Congress Archives - Bookworm Room

Transgender folks in the military — this is what the slippery slope looks like

July 14, 2017 by Bookworm 21 Comments

Obama planted a poison pill when he put transgender folks in the military. Republicans should discharge them, instead of quibbling about surgery.

Two interesting headlines about transgender people in the military. The first comes from Gateway Pundit:

The second is at Truth Revolt:

Here’s the short story: Republicans tried to stop forcing taxpayers to provide the money so that mentally ill service members who reject their body’s sex and, instead, believe they belong to the opposite sex, can have their external sexual organs sliced off and be given hormones that can cause cancer and other nasty things. Twenty-four RINO’s sided with Democrats to continue federal funding for this surgery.

The problem the Republicans who oppose funding have is that the Obama Pentagon officially declared that thinking you’re really a member of the opposite sex is not a mental illness. If it’s not an illness, but is merely a problem with ones body, why in the world should service members with hernia’s or dislocated shoulders get free medical care while people suffering from excess penises or breasts are denied?

The issue, then, isn’t the funding question, it’s the “who let mentally ill people openly service in the military to begin with?” question. That’s the problem.

In terms of the mental illness known as body dysmorphia, all of the following people suffering from exactly the same problem: [Read more…]

Day One of the 115th Congress: Let Trump-et’s Sound

January 3, 2017 by Wolf Howling 12 Comments

Day one of the new Congress and we are already seeing the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good

Senate puts Obamacare on the Reconciliation chopping block. Remember when, among Harry Reid’s many machinations, he used reconciliation to pass Obamacare following Scott Brown’s election to the Senate, thus destroying the Dem’s filibuster proof majority? Well, that which can be passed by reconciliation can be undone by it as well. This from Vox (enjoy the schadenfreude):

Senate Budget Committee Chair Michael Enzi (R-WY) introduced a budget resolution Tuesday that includes “reconciliation instructions” that enable Congress to repeal Obamacare with a simple Senate majority. Passing a budget resolution that includes those instructions will mean that the legislation can pass through the budget reconciliation process, in which bills cannot be filibustered.

That means Republicans will only need 50 of their 52 members in the Senate, and a bare majority in the House, to pass legislation repealing the Affordable Care Act. According to the Wall Street Journal, the budget resolution could be passed by both houses as early as next week. . . .

There’s basically nothing that Democrats alone can do to stop this. Budget resolutions can’t be filibustered, so if Republicans vote to include reconciliation instructions for Obamacare repeal, there’s nothing the opposition can do about it. And, of course, they can’t filibuster the actual repeal bill; that’s the whole point of using reconciliation. . . .

This is great news, though it is still unclear exactly what the Republican Congress will replace it with and, as the WSJ points out, how they will do so. Many seem to be taking the position that any replacement must be subject to filibuster. I think that ridiculous myself. The Senate should just take the position that if Obamacare could be passed in whole by reconciliation in the first place, then so can its replacement. Let the DNC try to fight that one in Court. There are several replacement alternatives, including a detailed proposal by Tom Price, very soon to be head of Health and Human Services, that would foot the bill, yet the Senate and House have not jointly settled upon one.

The Bad

[Read more…]

Latest Progressive effort: Draft Obama as House Speaker in 2018

December 4, 2016 by Bookworm 9 Comments

There is a new petition on Change.org asking Obama to become House Speaker in 2018. Not only is it almost charming in its lack of awareness, it is also a reminder that the Left never gives in or gives up. When the personal and the political are the same, when even brushing your teeth is a political act, you’re going to be committed to political activity 24/7.

The petition opens by reminding potential signers that they’re now living with the horror of total Republican control. Worse, Leftist activity, including “protests and lawsuits are not going to be enough to stop Trump, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Sam Alito, and company from rolling back decades of progress virtually overnight, particularly if rank-and-file Republicans feel no pressure to dissent from Trump’s party line.” That reference to “decades of progress” is a funny one, because as best as I can tell, Trump is determined to roll back only 8 years of “progress,” which doesn’t even equal a single decade.

