There was Secretary of State John Kerry taking a much deserved Victory Lap as he announced that the administration had achieved the two thirds majority required to pass the treaty with Iran that the vast majority of Americans craved.  Oh wait, they only got 34 votes in the Senate out of 100.  According to the latest Q-Poll 55% of Americans oppose this agreement vs. 25% support.  We’re confused.  How does something like this happen?  Well the administration says it’s just an executive agreement, but aren’t really major agreements between the U.S. and other countries by definition treaties?  More importantly who gets to decide?  The President says he gets to decide just like he could tell the congress when it is in session or not.  That’s his opinion but that’s all it is.  The courts for instance held that congress not the President determines when it is in session.  So why didn’t Senate just tell the President that it is a treaty and he needs two thirds?  Surely they are on solid constitutional grounds.  As we read Article II, Section 2, Clause 2. it basically states

The President… shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur….

Could anyone imagine Wilson telling the Senate that he bound us to the League Nations because it wasn’t a treaty so he didn’t need their two thirds majority.  Reagan doing the same with Nuclear Arms deals with Russia.  How about Clinton and NAFTA?  Sure would’ve made a president’s job a lot easier.  The Senate had the right to demand the deal be presented as what they thought it was, a treaty.  We are told by our betters that couldn’t happen, but why not?

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We took some incoming over our our April 17th post “All in the Plan”.  While most of the media was awaiting for Hillary’s coronation, we put forth that Pres. Obama would sandbag her and clear the way for a weaker candidate such as Elizabeth Warren to lose to the Republican.  This would leave the party machinery in his hands and clear the way for Michelle’s ’20 bid.  Now Hillary is a justice department criminal investigation away from being history.  If one goes forward, our prediction looks spot on.  Just look for the administration to leak that there would be a justice department revolt if they didn’t allow the investigation to go forward.  They’ll say that they would’ve liked to protect Hillary but their hands were tied.  Of course, we know from the IRS Scandal and other actions or non actions that the Justice Department Marches  to the Obama tune.  It will be fascinating to see if we’re right .  So far we like our chances.

“Dave’s Plan” to Reform Obamacare, first proposed in a policy post last October, had some of its principles endorsed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.  His plan includes direct tax credits to buy Catastrophic Health Insurance across State Lines.  While welcome moves in the right direction, it lacks the costs savings inherent in “Dave Plan” of people spending their own savings and the credit and paperwork reductions that drive the plan.  If people like where the Governor seems headed, we urge them to look at the far more comprehensive “Dave’s Plan” that stands to deliver the greatest system wide savings.  Maybe this has opened the door for this discussion.

It would be hard to find a greater difference from our advice in for the Mideast in the “Sssshhh! Mideast Policy” postings from November and January and what has actually transpired.  We proposed aligning with those we had the most common interests, the Israelis and the Kurds.  While protecting our interests and humanitarian goals, we would let the Shia and the Sunnis sort out  their ideological differences with reform being the ultimate outcome and none of them getting nuclear weapons.  This meant pushing Iran to the wall while their oil income was disappearing, even entertaining an air strike.  What  actually happened is that we guaranteed Iran will get a nuclear weapon thus assuring that an arms race including nuclear weapons will sweep across the Mideast.  Could anything be more dangerous?  We’ve given very little to the Kurds thereby failing to utilize a people that could really help us towards  our goals.  We have great fears about how all this will turn out.

Also ignored was our advice to Urban America to continue to support the police and not throw them all under the bus for the possible actions of a very few bad apples.  What we have instead is a “Black Lives Matter” movement that celebrates in Ferguson Missouri the death of a thief who physically assaulted a policeman who was acting in a perfectly proper manner.  That officer lost his career and lives in fear for his life.  No wonder police across the country are holding back and doing the minimum.  This puts our urban areas on a downward slope from which they will have a hard time recovering.  It’s been a long time since race relations have been this bad and they seem to be getting worse.

No, we won’t get discouraged and will continue add our thoughts to the public discussion.

The same misguided thinking that is destroying the City of Baltimore appears to be at play in the current Iran Nuclear negotiations.  You might think this quite a leap, but consider the very short term focus by those in charge against a certain long term loss. The same thinking that leads to the decision not to arrest lawbreaking young people because they’re young and disadvantaged and having only a limited pause (at best ten years) to a Iranian Atomic Bomb because the alternative is military action ensures longer term problems. Why would you show restraint to  lawbreakers when the result will in much dimmer future for the whole community?  By the same token, why would you forgo military action if the result is a future military situation is one of numerous Mideast nuclear powers possibly run by fanatics are at each others and our throats?  Just as enforcing the law on the first rioters increases faith that the community will be protected so people can continue to invest in it,  refusing to allow a rogue state to destabilize the Mideast might allow the area to sort itself out and ultimately progress to the benefit of its people while eliminating a great danger to humanity. Continue reading →

Could there be a greater waste of money than having a military or law enforcement and refusing to use them.  The lawlessness in Baltimore is a case in point.  Looting and attacks on police were allowed to proceed without much opposition on the mistaken idea that we have to let people let off steam before it escalates even further.  How many times does this thinking have to backfire before we wake up and remember why we have law enforcement to maintain public order?  Unless especially built as a political capitols such as Washington D.C. or Brasília, cities and towns exist to serve an economic purpose.  This means you have to try to maintain your current businesses while attracting new ones to replace those that are lost or your town will die. This takes money and money goes where it is treated well.  If you let people steal from your business community without consequence or worse letting them loot and then burn down a business, you’re not treating money with respect.  Why would any person invest in expansion or start a new business under those conditions?  More likely, if you own a business there you’d be looking to relocate where you’re treated better.  Where these riots have taken place, they either slow to or never recover.  Baltimore has been in decline ever since the MLK assassination riots.  Knowing this history, how could a civic leader not protect their city’s lifeblood?  Yet Baltimore Mayor Stephanie  Rawlings-Blake appears to have given stand down orders to the police in the face of rioting, looting and destruction.  She claims to have taken numerous economic courses but seems to be unaware of the enormous harm this would do to the very people she claims to help.  Makes you wonder what they are teaching at her Alma Mater Oberlin these days. Continue reading →