No TNR, Republicans are not Responsible for Netanyahu

The article from The New Republic linked below says that Republicans are responsible for what Benjamin Netanyahu does and says.  This is really crazy.   Clearly, the left never takes responsibility for anything.  The disasters of the last 6 years are all Bush's fault.  Why the Prime Minister of Israel is Republicans' responsibility is beyond me.  The only thing I can think of is that Obama has treated him as badly as he would treat a Republican, therefore he is one.  Israel is a sovereign state.  It is not a US possession.  A domestic American politician is not responsible for any foreign leader.  However, if you insist, then Obama and the Democrats who favor negotiating with Iran are responsible for "Death to America" and "Death to the Zionist Entity."  Please have them explain immediately and at length why they support that position. 

What Netanyahu said about the Palestinians is true.  There is no Palestinian leader who both wants to make peace and can deliver peace.  Any Arab territory where Israel withdrew from occupation has been quickly turned into a base for rocket and sometimes tunnel attacks on Israel.  There is no way any Prime Minister of Israel, no matter what party they belong to, can negotiate a peace agreement with the current or any foreseeable future Palestinian leader.  Netanyahu has revealed an inconvenient truth.  I would hope that the left is not so dedicated to Obama that it's willing to become as anti-Semitic as he is.  

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121370/netanyahus-relationship-republicans-political-problem

What About Paid Up Dads With Visitation Problems?

As a divorced father without physical custody, you need all of your support payments to be on time.  If they are not, your wages will be garnished.  On the flip side, no enforcement mechanism exists for your visitation.  The police will not enforce your order.   It will cost you thousands of dollars to litigate missed visitation.  Agreements you make for allowing one of two field trips during your visitation time are unenforceable.  The child can go on both field trips and the school will do nothing.  The courts will do nothing.  

The current legal framework views fathers only as a source of funds, with no reciprocal rights to visitation.  This forces fathers into a position of extreme inflexibility on visitation, because no compensatory visitation is offered or if it is, it's not enforceable.  Years later, your children will resent the inflexibility, but won't remember their mother's part in it.  This situation cries out for reform.  It hasn't changed in 30 years.

Republican Second Guessing on Cotton's Letter

Republican second guessing of Senator Cotton’s letter was in full swing last week.  Some said it should have been addressed to the president instead of the Mad Mullahs.  Many said it wasn’t “helpful.” My view is that both of those positions are bunk.

I don’t think changing who the letter was addressed to would have lessened the liberal screaming.  For it to make any difference, you would have to assume that the left needs a legitimate reason to complain. I believe that's entirely false. They scream in proportion to how much damage is done. Senator Cotton's letter with 46 cosigners was embarrassing because it was entirely accurate in saying that executive agreements can be canceled at will, showed that Obama could never get a treaty through the Senate and was timed just as the administration was making additional concessions to clinch the deal. Just like "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor," our Dear Leader was lying about the binding force of an executive agreement to get a deal, any deal for his legacy. By pointing out that Barry the Brilliant could not really deliver, the letter wrecked the legacy and "Peace in Our Time." The damage was massive, so the response was equally massive. No tailoring of the message would have reduced the Pravda Press retaliation. They threw everything they had at Cotton, including charges of treason, ignorance, stupidity, arrogance and cowardice. All of the fireworks were needed to distract everyone from the basic point that everything in the letter was accurate. You were also not supposed to notice that the letter was posted on a US government web site and was never sent anywhere else. Senator Cotton spoke truth to power. When you do that, power has a tendency to massively retaliate. Sugar coating the offence will not lessen the retaliation.

Addressing the letter to the president would have been racism and disrespect for the First Black President! They would not have written such a letter to a white president! Nobody ever has written such a letter to a white president! It also would have shown mere personal animosity to Obama, with no need to even discuss policy disagreement.