What you’re seeing here is something I’ve written about frequently, which is the Lefts’ belief that the 1950s are always lurking just around the corner with Jim Crow (a purely Democrat initiative), back alley abortions, gays deeply closeted and, perhaps worst of all, men and women playing their assigned gender roles. The fact that Trump was considered a benefactor to the black community before he ran as a Republican or that his initiatives towards gays and sex roles seem to be limited to blocking the federal government from telling schools to ignore biological gender or forcing nuns to buy birth control seems to have eluded J. Q. Adams, the petition’s author.

Panicked at the thought of all these inchoate horrors, Adams asks, “What can be done?”

Well, Adams has a “long-shot” idea. We know it’s a long-shot not only because he says so, but because, after accusing the GOP of gerrymandering Democrats out of federal existence, he admits that it may not have a lot of momentum after what he calls, with magnificent understatement, “the Democrats’ recent difficulties in midterm elections.” Those “recent difficulties” see Republicans with the greatest hold over America at both the state and federal level in more than ninety years.

Adams is a man of faith, however. He believes that, Democrats can block Trump’s momentum, if they can just pick up “24 seats to win the House and 3 to win the Senate.” To do this, after failing in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016, all that Democrats need to do is create “a powerful national message” letting Republicans know that they’re on the hook for everything from “Trump’s bigotry and misogyny, to his trampling of cherished freedoms and democratic norms, to his dangerous foreign policy, and to his plans to privatize Medicare, cut taxes for the rich, take away 20 million Americans’ health insurance, abolish workers’ right to organize and women’s right to choose, and allow climate change to continue unabated.”

With that kind of agenda, Adams concludes that there’s only one man for the job: Barack Obama!

[Read more…]

Sanctuaries & Filibusters

November 17, 2016 by Wolf Howling 3 Comments

The mayors of twelve major cities have, since the election, announced that they will be “sanctuary cities” for illegal aliens and, in one form or another, refuse to cooperate in the enforcement of federal immigration law. This is a direct challenge to our Constitutional system, and one no progressive would tolerate if, say, it were conservatives refusing to comply with homosexual marriage. Actually, the twelve “sanctuary cities” are the tip of the iceberg, as Victor Davis Hanson explained when opining on the nihilism of this “sanctuary” movement some months ago:

There are an estimated 300 or so jurisdictions — entire states, counties, cities, and municipalities — that since the early 1980s have enacted “sanctuary city” laws, forbidding full enforcement of federal immigration law within their jurisdictions. Most of these entities are controlled by Democrats in general and liberals in particular. . . . .

If rule of law means anything, then this cannot be allowed to stand. Unfortunately, while there are some acts that Trump can take unilaterally, his hands are surprisingly tied. Democrats in the Senate, where Republicans do not hold a filibuster proof majority, have repeatedly refused to authorize the withholding of any funds from cities, etc., because of their failure to cooperate on matters of immigration law enforcement.

[Read more…]

The Bookworm Beat 11/17: Draining The Swamp

November 17, 2016 by Wolf Howling 3 Comments

Ms. BWR was the key to convincing me to hold my nose and vote Trump on the sole ground of control of the Supreme Court, so I’ve got the bar set quite low for this administration. That said, I like their first few steps so far.

Corruption

Two of the most corrupt influences on politics over our lifetimes have been Congressional earmarks and the regulator/lobbyist revolving door. As to earmarks, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan demonstrated some real leadership yesterday by shutting down an attempt by three Republican members of the House to reintroduce ear mark authority for Congress:

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., unilaterally halted a bid Wednesday to restore earmarks, those directives that steer federal funds to specific projects back home.

Sources told Fox News that plans to restore some earmarks were on the verge of being approved by House Republicans in their closed-door conference meeting when Ryan intervened.

“We just had the ‘drain the swamp’ election,” Ryan said, according to a senior House GOP source. “We don’t want to turn around two weeks later and have earmarks.” . . .

