Saturday, January 26, 2013
Iran Issues Warning Backing Syria's Assad: Attack On Syria Is Attack On Iran
Issuing Tehran's strongest warning to date, a top Iranian official said Saturday that any attack on Syria would be deemed an attack on Iran, a sign that it will do all it can to protect embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad. Ali Akbar Velayati, an aide to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made his comments as Syrian troops conducted offensive air raids against rebels and discovered a trio of tunnels they were using to smuggle weapons in their fight to topple Assad.... "Syria plays a very key role in supporting or, God forbid, destabilizing the resistance front," Velayati was quoted by Iran's semiofficial Mehr news agency as saying. "For this same reason, (an) attack on Syria is considered (an) attack on Iran and Iran's allies."Tweet
D.C. Circuit Court Of Appeals Declares Obama's "Recess" Appointments Unconstitutional In Sweeping Decision
The U.S. Constitution states: “The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may
happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which
shall expire at the End of their next Session.” (The full
DC circuit ruling is here.)
Excerpts from the ruling:
Six times the Constitution uses some form of the verb “adjourn” or the noun “adjournment” to refer to breaks in the proceedings of one or both Houses of Congress. Twice, it uses the term “the Recess”: once in the Recess Appointments Clause and once in the Senate Vacancies Clause, U.S. Const. art. I, § 3, cl. 2. Not only did the Framers use a different word, but none of the “adjournment” usages is preceded by the definite article. All this points to the inescapable conclusion that the Framers intended something specific by the term “the Recess,” and that it was something different than a generic break in proceedings… Thus, background documents to the Constitution, in addition to the language itself, suggest that “the Recess” refers to the period between sessions that would end with the ensuing session of the Senate… At the time of the Constitution, intersession recesses were regularly six to nine months, Michael B. Rappaport, The Original Meaning of the Recess Appointments Clause, 52 UCLA L. Rev. 1487, 1498 (2005), and senators did not have the luxury of catching the next flight to Washington. To avoid government paralysis in those long periods when senators were unable to provide advice and consent, the Framers established the “auxiliary” method of recess appointments. But they put strict limits on this method, requiring that the relevant vacancies happen during “the Recess.” It would have made little sense to extend this “auxiliary” method to any intrasession break, for the “auxiliary” ability to make recess appointments could easily swallow the “general” route of advice and consent. The President could simply wait until the Senate took an intrasession break to make appointments, and thus “advice and consent” would hardly restrain his appointment choices at all… To adopt the Board’s proffered intrasession interpretation of “the Recess” would wholly defeat the purpose of the Framers in the careful separation of powers structure reflected in the Appointments Clause… As discussed above, the appointments structure would have been turned upside down if the President could make appointments any time the Senate so much as broke for lunch… The fourth and final possible interpretation of “the Recess,” advocated by the Office of Legal Counsel, is a variation of the functional interpretation in which the President has discretion to determine that the Senate is in recess. See 2012 OLC Memo, supra, at 23 (“[T]he President therefore has discretion to conclude that the Senate is unavailable to perform its advise- and-consent function and to exercise his power to make recess appointments.”). This will not do. Allowing the President to define the scope of his own appointments power would eviscerate the Constitution’s separation of powers.”… The intersession interpretation of “the Recess” is the only one faithful to the Constitution’s text, structure, and history…. The dearth of intrasession appointments in the years and decades following the ratification of the Constitution speaks far more impressively than the history of recent presidential exercise of a supposed power to make such appointments. Recent Presidents are doing no more than interpreting the Constitution. While we recognize that all branches of government must of necessity exercise their understanding of the Constitution in order to perform their duties faithfully thereto, ultimately it is our role to discern the authoritative meaning of the supreme law… In short, we hold that “the Recess” is limited to intersession recesses. The Board conceded at oral argument that the appointments at issue were not made during the intersession recess: the President made his three appointments to the Board on January 4, 2012, after Congress began a new session on January 3 and while that new session continued. 158 Cong. Rec. S1 (daily ed. Jan. 3, 2012). Considering the text, history, and structure of the Constitution, these appointments were invalid from their inception… Our understanding of the plain meaning of the Recess Appointments Clause as requiring that a qualifying vacancy must have come to pass or arisen “during the Recess” is consistent with the apparent meaning of the Senate Vacancies Clause. The interpretation proffered by the Board is not… Consistent with the structure of the Appointments Clause and the Recess Appointments Clause exception to it, the filling up of a vacancy that happens during a recess must be done during the same recess in which the vacancy arose. There is no reason the Framers would have permitted the President to wait until some future intersession recess to make a recess appointment, for the Senate would have been sitting in session during the intervening period and available to consider nominations.Tweet
Friday, January 25, 2013
Dr. Francis Collins, Top U.S. Scientist Who Heads The Human Genome Project, Telling CNN How He Came To Believe In God
Dr. Francis Collins is an American physician-geneticist noted for his discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project (HGP). Here he briefly talks about how he came to his belief in God: Tweet
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi Bashes Jewish Media To U.S. Senate Delegation
One of the senators, Chris Coons of Delaware, told The Cable that while Morsi was trying to explain himself [regarding his 2010 anti-semitic comments], he said, “‘Well, I think we all know that the media in the United States has made a big deal of this and we know the media of the United States is controlled by certain forces and they don't view me favorably.’” The Cable asked Coons if Morsi specifically named the Jews as the forces that control the U.S. media. Coons said all the senators believed the implication was obvious. "He did not say [the Jews], but I watched as the other senators physically recoiled, as did I," Coons told The Cable. "I thought it was impossible to draw any other conclusion." He added, “The meeting then took a very sharp negative turn for some time. It really threatened to cause the entire meeting to come apart so that we could not continue.”Tweet
