Different Purposes

Posted on by
Reply

The Wall Street Journal‘s editors missed on this one. Their editorial’s headline and subheadline lay out the editors’ case.

NATO Is the Board of Peace
Trump’s new coalition couldn’t do better than the Atlantic alliance.

Their editorial goes on in that vein, and that’s the editors’ miss.

NATO looked good for a while, maintaining the bluff that the alliance members, acting collectively, could respond to a Soviet Union- (read Russia-) led Warsaw Pact invasion, and by that capability deter such an invasion. The alliance’s apparent deterrent capability did, in fact, deter the Warsaw Pact. Or successive Russian leaders of the Pact recognized how weak its military establishment was, in fact, offering no guarantee of victory in an invasion even in the absence of NATO. That’s speculation regarding a history that didn’t occur.

However, with the demise of the Soviet Union, an unfettered even a little bit Russia has shown no reluctance to expand by force, as Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and his open threats against NATO members that used to part of Russia’s Soviet empire has shown. NATO, far from an operational alliance, has been exposed an aspirational alliance only.

For all that, NATO as an avowed defensive alliance was even operationally only a reactive one, intended to win a war already in progress that it had failed prevent. Deter, then fight.

Trump’s Board of Peace is an entirely different kettle of fish, with an entirely different imperative. The proposed Board of Peace does not have as its DOC either deterrence or fighting. The Board is intended to broker peace between conflicting nations on the brink of war or during their war.

However well or poorly NATO functioned and however well or poorly the Board of Peace will function once it’s stood up, the two are not comparable. The allegation that the Board would do no better than NATO is a non sequitur.

“That’s Unconstitutional”

Posted on by
Reply

Many politicians, primarily but not exclusively of the Progressive-Democratic Party, when they decry the actions of President Donald Trump (R) loudly declaim that whatever it is that he’s doing is “unconstitutional.”

It’s instructive that these worthies usually omit to cite the clause of our Constitution that’s supposedly being violated, but when they do cite something, they center their claim on the 10th Amendment.

Here is what that Amendment says:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Article I, Section 10, lays out specific powers prohibited to the States:

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it’s inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

Included in the powers not delegated is this one from Article II, Section 3:

…he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed….

Here is what the Supremacy Clause of our Constitution says, from Article VI:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

There is nothing in the supreme Law of the Land  that has been delegated to the States or to the people. That supremacy has been retained by the Federal government, and that supremacy includes actions of Federal law enforcement agencies and their personnel in the course of their enforcement of Federal laws in Progressive-Democrat-run “sanctuary” jurisdictions; the latter’s protestations to the contrary are irrelevant.

No part of a President’s authority or obligation to enforce the Laws are reserved to the States. Nor does the 10th Amendment’s delegations include any State-level authority to block or otherwise interfere with Federal law enforcement actions.

That’s Not All UNRWA Provided

Posted on by
Reply

Israel is razing significant fractions of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency facility in Jerusalem. Of course the Left is in an uproar over this. UNWRA spokesperson Jonathan Fowler:

United Nations premises are inviolable[.]

The agency is touted as being the main agency tasked with providing assistance to Palestinian refugees.

However, UNRWA has provided as much, or more, assistance to terrorists operating in and from Gaza as it is reputed to have provided Palesinians. And don’t forget the UNRWA employees who were active participants in Hamas’ butchery in Israel on 7 October 2023.

UNRWA forfeited its so-called UN inviolability with that perfidious behavior. Israel is well rid of it within its borders, and the world would be well rid of it were it razed altogether.

An Overstated Case

Posted on by
Reply

A couple of Wall Street Journal news writers have laid out the concerns in the Supreme Court’s consideration of whether President Donald Trump (R) can fire Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve Bank governor.

It will test whether the court’s conservative majority, which has spent years eroding the independence of regulatory agencies, is willing to make an exception for the institution that controls interest rates, inflation, and the stability of the global financial system.

One out of three isn’t all that terribly bad, but the first and third items are of critical importance.

[E]roding the independence of regulatory agencies…. What independence? They were created as instruments of the Executive Branch. As such, under our Constitution, they cannot be independent, for all that Congress averred it so. That would be a violation of our Constitution’s carefully constructed separation of powers. Those agencies are entirely under the authority of the President as the Chief Executive of the Executive Branch. Far from years of eroding the independence, the Court has been glacially slow in recognizing the agencies’ lack of independence.

The stability of the global financial system? Really?

It’s certainly true that the US, with our enormous economy and the size of our market for the global economy, even in today’s tariff regime, exerts outsize influence on the global economy.

However, it exerts influence only, not control.

The impact of our central bank on the global economy is as much—at least—the outcome of other nations’ government decisions as it is that of our own decisions. They don’t get to hide behind us or our central bank in their decision-making, nor do they get to blame us or our central bank for the poor outcomes of their decision-making. The stability of the global financial system is an affair of collective responsibility, not one of unilaterality.

Ellison Returned some Money

Posted on by
Reply

Minnesota’s Attorney General Keith Ellison (D), who seems deeply connected with his State’s multi-billion dollar welfare fraud via his lack of action on when advised years prior to the current public exposure, returned some $2,500 in illegally donated money. When called on all the donations from welfare fraudsters, Ellison answered the call.

Ellison had already returned a $2,500 campaign contribution to a donor who was indicted in September 2022 for the food aid fraud. The donor, Liban Alishire, later pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering and awaits sentencing, court records show.

Never mind that that’s not all the money that folks who had defrauded the State or are charged with defrauding the State but whose trials have not yet begun that Ellison has not yet given up. The larger question here concerns these $2,500, which were returned to the fraudster. Those dollars could easily have supported the fraudster’s benefit, his defense bills or his potential restitution bill, for instance.

There are alternatives for what could have been done with Ellison’s illegally funded donations; he still can use those alternatives for the rest of his…donations.

State Senator John Hoffman [D], who received eight questionable donations that totaled about $3,300, sent all of the money to the US Marshals Service because the donated money might have been obtained through fraud.
“It was the right thing to do,” he told The Center Square.

But not Ellison. He still put it to his own and his donor’s good use.