Amen. I understand the Congressmens’ desire to restore ear mark authority on the grounds that unelected federal bureaucrats are, in the absence of Congressional specification, directing the spending for specific projects at the state level. But does anyone really want to support reintroduction of ear mark authority to Congress? That is the equivalent of employing Mel Gibson as a bartender, naming Anthony Weiner as CEO of Twitter, or putting Robert Downey, Jr. in charge of the DEA evidence lock-up. At least the federal bureaucrats are limited in the money they can direct up to the amounts voted by Congress. If the House GOP needs to address this, they need to do so by limiting the authority of the bureaucrats to earmark the funds, not returning ear mark authority to Congress.

As to lobbyists, VP Elect Mike Pence banned them from the “transition team” once he took over as head from Chris Christie. Now this today from Fox:

[Read more…]

Progressives & The Supreme Court

November 15, 2016 by Wolf Howling 4 Comments

Dahlia Lithwick, Slate’s correspondent for the courts and law, is apoplectic that the right did not consider Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland (see Ms. BWR’s analysis here) for the Supreme Court, and now will never do so. She wrote about this recently in Republicans Stole the Supreme Court. Ms. Lithwick cites no legal or Constitutional authority to support her charge of nefarious action. Her crie de coeur is based solely on notions of fairness – something always important to progressives, but only when it can be argued favorably for them.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to schedule hearings on Garland, stating that such an appointment should be a decision for the next President. That was a political decision that the American people just recently had an opportunity pass judgment upon.

I believe it was no less a personage than President Obama who, days after his victory in 2009, told America “elections have consequences.” Indeed, he said it as justification for ramming a series of acts through Congress without even the slightest attempt to reach across the aisle. I recall exactly zero progs complaining about the unfairness of that in 2009, nor the trickery Harry Reid used to pass the Affordable Healthcare Act later in the year so that it would not have to undergo a final vote in the Senate — a vote the progs would surely have lost after a Republican was elected to fill Ted Kennedy’s vacant seat. Nor did I hear a peep from the left in 2013 when Harry Reid overturned the Senate’s filibuster rule – a rule whose history dated back to 1806 – in order to pack the DC Court of Appeals with progressive judges.

Ms. Lithwick’s histrionics aside, the fact that control of the Supreme Court was at issue was dominant in the election. A nationwide exit poll shows that 61% of voters stated that the Supreme Court nomination was important, or most important, in their decision to vote. The people have spoken.

[Read more…]

Heated congressional races are yet another reason to curse open primaries….

October 5, 2016 by Bookworm 4 Comments

I hate open primaries. In a post a few years ago, I explained why, and I’ll repeat myself here:

The point of the primary system is to give citizens who are members of a specific political party the opportunity to pick that candidate who best represents their views. Then, in the Fall season, those cherry-picked party candidates get to go head-to-head, giving voters a genuine ideological choice. This is important even in states that tilt heavily in one direction or the other, because it means that, when voters are actually paying attention, they are exposed to more than just the majority party’s viewpoint.

In other words, if an Open Primary state tilts heavily in favor of one party or the other, the minority party isn’t just precluded from winning (and this holds true even if the majority party has some major scandal over the summer that causes its total collapse). . . it is also entirely denied a voice in the marketplace of political ideas. Without a candidate on the ballot, the minority party has no commercials, no debates, no opinion pieces, and no candidate interviews.

The one thing that didn’t occur to me when I wrote the list of horribles that result from open primaries was the possibility that, in the interim between the primary and the election, the formerly dominant party loses favor. As it is, that’s what’s slowly happening in this election:

[Read more…]

The Bookworm Beat 9/15/16 — the “polls they are a’changin'” edition and open thread

September 15, 2016 by Bookworm 17 Comments

If Bill Clinton and Al Gore couldn’t do it, then no one can. A Leftist Facebook friend posted an article from The Hill with a lede saying that Donald Trump “floats rolling back food safety regulations.” The implication, obviously, is that in Trump’s America, we’re all going to die from salmonella and e. Coli. Read through to the end, though, and you discover that Trump is instead making a remarkably sensible suggestion:

Trump’s economic policy plan also calls for “an immediate halt to new federal regulations and a very thorough agency-level review of previous regulations to see which need to be scrapped.”

