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Why I am a Zionist by Ryan Bellerose (See 2 below.)
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Alinsky, schminsky - as long as you are good to your mother! (See 3 and 3a below.)
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Bloomberg lays down the law as to Passover caloric intake! (See 4 below.)
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More consumer protection crap from Elizabeth Warren, the Senator who is 1/4th Indian and 100% dangerous. (See 5 below.)
Meanwhile Georgia's Republicans are not peachy about Paul Broun. Kingston is my man to take Saxby's seat! (See 5a below.)
I attended a fascinating presentation yesterday by the husband of a friend. They both were engaged in marketing in their active careers and he has made a forceful presentation about why the Republican brand is self defeating.
He pointed out that many candidates with R in from of their name would be elected f they had a D instead.
Basically the R party is seen as one of old white 'farts.'
Two simple samples of how R's need to re-brand,, to make his point were a campaign sticker on the back of a Jeep was preferable to one on a Buick and R's need to picture/show faces of ethnically mixed youthful faces not that of Clint Eastwood.
.
R's have the product but the brand is not acceptable and until they re-brand no mater how superior the product they are prone to defeat!
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Happy Easter and Passover. Off to Winter Party and to see Dagny etc.
___
Dick
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1)America's Big Fat Advantage
By Victor Davis Hanson
For all the Obama-era talk of decline, there is at least one reason why America probably won't, at least not quite yet.
"Peak oil" and our "oil addiction" were supposed to have ensured that we ran out of either gas or the money to buy it. Now, suddenly, we have more gas and oil than ever before. But the key question is: Why do we?
The oil and gas renaissance was brought on by horizontal drilling and fracking that opened up vast new reserves either previously unknown or considered unrecoverable. Both technological breakthroughs were American discoveries, largely brought on by entrepreneurial mavericks and engineers exploring on mostly private lands. Couldn't the Saudi, Venezuelan or Nigerian oil industry have discovered these new methods of resource recovery, given their nations' reliance on petroleum exportation?
The world now wakes up to iPhone communication, Amazon online buying, social networking on Facebook, Google Internet searches, and writing and computing with Microsoft software. Why weren't these innovations first developed in Japan, China or Germany -- all wealthy industrial countries with large, well-educated and hard-working populations? Because in such nations, young oddballs like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs more likely would have needed the proper parentage, age, family connections or government-insider sanction to be given a fair shake.
Even in its third century, America is still the most meritocratic nation in the world. Unlike the caste system of India; the class considerations of Europe; the racial homogeneity of China, Japan or Korea; the tribalism of Africa; or the religious orthodoxy of the Middle East, America is still a place where one can offer a new idea, invention or protocol that is judged on its merits, rather than on the background, accent, race, age, gender or religion of the person who offers it.
Businesses evaluate proposals on the basis of what makes them lots of money. Publishers want writing that a lot of people will read. Popular culture is simply a reflection of what the majority seems to want. In the long run, that bottom line leads to national wealth and power.
If history is a guide, the savviest Chinese citizen of Japanese descent would not make it as a high official in Beijing's Communist Party -- no more so than a brilliant Japanese citizen of Chinese descent would run Toyota or Honda. A white Croatian of enormous talent could not end up as president of Sudan.
Mexico has a word, raza, that conflates race and nationality, in the way that the German word volk used to suggest not just being German, but looking German as well. I doubt that either country would ever elect a black head of state.
It would be virtually impossible for the most talented Christian or Jew to be allowed to head contemporary Egypt, or for a brilliant four-star Buddhist general to run the Iranian military. For the immediate future, don't expect a female business-school valedictorian to manage Saudi Arabia's national oil company. Note that in all these cases, such exclusions derive from criteria other than innate talent, character and industriousness, and can result in the lesser qualified being considered the only qualified.
The mixture of consumer capitalism and constitutionally protected free speech -- and all sorts of races, religions and ethnicities -- sometimes means that America can be a wild place with a popular culture that appears crass and uncouth to those abroad. Our generation's $17 trillion national debt, unfunded entitlements and nearly 50 million people on food stamps might convince the Founding Fathers that they had spawned license rather than guaranteed liberty.
Yet the upside to the wild arena of America is that almost anyone is free to enter it. Oprah Winfrey, an African-American woman, reinvents the genre of daytime talk shows and builds a media empire. Warren Buffet outpaces New York's Wall Street -- from Nebraska. A one-time five-and-dime owner from Arkansas, Sam Walton, refashions the way an entire planet buys its stuff. A Russian mig, Sergey Brin, co-founds Google, perhaps the most indispensable site on the Internet.
Just when we read obituaries about an unruly nation of excess, unlikely nobodies pop up to pioneer fracking, the Napa wine industry or Silicon Valley. Why? No other nation has a Constitution whose natural evolution would lead to a free, merit-based society that did not necessarily look like the privileged -- and brilliant -- landed white male aristocracy who invented it.
The end of American exceptionalism will come not when we run out of gas, wheat or computers, but when we end the freedom of the individual, and, whether for evil or supposedly noble reasons, judge people not on their achievement but on their name, class, race, sex or religion -- in other words, when we become like most places the world over.
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2)A Native and a Zionist
By Ryan Bellerose
I am a Métis from Northern Alberta. My father, Mervin Bellerose, co-authored the Métis Settlements Act of 1989, which was passed by the Alberta legislature in 1990 and cemented our land rights. I founded Canadians For Accountability, a native rights advocacy group, and I am an organizer and participant in the Idle No More movement in Calgary. And I am a Zionist.
Let me tell you why.