I think the way Cotton did it was better. This way, we got to talk about the Dear Comandante letter to the dictator of Nicaragua in 1984, which was signed by 10 Senate Democrats including John Kerry. We got to mention that there has been only one prosecution under the Logan Act of 1799 and in 1803 they didn't get a conviction. We got to talk about Nancy Pelosi's chat with Bashar al Assad. We didn't have to talk about race. We made the Democrats look hypocritical. We had them accuse a decorated combat veteran of treason. It played very well to our base. John Kerry had to admit everything in the letter is true. My point is either way you're going to take a lot of flak from the Pravda Press. Why bother to over think this. They can only hang you once.

Contrary to the not “helpful” argument, I think the letter was very helpful.  This administration is the most outlaw administration in history.  I was pleasantly surprised that 47 Republican Senators had the guts to sign the letter. Barry the Brilliant and his merry band of outlaws have ignored the Constitution so many times that it's beginning to look like a used Kleenex. Every time the administration circumvents a Constitutional provision, the least we can do is publicly call them on it. The talking heads on TV don’t see a pattern, but I do.  On Obamacare, immigration, EPA regulation, the internet, wilderness designation, recess appointments and other areas too numerous to mention, our Dear Leader has ignored Constitutional and legal processes to rule by decree.  This time, the Pravda Press can make the messengers the story. But repeatedly pointing out that our Dear Leader is violating Constitutional provisions and linking the behaviors together is the only way we can move the argument to where it ought to focus.  We have to force the talking heads to connect the dots. 

If the administration establishes precedent after precedent that the Constitution is a dead letter, we will lose our heritage of limited government and become an elected dictatorship. When the elected dictator decides we no longer need elections, even those will be gone.

Legal Trash Talk: Liberal Reaction to The Letter

There is a lot of legal trash talk this week about “The Letter.”  Liberals called the 47 Republican Senators “Traitors” in big headlines.  The Pravda Press said that the letter was a violation of the Logan Act.  The commentators said the letter violated the Constitution’s allocation of all foreign negotiations to the president.  All of this was hogwash.

Just so everyone is clear on this, the Constitution defines treason:  "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."  I know liberals don't read the Constitution because it reminds them of the Tea Party, but it really helps to occasionally know what you're talking about. 

The Logan act was passed in 1799.  It outlawed negotiations between private parties and foreign governments.  The last and only prosecution under the Logan Act was in 1803.  It did not result in a conviction.  Since the Republican Senators did not negotiate and since they are Senators and not private individuals, the Logan Act doesn’t seem to apply.  Low information voters don’t know any of this, so the smear worked.

Since Barry the Brilliant said he would veto any attempt by Congress to advise him on negotiations with Iran and then consent to any agreement, the person ignoring the Constitution was the president, not the Senate Republicans who wrote the letter.  Treaties are supposed to be made with the advice and consent of the Senate, according to the Constitution, Article II, Section 2, Clause 2.  As with many other things, our Dear Leader is ignoring the Constitution in this regard also.  Since no remedy is specified, 47 Republican Senators chose to help themselves by writing an open letter to the Iranians to remind everybody, the Iranians, the president and the public that agreements which happen without the advice and consent of the Senate are not binding.  If one side is ignoring the Constitution, you can hardly complain when in reaction the other side fails to preserve decorum. 

I think any agreement President Obama signs will have exactly the same binding power on the next administration as the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 has had on the Obama Administration, in other words none.  The Budapest Memorandum, signed by the Clinton administration, guaranteed the territorial integrity of the Ukraine in return for the surrender of 1,800 ex-Soviet nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory. It was signed by the US, UK and Russia. The UK has special forces in the Ukraine right now training Ukrainian forces. Obama sent MREs (meals ready to eat).  According to the German ambassador to the US, Obama told Angela Merkel that the US would not send military aid to the Ukraine. So the US is not helping the Ukraine defend itself from piecemeal annexation by Russia at all.

Liberals seem to go to the Lewis Carroll school of legal interpretation.   I need to quote Mr. Carroll extensively so you understand how this really works.

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

In simpler terms, heads means liberals win, tails means conservatives lose. Liberals are to be the master. There are no laws any more, just liberal interpretations to suit liberal convenience.   The Constitution is to be interpreted out of existence.  It seems the liberal elite prefers a dictatorship of the liberal elite to the rule of law.  The trash talk is just there to justify their actions to the low information voters who don’t know any better.