Agencies would be required to list all regulations and rank them in terms of their contribution to growth, health and safety. The goal, Trump said, would be to strengthen the rules that are useful and reduce the rules that harm the economy.

One of my Leftist Facebook friends stopped with the lede, of course, and envisioned our nation drowning in fecal matter emanating from food-poisoned Americans. In a comment, I quoted the above language and suggested that it was a good idea to control regulations, which are so big no one can know them, are often non-effective, are frequently inconsistent with each other, and are too often quasi-legislation.

To seal it for this Leftist, I reminded him that Bill Clinton had assigned Al Gore this very task of cutting back on America’s burgeoning regulations, although it never came to anything. And that’s when my Facebook friend essentially said “Well, if Al Gore and Bill Clinton couldn’t do it, then no one can. After all, Trump has never been a politician, and he’s really stupid, so what does he know?”

My reply was that voters may be hoping that it’s an advantage that Trump hasn’t been a politician. He may have out-of-the-box (i.e., out-of-D.C.) ideas that actually work. The response? A reiteration that Trump is stupid. (Has there ever been a Republican candidate, no matter how successful and brilliant, whom the Left hasn’t called stupid? I don’t think so. It’s a tired idea.)

Agencies must be reined in. Exhibit A in the “agencies need to be cut back and God willing Trump is the man to do it” category is the fact that the FBI thinks it is more important than Congress is. So it was that Jason Chaffetz had to explain to the acting FBI chair that, no, Congress gets to have all of the notes from Hillary’s FBI interview — and then serves him, then and there, with a subpoena.

The funny thing about the WaPo’s indictment of Trump as a scam artist. The Washington Post is beside itself with excitement that ardent Hillary supporter, and pay for play attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, is starting an investigation into Trump’s charitable foundation. I got three paragraphs into the WaPo editorial supporting this investigation and castigating Trump before I broke into uncontrollable laughter:

[Read more…]

Your government at work

May 23, 2016 by Bookworm 12 Comments

I received an email from a friend who was recently in Washington, D.C. and had the opportunity to speak to a couple of people who work in the government. He sent me this disheartening wrap-up of his conversations with them:

1) When you see global or national financial figures emanating from banks (e.g., World Bank, development banks, UN) etc., they are numbers pretty much created out of thin air.

2) Congressmen don’t make policy. Policy-making is generally delegated to 20-somethings to create and write up: congressman are too busy raising money and compromising themselves for votes: they simply vote on the legislation that their interns give them as a finished product. This is a big reason why government policy doesn’t work in real life.

3) Many alarmist defense-related issues that you read about (like us vis-a-vis the Chinese, Russians, etc) are simply designed to protect funding for the various armed forces branches.

4) EVERYTHING driven by the Obama administration is focused on their environmental agenda. They have defunded any and all global initiatives on building coal or nuclear power in developing nations, as well as actively tried to kill hydroelectric power on a global basis. Again, these are policies developed by 20-somethings implemented on the world at large.

5) The 20-somethings also pretty much run the White House and all government agencies. This is how it turns out policy by the Executive Branch.

So if you’re someone who does not have children or grandchildren in or nearing college, you should still be deeply concerned about what’s going on at America’s institutions of higher education. Every bit of misinformation and propaganda that’s being taught there ends up being directly implemented in our government.

My friend, who is one of the smartest, best-informed people I’ve ever met, went on to say that it’s tales such as these that have convinced him that Donald Trump is the better bet in the upcoming election than Hillary: “The Augean stables really need to be flushed out and I don’t see anyone but a true outsider with charismatic appeal and force of presence (a la Andrew Jackson) as having the fortitude and skill to pull it off. The problem, as I see it, is that most Americans really do believe that our government is more functional than it is.”

