Where’s the Fatwa?

The guy who sits in the Secretary of State’s chair, John Kerry, said [emphasis added],

Now I want to be very clear. Nothing in our deliberations is decided until everything is decided. And the purpose of these negotiations is not just to get any deal; it is to get the right deal. President Obama means it when he says, again and again, that Iran will not be permitted to get a nuclear weapon. As you all know, Iran says it doesn’t want a nuclear weapon, and that is a very welcome statement that the Supreme Leader has, in fact, incorporated into a fatwa. And we have great respect—great respect—for the religious importance of a fatwa. And what we are effectively trying to do is translate that into legal language, into everyday language within the framework of a negotiated agreement that everybody can understand, which requires everybody to have certain obligations and ultimately be able to guarantee that Iran’s program, its nuclear program, will be peaceful now and peaceful forever.

But [emphasis and links in the original]:

The Obama administration…exhibits cloying reverence for a fatwa—a sharia law edict—issued by a jurist who runs a regime that is the world’s leading state sponsor of jihadist terror.

Even when the fatwa is a patent hoax.

The invaluable Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has done extensive research into compilations of Khamenei’s published fatwas. (See here and here, and citations therein.) No such fatwa has ever been published.

And

[D]espite repeated requests, Iran has never produced the purported anti-nuclear weapons fatwa from Khamenei.

And (via the PJ Media above)

Indeed, as MEMRI elaborates, Khamenei was directly asked about the purported fatwa in a 2012 Facebook exchange:

[I]s it also forbidden to obtain nuclear weapons, as per your ruling that their use is prohibited?

He refused to answer the question:

Your question has no jurisprudential aspect. When it has a jurisprudent [sic] position, then it will be possible to answer it.

Motorboat skippers and community organizers are so easily bamboozled.

Obama Makes it Official

Laws don’t apply to him or his White House.

The White House, in a curiously timed move, is stripping a federal regulation that made a particular office subject to reporters’ records requests.

The rule change means the Freedom of Information Act will no longer apply to the White House Office of Administration. In turn, the policy will allow the Obama White House to reject records requests for that office, just as the last Bush White House did.

There’s that Democratic Morality, again. Someone else did it, therefor it’s OK to do it again.

And, just to drive the point home that Obama holds himself above the law, all it takes being a stroke of that pen of his:

In the notice to be published Tuesday, the White House said it was not allowing a 30-day public comment period, and so the rule will be final.

Sit Down, and Shut Up

That’s President Barack Obama to Congress on his “negotiations” with Iran concerning the latter’s nuclear weapons program.

President Obama’s chief of staff Dennis McDonough told Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker in a letter that legislation sponsored by Corker would go beyond ensuring a role for Congress in a deal with Iran.

“Instead, the legislation would potentially prevent any deal from succeeding by suggesting that Congress must vote to ‘approve’ any deal,” McDonough said. He criticized a provision that would eliminate Obama’s authority to lift some sanctions on Iran as part of any agreement.

Never mind that that’s the point of Congressional oversight, and of the separate Constitutional obligation of the Senate to agree (by supermajority, mind you) to a treaty—that whole by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate bit.

That’s why Obama is working on his finally admitted-to Executive Agreement: that does not require Senate approval (and as a result, it’s wholly unbinding on anything or anyone). It can have no effect on the Iranian drive to obtain nuclear weapons.

Never mind, too, that the legislation under consideration would strengthen Obama’s hand in those negotiations. A strengthening he apparently does not want.

So: sit down, and shut up, Republican Congress. Your Betters are speaking.

A Number of People Predicted This

The first stage of the Seattle-mandated $15/hr minimum wage, to $11/hr, takes effect next month, but already Seattle’s low wage workers are feeling the pain of their pay “raise.”

…the city is experiencing a rising trend in restaurant closures.

The closings have occurred across the city, from Grub in the upscale Queen Anne Hill neighborhood, to Little Uncle in gritty Pioneer Square, to the Boat Street Cafe on Western Avenue near the waterfront.

The shut-downs have idled dozens of low-wage workers, the very people advocates say the wage law is supposed to help. Instead of delivering the promised “living wage” of $15 an hour, economic realities created by the new law have dropped the hourly wage for these workers to zero.

After all,

About 36% of restaurant earnings go to paying labor costs.

Restaurants operate on thin margins, though, with average profits of 4% or less….

The Seattle Eater offered a more itemized breakout [emphasis added]:

Bottom line, labor can only be a function of sales. If a busy restaurant at lunch serves 150 eaters during the lunch hour, and each person spends $15, the restaurant just grossed $2,250. If labor comprises significantly more than 30%, the restaurant won’t be in business for long. So that allows $675 total for labor for the day, and before the employer taxes we pay that allows $550 or so. At $15 an hour, that allows 36 labor hours, which means four people can work a full day. This assumes that everyone is making the new minimum. Now look around in a busy restaurant serving 150 people—do you see more than 4 employees? Of course you do.

The 16.2% increase in labor cost that first stage represents over Seattle’s current $9.47/hr minimum wage represents a total cost increase of nearly 6%—turning that 4% profit margin into a loss. Even taking Brendan McGill’s (Chef/Owner, Hitchcock, Hitchcock Deli and the gentleman quoted just above by the Seattle Eater) estimate of 30% labor costs, that spike in the minimum wage coming in a week or so works out to just under a 5% increase in total costs, still wiping out that 4% margin. No wonder restaurants are closing.

The question remains: are the targeted low-wage folks better off for being out of an $11-$15/hr job than they are for having a $9.47/hr job? Really?

Another question: how many other low-wage industries besides the food services one are getting hammered by this minimum wage law?

A final thought: maybe next, to cover Seattle’s minimum wage requirement, Seattle will impose a minimum business profit requirement on Seattle’s taxpayers.

 

…including AEI‘s Mark Perry, to whom h/t