I grew up on a Métis colony in what many would say are rough conditions: we had no electricity, running water or telephone. When it rained, the dirt roads that linked us to the highways flooded and we were stranded. I lived in a bunkhouse with my two stepbrothers, while my father and stepmother lived in a small cabin nearby. We raised a garden, hunted and fished, picked berries and made the odd trip to town to buy supplies. My father worked construction and lived in camps for long stretches and I would often stay at relatives’ to escape my stepmother’s abuse. Still, I considered my childhood normal.
My interest in Israel started at a young age. My father gave me a set of Encyclopedia Britannica for my 5th birthday and, from there, a passion for history was born. I would sit and read whenever the weather was bad. In fact, it was a family joke that taking away my books for a few hours was a better way to discipline me than a spanking. One entry that caught my eye was that of Israel’s birth in 1948. It struck me as the ultimate David and Goliath story: Israel, a tiny country that had fought for independence from the British Empire, was forced from its first moments to defend its existence against the combined armies of the Arab world. Israel survived against all odds, and did so in a truly epic story of will and heroism. This story inspired me.
Growing up, I was a very small child. (I am called “Tiny Ryney” to this day, though I play defensive tackle for the Calgary Wolfpack). I was called a “half-breed” and other slurs by white kids while the children in my colony made fun of my paler skin. I didn’t belong anywhere. And I had to be resourceful to protect myself, since I was weaker than the others. Being the victim of bullying shaped who I am and my sense of right and wrong. It is one reason that I support Israel, a country that has faced bullying and manipulation since its birth. Israel too has had to be resourceful to defend itself against enemies that dwarf it. And, like me, it overcame.
Noticing my curiosity about Israel, my father bought me as a birthday gift a book about the 1976 Raid on Entebbe, a brilliant rescue by Israeli commandos of hostages taken by Palestinian terrorists to Uganda. Again, this impressed me. Israel was willing to do the impossible to rescue its people, regardless of the political fallout. This pushed me to read more about the Arab-Israeli conflict. In so doing, I learned about the ’72 Munich Olympic Games, where Palestinian terrorists massacred 11 Israeli athletes during an event meant to be a celebration of brotherhood and peace. I wondered why more people weren’t as upset as I was.
It was during this time, while visiting relatives working oil rigs, that I learned while watching a hotel TV of the horrific 1972 Lod Airport massacre where terrorists shot dead 26 civilians waiting for their flights, including 17 Christian pilgrims. I also remember the 1985 attack by Yasser Arafat’s forces on the Achille Lauro cruise ship, where an old disabled man was thrown overboard in his wheelchair for the crime of being a Jew. The more I saw, the more I needed to understand why such things were happening. The more I learned, the more I grew to appreciate Israel’s moral integrity in the face of brutal hatred. And I came to believe that the Jewish people and Israel should serve as an example to indigenous people everywhere. It is with the Jews – and their stubborn survival after being decimated and dispersed by powerful empires — that we have the most in common.
My people, the Métis, came to Alberta after the American Revolution, at the government’s request, to prevent the settling of the Americans in western Canada. We settled the land and followed the white man’s rules. But we were eventually evicted, our homes given to white pioneers. No one wanted us. We were forced to live in hiding, on road allowances, in the bush. We had no rights, and we were killed out of hand, as “nuisances”. Exile fractured our nation. Our people wandered with no hope and no home. Then, in the mid 1900′s, our leaders managed to secure land for us, not the land we had wanted but land that would nonetheless allow us to build a better future. We took it, built our settlements and formed a government to improve the lives of our people. We still have many problems to solve, of course, but we also have more educated people than ever and are slowly becoming self-sufficient, as our leaders envisioned. In this, the Jewish people and the Métis have walked the same road.
The Jews also suffered genocide and were expelled from their homeland. They were also rejected by everyone and forced to wander. Like us, they rebelled against imperial injustice when necessary and, despite their grievances, strived for peace whenever possible. Like us they were given a tiny sliver of their land back after centuries of suffering and persecution, land that nobody else had wanted to call home until then. Like us, they took that land despite their misgivings and forged a nation from a fractured and wounded people. And like us, they consistently show a willingness to compromise for the good of their people.
I hope the Metis keep walking the same road as the Jewish people. Through their efforts, the Jews were able to preserve their identity despite terrible persecution and to revive their culture and language once back in their homeland. They never lost their sense of who they were, but neither did they lose sight of the importance of looking forward. Given their history, it would have been natural for them to become insular and reactionary. But instead, they work hard to be productive and are friendly even to countries that have caused them tremendous suffering. I want us to similarly make education and the preservation of our ancient culture a priority. I want us to continue to strive for peace and productivity.
Many claim that we Natives have more in common with the Palestinians, that their struggle is our struggle. Beyond superficial similarities, nothing could be farther from the truth. Beyond the facile co-opting of our cause, the comparison with the Palestinians is absolutely untenable. It trivializes our suffering.
Co-opting today’s native struggle to the Palestinian propaganda war is a fallacy. Though the Palestinians have undeniable ties to the land, first hand accounts by Mark Twain and countless other travelers to the Holy Land through the ages suggest that a large percentage of the Palestinian people immigrated to Palestine in recent decades. And for 65 years, the Palestinians have convinced the world that they are worse off than many other stateless nations, despite all evidence to the contrary. The Palestinians claim to have been colonized but it was their own leaders who refused to negotiate and who lost the land that they want by waging a needless war on Israel. They claim to have faced genocide but they suffered no such thing: their population has exploded from a few hundred thousand in 1948 to over 4 million today. They claim deprivation but their elites live in luxury while their people live in ramshackle poverty.