So far, Trump is saying a lot of the right things about issues that matter to me (Supreme Court, Second Amendment, etc.), but I don’t believe I’ve heard him talk about cleaning up Washington’s vast bureaucracy and making it somewhat functional again. If that was a goal, it’s entirely possible he could make it happen, so I’ll continue to live in hope.

The Bookworm Beat 9-27-2015 — the “things that make you think” edition and open thread

September 27, 2015 by Bookworm 17 Comments

Boehner was merely an effective manager, rather than an effective conservative

Andrew Klavan is kind enough to point out that Boehner was in some measure a very effective House Majority Leader:

I can’t help but notice that under Boehner — and largely because of Boehner, because Boehner outsmarted President Obama in the 2013 budget negotiations — federal spending has declined over a five year period for the first time since the post World War II cutbacks. And because of this, as the economy has struggled to a sputtering recovery despite Democrat mismanagement, the deficit has been sharply reduced…

Also under Boehner — and also largely because of then-minority leader Boehner (and the likewise much-maligned-by-conservatives Mitch McConnell in the Senate) — the disaster of Obamacare is 100% attributable to the Democrats. It hasn’t got a single Republican fingerprint on it.

As Klavan sees it, Boehner’s fall came about solely because he wouldn’t engage in a head-to-head fight with Obama over Planned Parenthood. Boehner believed (and still believes) that fight will destroy chances for a Republican victory in 2016. I have two points to make.

First, if Boehner’s right that the fight will fail it’s in part because he refuses to engage in the fight at the intellectual level. Carly Fiorina is the first prominent Republican to frame the fight in non-religious terms, and boy did she make the Left squirm when she did so. In other words, part of why Boehner can’t win the fight is because, even though he’s pro-Life, he has absolutely no idea how to fight against abortion at anything other than a monetary level.

Second, speaking of that monetary level, the fight really boils down to something James Taranto said three years ago, and it’s about the difference between checkbook Republicans and ideologically-driven conservatives. The context was the fact that Paul Ryan seemed to understand a conservative vision of small, not big, government:
[Read more…]

[VIDEO] Ben Shapiro explained how Obama has developed the hitherto unknown “F**k You” clause in the Constitution

April 9, 2015 by Bookworm Leave a Comment

One of Ben Shapiro’s strongest videos, explaining how Obama has effectively sidelined Congress and dramatically expanded his authority. Before you get too mad at Obama, though, remember that Congress, including the RINOS we elected, let him do this. There are myriad explanations for Congress’s passivity, not the least of which is that they’re utterly terrified to challenge the first mulatto president.

[VIDEO] Bill Whittle on the rot at the heart of American politics

March 20, 2015 by Bookworm 6 Comments

I always enjoy Bill Whittle’s videos. He has a knack for describing social and political issues with tremendous clarity. I’m convinced that ordinary Progressives (not the True Believers, but the knee-jerk voters), would change their views if they would make themselves watch a steady diet of Bill Whittle and Prager University videos.

This latest Bill Whittle video, however, is something special — which is why I emailed it to all of my local conservative friends and family. In it, Whittle describes not just a particular bad act, but a particular mindset that goes to the heart of the contract between America and her government (a contract more commonly known as the Constitution).

As you watch the video, keep in mind that, while it’s directed at Hillary Clinton and the Democrat establishment from Obama on down, it’s also an indictment of Republican politicians who are complicit in this lawlessness in so many ways. They too engage in it, profit from it, ignore it, strike deals with it, etc.

At least in the old days, members of the nobility could convince themselves that their blue blood meant being above the law. Nowadays, though, American politicians truly seem to believe that getting elected is carte blanche for white-collar crime and political malfeasance. And while it’s true that Republicans are less likely to commit these crimes (in part because Democrats are more likely to prosecute them in politically inspired witch hunts), the fact is that they all do it.

