Daily Archives: 17 May 2018

“Iran deal: The European Union’s ugly options”

Posted on by
Reply

That’s the headline of a Deutsche Welle piece regarding the impact on Europe of President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the US from ex-President Barack Obama’s (D) Executive Agreement that sought to codify Iran’s “right” to obtain nuclear weapons, if Iran were to have only a little patience and wait until the Agreement’s blocks, such as they are, expire in a few years.

Then Ten Schultz, the author of the article, opened with this statement.

The United States’ withdrawal from the Iran deal, despite the personal pleadings of Europe’s most powerful politicians, has provided one more example that President Donald Trump has no hesitation in dismissing European interests and trans-Atlantic concerns.

Of course, it couldn’t possibly be the case that Europe’s most powerful politicians have no hesitation in dismissing American interests and trans-Atlantic concerns.  No, of course not: those worthies are lily-pure.

Schultz then touts his false choice:

…stand up to Trump in efforts to preserve the deal…or to acquiesce to whatever Washington wants, even if it means abandoning a UN-approved agreement they brokered and believe in.

Never mind that for 16 months Trump has been trying to get those most powerful politicians to negotiate to shore up the deal and fill its glaring gaps and that those worthies have steadfastly refused to negotiate.  It’s certainly true that French President Emmanuel Macron came to DC offered pretty words about wanting to satisfy three of Trump’s four pillars that would have done the shoring up.  It’s also true that German Chancellor Angela Merkel came to DC to insist personally that the US stay with the deal.  Macron had nothing, though, other than his pretty words.  He had no concrete proposals to offer—just that willingness to keep talking in lieu of acting.  Merkel didn’t even have that much.

The UN? That’s just a debating society for politicians with nothing else to do with their countries’ payroll money.  It’s certainly been unwilling to do anything serious about Iran’s threats—and lately outright attacks—against Israel, or about Iran’s missile attacks on Saudi Arabia via their client terrorists in Yemen (itself wracked by an Iranian-caused and supported civil war).

That debating society refuses, also, to deal with Iran’s active missile development program (for which the Yemen launches serve as excellent OT&E evaluations).  Keep in mind that, for all of Iran’s future nuclear weapons—they could build dozens of them—those bombs are useless without a means of delivering them to Iran’s targets.  Missiles are a central such means.  Oh, and this: the most powerful politicians’ UN also has barred Iran from doing missile development.  Those politicians are conveniently silent about that.

And never mind that Iran has never signed the Obama Agreement.

No, it’s all Trump’s fault.  It’s all America’s fault.

We had enough of that during Obama’s eight years.  It’s about time we regained our willingness to act unilaterally when our allies won’t even talk seriously with us about joint action.

Congressional Intent

Posted on by
Reply

In a piece centered on Federalism and the Supreme Court’s ruling that Congress cannot require individual States to ban sports gambling, there’s this bit at the end of the article that interests my grasshopper mind.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in concurring, protested the Court’s analysis of Congressional intent.

The Court also determined that PASPA’s [Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act] prohibition on sports gambling advertising can’t be severed from the law. But as Justice Clarence Thomas noted in his pithy concurrence, the Court’s severability analysis requires courts to make “a nebulous inquiry into hypothetical congressional intent.”

On this, I disagree with Justice Thomas. In Connecticut National Bank v Germain the Supremes held

…that courts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there.

If Congress had intended sports gambling advertising to be severable, it would have said so in PASPA. Congress did not say so; arguing the possibility of severability would be Thomas’ own inquiry into congressional intent.