What’s more, the Palestinian leaders have never been interested in a peaceful solution for their people. They were given several opportunities to have their own state – for the first time in history — and refused each time, choosing war over peace because the offers were never deemed sufficient. They have persistently used terrorism to bring attention to their cause and their leaders have celebrated the killing of civilians by naming parks and schools after murderers. And any Palestinian that questions the maximalist rhetoric or who suggests real compromise is immediately ostracized, branded a traitor, or killed.
The Palestinians are not like us. Their fight is not our fight. We natives believe in bringing about change peacefully, and we refuse to be affiliated with anyone who engages in violence targeting civilians. I cannot remain silent and allow the Palestinians to gain credibility at our expense by claiming commonality with us. I cannot stand by while they trivialize our plight by tying it to theirs, which is largely self-inflicted. Our population of over 65 million was violently reduced to a mere 10 million, a slaughter unprecedented in human history. To compare that in whatever way to the Palestinians’ story is deeply offensive to me. The Palestinians did lose the land they claim is theirs, but they were repeatedly given the opportunity to build their state on it and to partner with the Jews — and they persistently refused peace overtures and chose war. We were never given that chance. We never made that choice.
I am a Métis from Northern Alberta. My father, Mervin Bellerose, co-authored the Métis Settlements Act of 1989, which was passed by the Alberta legislature in 1990 and cemented our land rights. I founded Canadians For Accountability, a native rights advocacy group, and I am an organizer and participant in the Idle No More movement in Calgary. And I am a Zionist.
Let me tell you why.
I grew up on a Métis colony in what many would say are rough conditions: we had no electricity, running water or telephone. When it rained, the dirt roads that linked us to the highways flooded and we were stranded. I lived in a bunkhouse with my two stepbrothers, while my father and stepmother lived in a small cabin nearby. We raised a garden, hunted and fished, picked berries and made the odd trip to town to buy supplies. My father worked construction and lived in camps for long stretches and I would often stay at relatives’ to escape my stepmother’s abuse. Still, I considered my childhood normal.
My interest in Israel started at a young age. My father gave me a set of Encyclopedia Britannica for my 5th birthday and, from there, a passion for history was born. I would sit and read whenever the weather was bad. In fact, it was a family joke that taking away my books for a few hours was a better way to discipline me than a spanking. One entry that caught my eye was that of Israel’s birth in 1948. It struck me as the ultimate David and Goliath story: Israel, a tiny country that had fought for independence from the British Empire, was forced from its first moments to defend its existence against the combined armies of the Arab world. Israel survived against all odds, and did so in a truly epic story of will and heroism. This story inspired me.
Growing up, I was a very small child. (I am called “Tiny Ryney” to this day, though I play defensive tackle for the Calgary Wolfpack). I was called a “half-breed” and other slurs by white kids while the children in my colony made fun of my paler skin. I didn’t belong anywhere. And I had to be resourceful to protect myself, since I was weaker than the others. Being the victim of bullying shaped who I am and my sense of right and wrong. It is one reason that I support Israel, a country that has faced bullying and manipulation since its birth. Israel too has had to be resourceful to defend itself against enemies that dwarf it. And, like me, it overcame.
Noticing my curiosity about Israel, my father bought me as a birthday gift a book about the 1976 Raid on Entebbe, a brilliant rescue by Israeli commandos of hostages taken by Palestinian terrorists to Uganda. Again, this impressed me. Israel was willing to do the impossible to rescue its people, regardless of the political fallout. This pushed me to read more about the Arab-Israeli conflict. In so doing, I learned about the ’72 Munich Olympic Games, where Palestinian terrorists massacred 11 Israeli athletes during an event meant to be a celebration of brotherhood and peace. I wondered why more people weren’t as upset as I was.
It was during this time, while visiting relatives working oil rigs, that I learned while watching a hotel TV of the horrific 1972 Lod Airport massacre where terrorists shot dead 26 civilians waiting for their flights, including 17 Christian pilgrims. I also remember the 1985 attack by Yasser Arafat’s forces on the Achille Lauro cruise ship, where an old disabled man was thrown overboard in his wheelchair for the crime of being a Jew. The more I saw, the more I needed to understand why such things were happening. The more I learned, the more I grew to appreciate Israel’s moral integrity in the face of brutal hatred. And I came to believe that the Jewish people and Israel should serve as an example to indigenous people everywhere. It is with the Jews – and their stubborn survival after being decimated and dispersed by powerful empires — that we have the most in common.
My people, the Métis, came to Alberta after the American Revolution, at the government’s request, to prevent the settling of the Americans in western Canada. We settled the land and followed the white man’s rules. But we were eventually evicted, our homes given to white pioneers. No one wanted us. We were forced to live in hiding, on road allowances, in the bush. We had no rights, and we were killed out of hand, as “nuisances”. Exile fractured our nation. Our people wandered with no hope and no home. Then, in the mid 1900′s, our leaders managed to secure land for us, not the land we had wanted but land that would nonetheless allow us to build a better future. We took it, built our settlements and formed a government to improve the lives of our people. We still have many problems to solve, of course, but we also have more educated people than ever and are slowly becoming self-sufficient, as our leaders envisioned. In this, the Jewish people and the Métis have walked the same road.
The Jews also suffered genocide and were expelled from their homeland. They were also rejected by everyone and forced to wander. Like us, they rebelled against imperial injustice when necessary and, despite their grievances, strived for peace whenever possible. Like us they were given a tiny sliver of their land back after centuries of suffering and persecution, land that nobody else had wanted to call home until then. Like us, they took that land despite their misgivings and forged a nation from a fractured and wounded people. And like us, they consistently show a willingness to compromise for the good of their people.