The Tom Cotton letter usefully highlights Leftist stupidity

March 13, 2015 by Bookworm 21 Comments

I side with the people who think that Tom Cotton and the 46 senators who joined with him in an open letter to apprise the Iranians about the way our Constitutional system works did the world a great service. As I’ll discuss at greater length below, the letter is a simple, beautifully written exposition about the American Constitution and its effects. In addition, it’s a wonderful honey pot for calling stupid Progressives out of their dark caves and exposing their ignorance to bright sunlight.

The Cotton letter is really nothing more than an elegant primer about the balance of powers and the way in which Congress, which more closely represents the American people than does the president, gets to have a say in foreign policy. For those of you who haven’t yet read the letter, or for those who would enjoy re-reading it, here’s the text:

It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system. Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution—the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices—which you should seriously consider as negotiations progress.

First, under our Constitution, while the president negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of ratifying them. In the case of a treaty, the Senate must ratify it by a two-thirds vote. A so-called congressional-executive agreement requires a majority vote in both the House and the Senate (which, because of procedural rules, effectively means a three-fifths vote in the Senate). Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement.

Second, the offices of our Constitution have different characteristics. For example, the president may serve only two 4-year terms, whereas senators may serve an unlimited number of 6-year terms. As applied today, for instance, President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us will remain in office well beyond then—perhaps decades.

What these two constitutional provisions mean is that we will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei. The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.

We hope this letter enriches your knowledge of our constitutional system and promotes mutual understanding and clarity as nuclear negotiations progress.

There are a few things you need to notice about the letter to appreciate just how terribly Leftists are beclowning themselves. First, its tone is extremely respectful. It says nothing derogatory about anyone. Second, its content makes no reference whatsoever to the terms of Obama’s negotiations with the Mullahs. The only thing it does is offer information readily available to anyone who bothers to read the United States Constitution. (Reading the Constitution, of course, is as easy as plugging the words “United States Constitution” into Bing.)

This lucid, respectfully-stated summation of publicly available information has started a hysterical firestorm on the Left. The first cries were directed to all 47 Senators — Traitors! Logan Act violators! Both these insults were the products of stupid minds.

With regard to the treason claim, the letter certainly didn’t give aid and comfort to an enemy, which is the definition of treason. We’re not at war with Iran and the Mullahs do not appear to have received either aid or comfort ftom learning that Obama was over-promising. Indeed, they seemed angered and disappointed, which is how we like it when we’re dealing with people who, even though we’re not at war with them, have been at war with us since 1979.

The hysterics do not fare any better with the Logan Act claim. The Logan Act forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments having a dispute with the U.S. An example of the type of conduct contemplated under the Logan Act occurs when a member of the armed forces travels to a foreign capital to engage in peace talks with an enemy that is facing off against our troops in a hot war on the battlefield. That’s a Logan Act violation.

The Logan Act, however, does not apply to United States Senators who send an open letter summarizing the Constitutional balance of powers. There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents Senators from visiting with, talking to, or trading information with foreign powers. Senators do it all the time, whether to gather useful information or to make nice with dictators. As long as they’re not entering into negotiations for international agreements, it’s all good — and if the Senator in question who does that is a Democrat, it’s still all good.

The Leftists seem to have figured out that, despite getting almost 300,000 signatures on their petition seeking Logan Act charges against the Republican Senators, that petition isn’t going anywhere — except that it will force the White House, when it responds to the petition, to concede that the Republican Senators had the perfect right to act as they did.

Balked in their quest for a collective spill of Republican blood, the Lefties have a new tactic. They’re now pointing to members of the armed forces and accusing them of having violated the military code.

Ground central for loony Leftist lies is the Daily Kos, which is suddenly extremely solicitous about the whole military code of conduct. (Keep in mind these are the same people who still think John Kerry is a hero for having thrown someone else’s military medals over the White House fence and who include in their Big Tent the whole cohort of screamers who spent the entire Iraq war calling our troops “baby killers.”)

The Daily Kos’s particular target is Jodi Ernst. I really can’t do justice to its fulminations, so let me quote. (Since I don’t feel like honoring the Daily Kos with a hyperlink, here’s a non-hyperlinked URL if you want to see the original: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/12/1370336/-Lt-Col-Joni-Ernst-should-be-court-martialed-for-signing-the-seditious-letter-to-Iran.)

