sanctions will be required. This deal would seem therefore to require congressional approval, since it includes the removal of congressional sanctions. The president, however, does have some sanctioning power and he can remove sanctions that he or past presidents have imposed.


These important issues will be debated over the next weeks and months, but what should not be debated is the role of the president in a democracy based on the separation of powers. So let's stop calling the head of our executive branch the "Commander-in-Chief," and let's stop creating the false impression that the president alone can make an enforceable and enduring deal with Iran regarding its nuclear weapons program.
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3)  Netanyahu’s Historic Win — and Obama’s Humiliating Loss



Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stunning victory yesterday — polls at the end of last week had people writing off his chances — means he will become only the second person to be elected prime minister for a third term (the other being Israel’s founder David Ben-Gurion). “King Bibi” has established himself as one of the dominant figures in the history of the modern state of Israel. Mr. Netanyahu is hardly a person without flaws. But for those of us who admire his toughness and moral clarity on world events — and who appreciate his obvious love for his nation and for ours — it was a splendid turn of events.
As for the current occupant of the White House, it was a disastrous one.
Barack Obama has an obsessive animosity when it comes to Prime Minister Netanyahu, which he has demonstrated time and again. So much so that Obama and his aides did everything they could to influence the Israeli election, from smearing Mr. Netanyahu — referring to him as a “coward” and a “chickens***” — to childishly elevating a difference over Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress into a foreign policy crisis to perhaps illegally funneling money to oust the sitting leader of Israel. We know that Jeremy Bird, who served as Obama’s deputy national campaign director in 2008 and his national campaign director in 2012, arrived in Israel in January to help unseat Mr. Netanyahu. This is all quite astonishing, even unprecedented. Benjamin Netanyahu may have won without the outside interference by Obama — but what Obama & Company did certainly helped.
I’m reminded of the self-inflicted “stunning setback” Mr. Obama suffered in 2009, when he and Mrs. Obama put their prestige on the line — they both flew to Copenhagen to make an appeal to the IOC — to get Chicago the 2016 Olympics. Chicago was eliminated on the first ballot. This time, the stakes were much higher and the damage done to Mr. Obama’s reputation far greater. .
There’s quite a pattern Mr. Obama has established in foreign policy during his presidency. He has failed in almost every instance, from his efforts at personal diplomacy to his policies. Remember the “new beginning” with the Arab and Muslim world? That claim now seems risible. Indeed, our relations with nation after nation — Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, the Czech Republic, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, China, Canada, Israel, India, Australia, Honduras, Brazil, Germany, and Great Britain, to name just a few — are worse now than they were when Mr. Obama was sworn in as president in 2009. As for Mr. Obama’s claim that al Qaeda was “decimated,” in congressional testimony recently, Mr. Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said that terrorism trend lines were worse “than at any other point in history.” And the terrorist group the president famously referred to as the “jayvee team” just last year is now the best-armed, best-funded terrorist group on earth, controlling “a volume of resources and territory unmatched in the history of extremist organizations.”
Mr. Obama’s clumsy and malicious mishandling of relations with Israel, then, is but one brick in a wall of failure and infamy. The fact that Benjamin Netanyahu emerged victorious in his confrontation with Barack Obama — a confrontation whose root cause can be traced to Obama’s hostility not just to Netanyahu but to Israel (a point I’ve elaborated on here) — is a heartening development in a world that is increasingly chaotic and violent.
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