I hope the Metis keep walking the same road as the Jewish people. Through their efforts, the Jews were able to preserve their identity despite terrible persecution and to revive their culture and language once back in their homeland. They never lost their sense of who they were, but neither did they lose sight of the importance of looking forward. Given their history, it would have been natural for them to become insular and reactionary. But instead, they work hard to be productive and are friendly even to countries that have caused them tremendous suffering. I want us to similarly make education and the preservation of our ancient culture a priority. I want us to continue to strive for peace and productivity.
Many claim that we Natives have more in common with the Palestinians, that their struggle is our struggle. Beyond superficial similarities, nothing could be farther from the truth. Beyond the facile co-opting of our cause, the comparison with the Palestinians is absolutely untenable. It trivializes our suffering.
Co-opting today’s native struggle to the Palestinian propaganda war is a fallacy. Though the Palestinians have undeniable ties to the land, first hand accounts by Mark Twain and countless other travelers to the Holy Land through the ages suggest that a large percentage of the Palestinian people immigrated to Palestine in recent decades. And for 65 years, the Palestinians have convinced the world that they are worse off than many other stateless nations, despite all evidence to the contrary. The Palestinians claim to have been colonized but it was their own leaders who refused to negotiate and who lost the land that they want by waging a needless war on Israel. They claim to have faced genocide but they suffered no such thing: their population has exploded from a few hundred thousand in 1948 to over 4 million today. They claim deprivation but their elites live in luxury while their people live in ramshackle poverty.
What’s more, the Palestinian leaders have never been interested in a peaceful solution for their people. They were given several opportunities to have their own state – for the first time in history — and refused each time, choosing war over peace because the offers were never deemed sufficient. They have persistently used terrorism to bring attention to their cause and their leaders have celebrated the killing of civilians by naming parks and schools after murderers. And any Palestinian that questions the maximalist rhetoric or who suggests real compromise is immediately ostracized, branded a traitor, or killed.
The Palestinians are not like us. Their fight is not our fight. We natives believe in bringing about change peacefully, and we refuse to be affiliated with anyone who engages in violence targeting civilians. I cannot remain silent and allow the Palestinians to gain credibility at our expense by claiming commonality with us. I cannot stand by while they trivialize our plight by tying it to theirs, which is largely self-inflicted. Our population of over 65 million was violently reduced to a mere 10 million, a slaughter unprecedented in human history. To compare that in whatever way to the Palestinians’ story is deeply offensive to me. The Palestinians did lose the land they claim is theirs, but they were repeatedly given the opportunity to build their state on it and to partner with the Jews — and they persistently refused peace overtures and chose war. We were never given that chance. We never made that choice.
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3)Obama quotes Alinsky in speech to young Israelis
NEW YORK —Following his recent ban on soda containers over 16 ounces, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that he now intends to place similar limits on wine and matzo consumption at Passover seders.
“Everyone knows that Jews struggle with obesity,” the mayor declared at a news conference yesterday at Gracie Mansion , “so why aggravate the problem by drinking four whole cups of wine and eating three large sheets of matzo at a single meal?”
Noting that the Passover foods are a Jewish tradition dating back thousands of years, the mayor said, “That may be so, but look at the health problems they create. You eat all that unleavened bread, and your system is bound to get backed up. It’s no wonder Moses was pleading, ‘Let my people go.’”
Bloomberg added, “No one needs that much wine at a meal, either. And, shamefully, the biggest offender is a Jewish icon—the prophet Elijah. On seder night, he goes from house to house drinking. Who does he think he is, some frat boy?”
In a surprising display of erudition in Jewish law, the mayor said he was familiar with, and opposed to, the adherence to the strictest requirements encouraged by some Torah sages.
“If you intend to adhere to the shiurim of the Chazzon Ish, or even Rabbi Moses Feinstein, take your Seder out of the City,” said a defiant Bloomberg.
He outlined his restrictions as follows:
For the drinking of the four cups – “3.3. oz. will be the maximum permitted under New York City law. You may think 5.3 ounces is a saintly amount to drink for each of your 4 cups, but it is overly burdensome on the NYPD when they have to haul your machmir tuchus off to detox.
For the Eating of Matzoh – “No more than the size of 1/3 of an egg, measured by weight and not volume. You will be subject to citation or arrest if you feel the need to stuff half of a ‘Talmudic’ egg in your mouth and choking on your high halachic standards.”
The Mayor then left the press conference angrily, turning only to add, “Next year in Jerusalem . IF you can fit on the plane!”
Several Jewish organizations have already filed lawsuits in Brooklyn courts, claiming that the mayor’s new proposal infringes upon their religious rights. Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwieback, legal counsel for Agooda Israel and author of the book When Abbada Things Happen to Agooda People, said, “Instead of downsizing seder foods, the mayor should be increasing them, like donating his nuts to make more charoses
Elizabeth Warren was slated to be the first head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Senate Republicans stopped her confirmation, so now she is leading the charge to confirm Richard Cordray to that office.
But nobody should be the head of this monstrous Dodd-Frankenstein by-product. The structure and powers of the CFPB, as created by Congress, put it outside our constitutional system. Most significantly, Congress allotted the bureau an independent source of revenue, guaranteed its insulation from legislative or executive oversight, and gave it the power to define and punish “abusive” practices.