It is a privilege to serve in the US military. With that privilege comes obligations. Following military law is one of them. When Lt. Col. Joni Ernst signed the seditious letter to Iran, she broke a serious law.

Lt. Col. Joni Ernst, the junior senator from Iowa, serves as a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard. As such, she is bound by the Iowa State Code of Military Justice. Her signing of the seditious letter to Iran is a clear and direct violation of Chapter 29B.85 of the Iowa State Code of Military Justice.

29B.85 CONTEMPT TOWARD OFFICIALS.
Any person subject to this code who uses contemptuous words against the president, the governor, or the governor of any other state, territory, commonwealth, or possession in which that person may be serving, shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

This is very serious infraction. We are a nation governed by civilians. Our Commander-in-Chief is a civilian. The government officials that hold ultimate authority over our military are civilians. This is true at the federal level and the state level. This has always been the case since George Washington was president. He resigned his military commission to accept the position of president. We have never in our history had a military ruler. Military obedience to civilian authority is critical and essential if we are to maintain the democracy we inherited. That is why “contempt towards officials” is such a serious matter. Lincoln enforced that discipline during the Civil War. Even with the imposition of martial law, Lincoln remained a civilian commander. Truman enforced the same discipline after WWII when he relieved Gen. MacArthur of his command. Obama enforced the same discipline recently when Gen. McChrystal was relieved of his command. There is nothing anachronistic about this fundamental principle.

Let me say this very slowly because we’re clearly dealing with teeny-weeny brains here: There. Are. No. Contemptuous. Words. Against. Obama. In. The. Tom. Cotton. Letter. The letter’s only specific references to President Obama are as follows (emphasis added):

Second, the offices of our Constitution have different characteristics. For example, the president may serve only two 4-year terms, whereas senators may serve an unlimited number of 6-year terms. As applied today, for instance, President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us will remain in office well beyond then—perhaps decades.

What these two constitutional provisions mean is that we will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei. The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.

The first reference notes with complete factual accuracy, and no disrespect, when Obama’s term of office expires. The second reference notes with complete factual accuracy, and no disrespect, that without three-fifths of Congress approving any agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei, there is no treaty, there is only an executive agreement.

Now, if the Cotton letter had gone on to add that President Obama, despite his status as a constitutional law teacher, is an ignoramus when it comes to the Constitution; or that Obama is obviously engaged in a serious fraud against Iran and others in the world to the extent they rely on him to deliver a treaty; or that Obama seems to have abandoned the limitations of the U.S. Constitution in favor of the power of a tyrant — well, any one of those statements might be deemed “contemptuous.”

That, of course, is not what our reservist Senators did. Indeed, one could argue that reciting manifest facts about the Constitution’s language is the most respectful act a military person can perform. It’s heartening to know that the men and women who put themselves in the front line know what they’re fight for — and it’s not the United Nations, which Obama is now trying to bring into the loop in order to bypass Congress.

Joni Ernst isn’t the only target. Over at the Washington Post, Jonathan Capehart is just thrilled to write that a retired GENERAL also thinks Cotton was disrespectful:

I turned to retired Major Gen. Paul D. Eaton for perspective. He wouldn’t say Cotton and Co. were “traitors,” either. He had a better word.

“I would use the word mutinous,” said Eaton, whose long career includes training Iraqi forces from 2003 to 2004. He is now a senior adviser to VoteVets.org. “I do not believe these senators were trying to sell out America. I do believe they defied the chain of command in what could be construed as an illegal act.” Eaton certainly had stern words for Cotton.