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Remembering Justice Scalia's Dissent On The 40th Anniversary Of Roe v. Wade
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the
illegitimate Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade (1973). This is what
Justice Antonin Scalia had to say in his dissent to Planned Parenthood
v. Casey (1992):
"The States may, if they wish, permit abortion on demand, but the Constitution does not require them to do so. The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting... [T]he issue in this case: not whether the power of a woman to abort her unborn child is a 'liberty' in the absolute sense; or even whether it is a liberty of great importance to many women. Of course it is both. The issue is whether it is a liberty protected by the Constitution of the United States. I am sure it is not...for the same reason I reach the conclusion that bigamy is not constitutionally protected--because of two simple facts: (1) the Constitution says absolutely nothing about it, and (2) the longstanding traditions of American society have permitted it to be legally proscribed... [T]he best the Court can do to explain how it is that the word 'liberty' must be thought to include the right to destroy human fetuses is to rattle off a collection of adjectives that simply decorate a value judgment and conceal a political choice... We should get out of this area, where we have no right to be, and where we do neither ourselves nor the country any good by remaining."Tweet
Pro Golfer Phil Mickelson: I May Be Leaving California, Or Even The United States, Due To High Taxes
The example of Phil Mickelson:
TweetProfessional golfer Phil Mickelson told reporters Sunday that he is considering “drastic changes” in response to state and federal income tax hikes — including possibly leaving the United States. “It’s been an interesting off-season. And I’m going to have to make some drastic changes. I’m not going to jump the gun and do it right away, but I will be making some drastic changes,” Mickelson said during a press conference following the Humana Challenge golf tournament in La Quinta, Calif. When pressed by reporters about whether those “drastic changes” could include leaving California or even the United States, the four-time major championship winner didn’t foreclose the possibility. But he made clear the reason he is considering such drastic options is the massive tax burden he now shoulders. “But if you add up, if you add up all the federal and you look at the disability and the unemployment and the Social Security and the state, my tax rate’s 62, 63 percent. So I’ve got to make some decisions on what I’m going to do,” said Mickelson. In November, California voters approved Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30, which raised taxes on all state residents who earn more than $1 million in annual income. California now has the highest state income tax rate in the nation.
Japanese Finance Minister To Elderly: "Hurry Up And Die" Before Taking Government Health Care
Japan's new government is barely a month old, and already one of its most senior members has insulted tens of millions of voters by suggesting that the elderly are an unnecessary drain on the country's finances. Taro Aso, the finance minister, said on Monday that the elderly should be allowed to "hurry up and die" to relieve pressure on the state to pay for their medical care. "Heaven forbid if you are forced to live on when you want to die. I would wake up feeling increasingly bad knowing that [treatment] was all being paid for by the government," he said during a meeting of the national council on social security reforms. "The problem won't be solved unless you let them hurry up and die."Tweet
David Ignatius: Obama's Second Inaugural Speech Was "Flat, Partisan, And Pedestrian"
In the Washington Post:
The only voice that really soared at midday was Beyonce’s, while singing the national anthem. President Barack Obama’s second inaugural address, by contrast, was flat, partisan and surprisingly pedestrian—more a laundry list of preferred political programs than a vision for a divided America and disoriented world...
the speech lacked the unifying or transcendent ideas that could help Obama do much more than continue the Washington version of trench warfare during his second term. If you were hoping that the president would set the stage for a grand bargain to restructure America’s entitlement programs and fiscal health for the 21st century, you wouldn’t have found much encouragement.
Missing from the speech was the first inaugural address’s perhaps naïve dream of uniting America. This second speech seemed to accept that America is divided and, as Obama put it, “progress does not compel us to settle centuries long debates about the role of government for all time.” He called out those who would “treat name-calling as reasoned debate”—I wonder who that could mean?—but Obama’s plan seemed to be to roll the negativists, rather than try any longer to reason with them.
The area where the speech was spongiest was foreign policy. Obama reiterated his campaign theme that “a decade of war is now ending” and that maintaining peace does not require “perpetual war.” That certainly fits the mood of the war-weary nation that re-elected him. And there was a ritual assertion of internationalism, in the insistence that “America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe.”
This is good rhetoric, but empty policy guidance. A listener wouldn’t have had a clue that a war is going on in Syria that has claimed over 60,000 lives, and that there is no discernible American policy to deal with it. A listener wouldn’t have known that a group called Al Qaeda still exists, let alone that it has left savage calling cards this past week in Algeria, just as it did in September in Libya.
Maybe Obama has a strategic vision for the second term. But all I heard today was a rallying cry to his supporters as they prepare for the political fights ahead.
Tweet
Federal Reserve Bank Of St. Louis Report: Debt Problem Began Four Decades Ago
Increasing government spending, not too few taxes, are driving the debt.
[A]fter 1970, both revenues and expenditures increased on average relative to the previous two decades; however, revenue increased marginally while expenditures increased significantly... on average, the government spent 2.4 percent of GDP more than it received in revenue during the 38-year period. ...
The long-run perspective offered here shows that there is a deeper and more fundamental issue that must be addressed if the problem is to be resolved solely or primarily by raising taxes. Specifically, the analysis shows that the deficit/debt problem began when the government decided to increase spending significantly without increasing taxes.Tweet
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