Category Archives: Congress
Living Breathing Constitution
Scalia once said, “The constitution is not an organism. It’s a legal text.” He didn’t believe in a living breathing constitution. Obama does.
Alive or dead, the constitution gives Obama the right to appoint a successor to Scalia. It also gives the Senate the right to ignore him or turn him down. Obama agreed with that back when he was opposed to executive overreach. As a senator, he called Alito un-American and filibustered Bush’s appointment of him.
At the time, Obama told ABC News that he supported the filibuster”because I think Judge Alito, in fact, is somebody who is contrary to core American values, not just liberal values.” Obama said the court needed to “provide some check on the executive branch, and he has not shown himself willing to do that repeatedly.”
Could be a campaign theme. Here’s Joe Biden with the 2012 campaign theme.
Checks and Balances
Looks like he latest version of federal checks and balances includes the executive branch spying on the legislative branch.
The Wall Street Journal ran a story last week about the US spying on our allies. The main ally in question was Israel as Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to make a speech before a joint session of Congress criticizing the Iran deal. The kicker was that in the process of spying on Bibi the NSA listened in on confidential conversations between him and members of the US Congress.
It seemed a little surprising that Obama cares what the legislative branch has to say, considering his habit of going around it and ruling by executive order.
Yellen Takes Off Training Wheels
Janet Yellen took the training wheels off the economy on Wednesday. After seven years of near zero percent interest rates, the Fed hiked rates a quarter percent.
Meanwhile, Congress passed a 2,000 page, 1.2 trillion dollar budget. That tacked another 157 billion onto the 18.5 trillion dollar national debt.
Yellen
On Friday the Dow dropped 370 points.
David Stockman says, “sell the bonds, sell the stocks, sell the house”. IBD wonders if the markets know something the Fed doesn’t.
Kasich Fantasy
Ohio governor John Kasich is trying to position himself as the grownup in the Republican free-for-all. He has solid credentials. He’s a two term governor of a swing state with a 2 billion budget surplus. He was chairman of the House Budget Committee when the federal budget was last balanced in 1997.
It’s an impressive resume, and he’s impressed by it.
Kasich Fantasy
Kasich does not take The Donald or The Doctor (Ben Carson) seriously. They annoy him.
In Wednesday’s debate he called the various Trump and Carson immigration and tithing tax plans a fantasy. Given the hostility of the CNBC moderators you’d think someone might have picked up on the theme. Instead they asked about fantasy football.
Speaking of fantasy, this morning’s Real Clear Politics poll average has Trump at 27, Carson at 22.2, and Kasich at 2.2.
Speaker Ryan
Paul Ryan has agreed to serve as Speaker of the House. On his terms. If all goes well he’ll be elected Friday.
Update: Paul Ryan says the secret $80 billion spending increase “stinks”. Freedom Caucus takes him at his word and will support him for Speaker. Ryan will benefit from the spending increase by avoiding a government shutdown.