“What Senator Cotton did is a gross breach of discipline, and especially as a veteran of the Army, he should know better,” Eaton told me. “I have no issue with Senator Cotton, or others, voicing their opinion in opposition to any deal to halt Iran’s nuclear progress. Speaking out on these issues is clearly part of his job. But to directly engage a foreign entity, in this way, undermining the strategy and work of our diplomats and our Commander in Chief, strains the very discipline and structure that our foreign relations depend on, to succeed.” The consequences of Cotton’s missive were plainly apparent to Eaton. “The breach of discipline is extremely dangerous, because undermining our diplomatic efforts, at this moment, brings us another step closer to a very costly and perilous war with Iran,” he said.

Somewhere along the line, Major Gen. Eaton (clearly the very model of a modern major general who sounds erudite but actually knows nothing), has lost sight of the fact that Cotton is not an active duty military man but is, instead, an active duty American Senator. Cotton’s obligations lie with the American people, not with the President — especially when the President is not acting in his role as commander-in-chief but is, instead, acting in his role as sell-out and appeaser-in-chief.

Incidentally, if it wasn’t immediately obvious from Eaton’s remarkably uninformed remarks, he’s also a hard core Lefty. Considering that Eaton is not only a moron, but also a sufficiently adept political animal to have held a high position during Operation Iraqi Freedom’s lowest ebb , before General Petraeus turned it around, I can only say that I, for one, am profoundly grateful that Eaton retired and is now reduced to making little clucking noises on Leftist media rather than having direct responsibility for American troops. As a civilian, he’s just one of a herd of similarly-situated Leftist lickspittles. Were he still in the military, he could do real damage.

The cries of “traitor” ring out

March 10, 2015 by Bookworm 21 Comments

My legal workload has left somewhat unaware of the latest news cycle. I was therefore surprised yesterday to see that one of my reliably Leftist friends on Facebook was saying that all of the Republicans in the Senate should be taken out and shot as traitors.

Working backwards, I discovered that the Republicans’ alleged treachery consisted of signing on to Sen. Tom Cotton’s letter educating the Iranian mullahs about our constitutional system: namely, that the president can make deals, but that the United States is bound by a treaty only if the three-fifths of the Senate ratifies it. Without that ratification, Obama’s “deal” lasts only until another president changes his (or her) mind.

Cotton, of course, is absolutely correct. The mullahs’ outraged reaction, in which they invoke international law as if that has the power to override a country’s internal rules for what it takes to create a binding treaty, tells us that they were woefully misinformed about the nature of the deal that they were planning on executing with President Obama. Could it be that our constitutional law professor/chief executive failed to inform them about the limitations on his power or, worse, misinformed them?

In any event, the Republicans’ temerity in making sure that the mullahs fully understood just how time-limited their deal is sent the reliably Leftist American media into a frenzy: “Traitor!” they cried. And my Progressive friend, being a good foot soldier, echoed that cry.

It’s worth looking at what constitutes “treason” as a matter of law:

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

To the extent that Iran is still not our friend (not having signed on yet to Obama’s friendly deal), one could reasonably describe Iran — you know, the “death to America” and “let’s fund world terrorism” nation — as an enemy. The question one ask to ask, then, is who, precisely, is giving “aid and comfort” to that enemy?

When Tom Cotton authored and fellow Republicans signed a letter informing Iran that a mere “deal” with an American president will not give them a ten-year long nuclear free ride, the mullahs felt neither aided nor comforted. They were, instead, enraged. Moreover, their anger seemed to stem from their sense that the letter snatched aid and comfort away from them.

But what am I saying? Our august president, the one who, from Day 1 has allied himself practically and emotionally with Islam’s most extreme elements across the globe, while simultaneously doing everything within his power to undermine the world’s lone Jewish nation, would never offer “aid and comfort” to an American enemy, would he?

[VIDEO] Gruber’s defense: I’m arrogant and stupid

December 9, 2014 by Bookworm 2 Comments

Trey Gowdy is masterful. He starts off strong and just gets stronger:

Post by C-SPAN.

Gruber looks like a trapped ferret, but it seems to me that his remorse is tied to his getting caught, not his having said those things in the first place. Were he genuinely remorseful, he would expand on those canned answers, and take a second look at his underlying world view.