In years past, the Supreme Court has tried to impose some limits on such reckless delegations of authority. Congress’s initial response to the Great Depression was to enact the National Industrial Recovery Act. The NIRA allowed industries to adopt “codes of fair competition,” and the government could impose fines on firms and imprison individuals who produced more or charged less than the codes provided. In most cases, the president allowed business leaders to write their own codes.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court prevented this effort, which appeared to establish nothing less than an American-style dirigiste or fascist political economy, and struck down the code for the petroleum industry. In 1934, the United States was the world’s largest producer and exporter of oil, and was producing so much that prices were ruinously low. Section 9(c) of the NIRA, known as the “hot oil” provision, allowed the president to prohibit the interstate shipment of oil that had been produced in excess of state production quotas. The Panama Refining Company was prosecuted for violating this “hot oil” code — though, notably, the oilmen who wrote their own code of fair competition had neglected to include Section 9(c). The company therefore sued to prohibit enforcement of 9(c). Technically, because the petroleum code did not include 9(c), the Court did not rule on the NIRA codes overall. Instead, in January 1935, the Court held that 9(c) itself was an unconstitutional delegation — from Congress to the president — but not yet that it was an unconstitutional delegation from the president to a private interest group (that came in Schechter). Thus the Court upheld the principle of non-delegation.
Non-delegation derives from two of the most fundamental constitutional principles: the separation of powers and popular sovereignty. As John Locke put it, “the legislative [body] cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands: for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others.” In this vein, Article I of the Constitution states, “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States” — the powers that Congress has (and they are limited) cannot be delegated to others. The omission of Section 9(c) in the code by which the Panama Refining Company was being prosecuted illustrated the related principle that the legislature must act, as Locke said, by “standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees.” In other words, it’s unconstitutional to prosecute a company for a law — in this case, Section 9(c) — that’s not on the books.
With this decision in 1935, the Court for the first time held that Congress had exceeded its power to delegate. The Court concluded: “Section 9(c) does not state whether or in what circumstances or under what conditions the President is to prohibit the transportation of petroleum . . . in excess of the state’s permission.” Though it did not precisely define the boundary between legitimate and illegitimate delegation, the Court held that this act was over the line. “The Congress manifestly is not permitted to abdicate or to transfer to others the essential legislative functions with which it is thus vested,” Chief Justice Hughes concluded. He noted that every time the Court had upheld delegations, it had done so while recognizing “that there are limits of delegation which there is no constitutional authority to transcend,” and he pointed out that most previously upheld delegations had to do with foreign relations.
Eight justices — from the extremely conservative to the ardently liberal — agreed. Only Justice Cardozo dissented; stressing the economic emergency, he chided the majority for turning the separation of powers into “a doctrinaire concept to be made use of with pedantic rigor.”
Five months later, the Court unanimously invalidated the entire NIRA. As with the “hot oil” provision, the entire act unconstitutionally delegated legislative powers to the president, who in turn delegated them to private interest groups. “Such a delegation of legislative power is unknown to our law and is utterly inconsistent with the constitutional prerogatives and duties of Congress,” Hughes wrote. “[The act] supplies no standards for any trade, industry or activity. . . . Instead of prescribing rules of conduct, it authorizes the making of codes to prescribe them.” Even Justice Cardozo concurred in this case, calling the act an instance of “delegation running riot,” and one that threatened “an end to our federal system.”
FDR responded by threatening to “pack” the Supreme Court with six additional seats. Two months later, the Court did a dramatic about-face and upheld the Wagner Act, which nearly everyone — including many congressmen who voted for it — expected it to strike down.
The Court has never since invalidated legislation using the non-delegation principle. But no legislation since the NIRA has delegated as wantonly as Dodd-Frank does. It would be a good time for the Court to revive the non-delegation doctrine. But it would be even better if Congress controlled itself.
3)Obama quotes Alinsky in speech to young Israelis
In his address in Jerusalem today, President Obama channeled Saul Alinsky, citing the radical community organizer’s defining mantra as he urged young Israelis to “create change” to nudge their leadership to act.
Obama told a crowd of college students at Jerusalem’s main convention center that Israel “has the wisdom to see the world as it is, but also the courage to see the world as it should be.”
One of Alinsky’s major themes was working with the world as it “is” to turn it into the world as “it should be.”
In his defining work, “Rules for Radicals,” which he dedicated to “the first rebel,” Lucifer, Alinsky used those words to lay out his main agenda. He asserted radical change must be brought about by working within a system instead of attacking it from the outside.
“It is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be. That means working in the system,” wrote Alinsky.
3a)A new Bibi-Barack era? No
3a)A new Bibi-Barack era? No
Jokes, warm rhetoric and good body language shouldn’t obscure that the differences between Obama and Netanyahu are as stark as ever on Iran and the Palestinians
The repartee has been truly slick at times. Take this one-two at the beginning of President Barack Obama’s remarks during his joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Wednesday night.
Obama: “It was wonderful to see (your two sons)… I did inform the prime minister that they are very good-looking young men who clearly got their looks from their mother.”
Netanyahu, instantly: “Well, I can say the same of your daughters.”
Obama: “This is true. Our goal is to improve our gene pool by marrying women who are better than we are.”
A stand-up comic would have been proud of Netanyahu’s rapid response. And Obama’s follow-up was nicely worded to put the two leaders in the same category — both married to better halves.
They’ve joked together, stripped out of their suit jackets together, walked arm-in-arm, called each other the familiar “Barack” and “Bibi.”
They’ve also sought to assert that they largely see eye-to-eye on the key issues they’ve been discussing: Iran, Syria, the Palestinians.
But, Syria possibly excepted, they just don’t. And if you look closely at their comments so far on this first Obama presidential visit, including at that so-friendly press conference, that’s unmistakable.
On Iran, Obama may have legitimately asserted that “there is not a lot of light, a lot of daylight, between our countries’ assessments in terms of where Iran is right now.” But that’s not exactly the point. The real issue is not the assessments of Iran’s progress, but whether there’s any light between the two countries’ approaches to grappling with theconsequences of those shared assessments — to stopping Iran.
And on that, the gulf was glaring. Obama said he was here “to understand how the Israeli government and the prime minister is approaching this [Iranian] problem to make sure that there are no misunderstandings there.” Misunderstandings, presumably not. Differences, absolutely.
Obama made clear, again, that “we prefer to resolve this diplomatically, and there’s still time to do so,” that he’ll stop Iran one way or another if that fails, and that he has Israel’s back. As in: Don’t worry, and certainly don’t fire. I’ll take care of Iran. You don’t need to. I can stop them for the long-term. You can’t.
But Netanyahu’s response was a far from dutiful okay, yes, all yours. “You have made it clear that you are determined to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. I appreciate your forthright position on this point,” was all he could manage. “Appreciate.” An interesting, carefully selected choice of word, invoked in Netanyahu’s prepared remarks, rather than off-the-cuff in answer to a question. Shimon Peres said earlier Wednesday that he trusts Obama to handle Iran. Netanyahu, most notably, didn’t. Because he doesn’t.
Instead, Netanyahu highlighted, at the airport and again at the press conference, his gratitude to Obama for restating Israel’s right to defend itself as it sees fit — with the implication that Israel might indeed have to defend itself as it sees fit.
Netanyahu reiterated in Jerusalem his belief that “in order to stop Iran’s nuclear programs peacefully, diplomacy and sanctions must be augmented by a clear and credible threat of military action.” In his view, Obama keeps on failing to make that “clear and credible threat.” And Iran therefore merrily continues its enrichment of uranium — shortening the period it would need to break out to the bomb. So, with all due respect to the president, it might yet fall to Israel to intervene, no matter how insistent and friendly those assurances from the US. “I know that you appreciate that Israel can never cede the right to defend ourselves to others, even to the greatest of our friends,” he told Obama, in precisely the same language he’s been using for more than a year.
No daylight? Don’t believe it.
Similarly, on the Palestinian front, there’s clearly been no reconciling of the two leaders’ fundamentally divergent mindsets. Netanyahu proved willing to declare his support for “two states for two peoples,” but his misgivings about Mahmoud Abbas have not been alleviated, and he remains convinced that the Palestinian leadership is neither willing nor able to agree to a permanent accord on terms Israel can live with.
Again, while Peres flatly declared Abbas a partner, Netanyahu — whohas called the PA president that in the past, at the State Department in September 2010 — notably refrained from doing likewise.
Obama, by contrast, thinks the Palestinians deserve and are more than ready for a state — “an independent and sovereign state” to end the indignities of occupation, he made clear in his press conference with Abbas — and that this would benefit Israel. In a move toward Netanyahu’s position, he said in Ramallah that preconditions mustn’t be allowed to prevent progress. In complete contrast to Netanyahu’s assessment of what’s possible, he spoke of the path to a viable “broad-based agreement.”
He considers Israel’s settlement activity a counterproductive “challenge” to be overcome. It’s not “appropriate” or “constructive,” he said in Ramallah.
“Israel has a profound interest in a strong and effective Palestinian Authority,” Obama also asserted in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu doesn’t see things that way. He’s just put together a coalition with a strong pro-settlement component, and chosen to place strong settlement activists in key positions — at the Housing Ministry, the Knesset Finance Committee, even the Foreign Ministry.
He’s also the prime minister who has intermittently withheld tax revenues from the PA — undermining its financial well-being — and declaredly punished Abbas by threatening new building in the West Bank E1 corridor between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim after the PA head played his UN General Assembly card last November.
On the Palestinian issue, Obama said in Jerusalem that he’d come here “to spend some time listening before I talked — which my mother always taught me was a good idea.” He added that he’d consider his visit a success if, “when I go back on Friday, I’m able to say to myself I have a better understanding of what the constraints are, what the interests of the various parties are, and how the United States can play a constructive role in bringing about a lasting peace and two states living side by side in peace and security.”
As in, I’m not going to let things fester. I believe Israel and the Palestinians both need to move forward. And my top diplomat, Secretary of State John Kerry, will be getting to work on precisely that.
Conflicting approaches on Iran, conflicting assessments on the Palestinians. That’s the unwavering substance beneath the smiles.
Obama is genuinely engaged on a goodwill trip; it’s truly a mission of solidarity with Israel. But he still thinks the prime minister of this vibrant, innovative, admirable Israel is wrong-headed and inclined to follow counter-productive policies. And Netanyahu still thinks this charismatic, quick-witted leader of Israel’s essential ally doesn’t get our region, hasn’t internalized its ruthlessness.
And that’s going to severely test the impression of friendship and partnership the two leaders have worked so hard, and with no little success, to project during this visit.
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4)Bloomberg Limits Seder Portion
NEW YORK —Following his recent ban on soda containers over 16 ounces, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that he now intends to place similar limits on wine and matzo consumption at Passover seders.
“Everyone knows that Jews struggle with obesity,” the mayor declared at a news conference yesterday at Gracie Mansion , “so why aggravate the problem by drinking four whole cups of wine and eating three large sheets of matzo at a single meal?”
Noting that the Passover foods are a Jewish tradition dating back thousands of years, the mayor said, “That may be so, but look at the health problems they create. You eat all that unleavened bread, and your system is bound to get backed up. It’s no wonder Moses was pleading, ‘Let my people go.’”
Bloomberg added, “No one needs that much wine at a meal, either. And, shamefully, the biggest offender is a Jewish icon—the prophet Elijah. On seder night, he goes from house to house drinking. Who does he think he is, some frat boy?”
In a surprising display of erudition in Jewish law, the mayor said he was familiar with, and opposed to, the adherence to the strictest requirements encouraged by some Torah sages.
“If you intend to adhere to the shiurim of the Chazzon Ish, or even Rabbi Moses Feinstein, take your Seder out of the City,” said a defiant Bloomberg.
He outlined his restrictions as follows:
For the drinking of the four cups – “3.3. oz. will be the maximum permitted under New York City law. You may think 5.3 ounces is a saintly amount to drink for each of your 4 cups, but it is overly burdensome on the NYPD when they have to haul your machmir tuchus off to detox.
For the Eating of Matzoh – “No more than the size of 1/3 of an egg, measured by weight and not volume. You will be subject to citation or arrest if you feel the need to stuff half of a ‘Talmudic’ egg in your mouth and choking on your high halachic standards.”
The Mayor then left the press conference angrily, turning only to add, “Next year in Jerusalem . IF you can fit on the plane!”
Several Jewish organizations have already filed lawsuits in Brooklyn courts, claiming that the mayor’s new proposal infringes upon their religious rights. Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwieback, legal counsel for Agooda Israel and author of the book When Abbada Things Happen to Agooda People, said, “Instead of downsizing seder foods, the mayor should be increasing them, like donating his nuts to make more charoses
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5)Reining In the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau"
By Paul Moreno
Congress cannot delegate its legislative powers to others, including the CFPB.
Elizabeth Warren was slated to be the first head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Senate Republicans stopped her confirmation, so now she is leading the charge to confirm Richard Cordray to that office.
But nobody should be the head of this monstrous Dodd-Frankenstein by-product. The structure and powers of the CFPB, as created by Congress, put it outside our constitutional system. Most significantly, Congress allotted the bureau an independent source of revenue, guaranteed its insulation from legislative or executive oversight, and gave it the power to define and punish “abusive” practices.
In years past, the Supreme Court has tried to impose some limits on such reckless delegations of authority. Congress’s initial response to the Great Depression was to enact the National Industrial Recovery Act. The NIRA allowed industries to adopt “codes of fair competition,” and the government could impose fines on firms and imprison individuals who produced more or charged less than the codes provided. In most cases, the president allowed business leaders to write their own codes.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court prevented this effort, which appeared to establish nothing less than an American-style dirigiste or fascist political economy, and struck down the code for the petroleum industry. In 1934, the United States was the world’s largest producer and exporter of oil, and was producing so much that prices were ruinously low. Section 9(c) of the NIRA, known as the “hot oil” provision, allowed the president to prohibit the interstate shipment of oil that had been produced in excess of state production quotas. The Panama Refining Company was prosecuted for violating this “hot oil” code — though, notably, the oilmen who wrote their own code of fair competition had neglected to include Section 9(c). The company therefore sued to prohibit enforcement of 9(c). Technically, because the petroleum code did not include 9(c), the Court did not rule on the NIRA codes overall. Instead, in January 1935, the Court held that 9(c) itself was an unconstitutional delegation — from Congress to the president — but not yet that it was an unconstitutional delegation from the president to a private interest group (that came in Schechter). Thus the Court upheld the principle of non-delegation.
Non-delegation derives from two of the most fundamental constitutional principles: the separation of powers and popular sovereignty. As John Locke put it, “the legislative [body] cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands: for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others.” In this vein, Article I of the Constitution states, “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States” — the powers that Congress has (and they are limited) cannot be delegated to others. The omission of Section 9(c) in the code by which the Panama Refining Company was being prosecuted illustrated the related principle that the legislature must act, as Locke said, by “standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees.” In other words, it’s unconstitutional to prosecute a company for a law — in this case, Section 9(c) — that’s not on the books.
With this decision in 1935, the Court for the first time held that Congress had exceeded its power to delegate. The Court concluded: “Section 9(c) does not state whether or in what circumstances or under what conditions the President is to prohibit the transportation of petroleum . . . in excess of the state’s permission.” Though it did not precisely define the boundary between legitimate and illegitimate delegation, the Court held that this act was over the line. “The Congress manifestly is not permitted to abdicate or to transfer to others the essential legislative functions with which it is thus vested,” Chief Justice Hughes concluded. He noted that every time the Court had upheld delegations, it had done so while recognizing “that there are limits of delegation which there is no constitutional authority to transcend,” and he pointed out that most previously upheld delegations had to do with foreign relations.
Eight justices — from the extremely conservative to the ardently liberal — agreed. Only Justice Cardozo dissented; stressing the economic emergency, he chided the majority for turning the separation of powers into “a doctrinaire concept to be made use of with pedantic rigor.”
Five months later, the Court unanimously invalidated the entire NIRA. As with the “hot oil” provision, the entire act unconstitutionally delegated legislative powers to the president, who in turn delegated them to private interest groups. “Such a delegation of legislative power is unknown to our law and is utterly inconsistent with the constitutional prerogatives and duties of Congress,” Hughes wrote. “[The act] supplies no standards for any trade, industry or activity. . . . Instead of prescribing rules of conduct, it authorizes the making of codes to prescribe them.” Even Justice Cardozo concurred in this case, calling the act an instance of “delegation running riot,” and one that threatened “an end to our federal system.”
FDR responded by threatening to “pack” the Supreme Court with six additional seats. Two months later, the Court did a dramatic about-face and upheld the Wagner Act, which nearly everyone — including many congressmen who voted for it — expected it to strike down.
The Court has never since invalidated legislation using the non-delegation principle. But no legislation since the NIRA has delegated as wantonly as Dodd-Frank does. It would be a good time for the Court to revive the non-delegation doctrine. But it would be even better if Congress controlled itself.
Dr. Moreno is Director of Academic Programs at Hillsdale's Kirby Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., and the William and Berniece Grewcock Chair in Constitutional History.
5a)By JAKE SHERMAN and JOHN BRESNAHAN
Rep. Paul Broun — the only announced candidate to replace retiring Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss — is yanking much of the congressional delegation to the right and throwing their votes and the support of leadership into a daily flux.
5a)By JAKE SHERMAN and JOHN BRESNAHAN
The messy politics of the Republican primary for Georgia’s open Senate seat has steamrolled its way into the Capitol.
The unruly race is roiling the state’s House delegation and causing problems for the GOP leadership.
Rep. Paul Broun — the only announced candidate to replace retiring Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss — is yanking much of the congressional delegation to the right and throwing their votes and the support of leadership into a daily flux.
The problem: There are four House Republicans interested in the Senate seat. But the Peach State delegation and GOP leaders say they have no idea what Broun is up to at any given time, causing agitation for the other three congressmen — Reps. Phil Gingrey, Jack Kingston and Tom Price.It’s not that Broun is doing anything differently than he normally would, but now, it’s causing a ripple effect among his colleagues that wasn’t there before.Broun, laughing with his face flushing deep red, acknowledged that Gingrey and Kingston are looking closely at how he votes.“Imitation is the best form of flattery,” Broun chuckled.
Senate seats don’t come up too often, especially in a red state like Georgia, so primaries are contentious. And in this one, all of the candidates are seeking to run to the right of each other. How they vote on important legislation, from their party’s budget to the debt ceiling hike and the sequester, is being closely watched and could be used against them in a primary.
One of the first signs of trouble was a vote earlier this month on the continuing resolution to keep the government funded beyond March 27. Broun initially told GOP leaders, including Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), he was leaning toward supporting the bill.
But not only did he ultimately vote against the bill, but he also opposed the procedural motion to bring the bill to the floor — a nearly unheard of move by a member of the majority in House politics because it jeopardizes leadership’s control of the floor.
The dominoes then began to fall. Kingston and Gingrey ended up voting against both the procedural motion and the resolution itself. Price voted in favor of the rule and the CR.
Next up was the Supporting Knowledge and Investing in Lifelong Skills Act, a job-training bill promoted by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and sponsored by North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx. Broun told Foxx he would support the legislation, sources said, but then voted against the bill only after all other Georgia Republicans voted for it.
Foxx, a member of GOP leadership, was steamed at Broun.
Asked about the episode, Foxx smiled and said, “You have information, that’s all I’m going to say.”Did she receive a satisfactory response for Broun’s change of heart? “No,” Foxx said. “No satisfactory response. Let’s leave it at that. I don’t like to talk about conversations I have with members.”Then this week, as Republicans were rallying support for their 2014 budget, Broun took to the liberal New York Times editorial page to slam Rep. Paul Ryan’s spending plan, which he said “fails to seriously address runaway government spending, the most pressing problem facingour nation.”The op-ed turned heads in leadership. On Wednesday, GOP leaders gave Broun a sheet of paper indicating that if he votes against the Ryan budget, he should also vote against the conservative Republican Study Committee budget, because it borrows nearly as much money.
Broun’s opposition to the budget seems to be causing problems for Kingston. He said he isn’t sure how he’ll vote on the spending plan, and his office removed a statement of support for the bill from its website. He voted for a nearly identical budget last year.
The rush to the right among the Georgians is all too clear. Gingrey is a 10-year veteran of the House, and Kingston has been in Washington for two decades, never causing their leadership much trouble. Now they find themselves as radicals, voting against things like procedural motions — an unpredictable move not welcomed by party leaders.
“Everybody can see what’s going on here,” a veteran GOP lawmaker said.
Kingston, who has not officially entered the race, admitted that Broun’s rightward tilt is changing his voting pattern, but said that is not the only factor in his own conservative shift. He acknowledged that following Broun in voting against procedural bills has gotten under leadership’s skin.
“As a practical matter, none of us wants to get on the left of the other one,” Kingston said. “You might watch someone out of the corner of your
eye, but that is not going to be the central reason to support it or not.”
Gingrey’s office said he is “not trying to ‘outdo’ other members or make up for lost time — he has been consistently conservative in his voting record.” Price has been coy about his interest in the Senate seat. He declined to comment for this story.
In an interview, Broun said he has changed his mind after telling leadership how he planned to vote. For example, he was leaning toward a “yes” vote on the government funding measure and the Skills Act but then reversed because of budgetary concerns.
He knows he’s getting crosswise with his leadership and Foxx, whose bill he voted against. He said he gave leadership warning he would oppose them.
“What I did tell Mr. McCarthy at a conference when we first presented the idea of the CR, I told him if it made the cuts in spending that I was being led to believe that I would lean ‘yes’ toward doing so. And I told Mr. Westmoreland, who is the whip, I told him that I just told Mr. McCarthy I would lean ‘yes’ if it made the cuts,” Broun said. “But it didn’t. It was always conditional.”
One Republican lawmaker said the behavior indicates Broun has folded it up for this Congress.
“I think the people in the 10th Congressional District in Georgia need to realize that their man has gone dark for the remainder of the 113th Congress as far as being able to get something done, because he’s campaigning on their dime,” the lawmaker said.
Asked about the quote, Broun said he heard something similar from a GOP lawmaker and said that accusation is “absolutely false.” The primary is not forcing him, Gingrey or Kingston to the right, he said.
“I just talked to one of my colleagues who made that question, who made the accusation on the floor, one of my Republican colleagues, just in a private discussion,” Broun said of the charge that he’s campaigning on the taxpayers’ dime. “I told him, ‘Absolutely not.’ I would have made these same votes in the same way if I weren’t running for the Senate. I haven’t changed.”
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