Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Iran, Islam, Law, Middle East, National Security, Politics, The United States, United Nations | Tags: Catastrophic Iran Deal, Obama's Secret Aims, UN Security Council
It’s no wonder that Obama dashed off to the United Nations Security Council to attempt to block Congress from doing anything to discredit his proud catastrophe in waiting. The administration raced straight from Vienna, without waiting for even comments from Congress.
It has now been 4,403 days — since June 2003 — since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) first reported that Iran had breached its legal obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It took another three years to get the matter before the Security Council. From 2006 to 2010 were six hard-fought resolutions that managed to avoid vetoes from Russia and China. Four of those resolutions contained sanctions provisions.
The resolutions didn’t stop Iran from working on nuclear weapons, but they were a universal statement that Iran was a pariah state. It was in breach of fundamental international law, and legitimately subject to sanctions until there was independent, reliable verification that Iran had fully complied.
Both Democrats and Republicans have criticized the U.N. First gambit. Secretary Kerry said it wasn’t deliberate. He said he and the President had wanted the U.N. to hold off until Congress completed its 60-day review as specified in U.S. law, but the other global parties simply couldn’t wait. Complete nonsense.
“It’s presumptuous of some people to suspect that France, Russia, China, Germany, Britain ought to do what the Congress tells them to do,” Mr. Kerry lectured his former Capitol Hill colleagues on ABC’s “This Week.” Mr. Kerry added as a sort of consolation that his hard bargaining did get the U.N. to delay the provisions of Monday’s resolution from going into effect for 90 days.
Yeah, sure. “Mr. Obama deliberately structured his Iran negotiation to make Congress a secondary party to the U.N. The Security Council vote means that the process of lifting international economic sanctions is now under way and the pact will roll forward. Mr. Kerry ad supporters of the deal will also now argue that if Congress does reject the pact, the international coalition and sanctions regime can’t be reassembled.” The Wall Street Journal added:
The U.N. vote lets him assert that disapproval in Congress will pit America against the rest of the world outside the Middle East.
Congress shouldn’t fall for it…
The bigger issue here is self-government. The U.S. Constitution gives Presidents enormous clout on foreign policy, especially when Congress won’t assert its own powers. But Mr. Obama doesn’t have the authority to let the United Nations dictate to America’s elected Representatives.
Even if Mr. Obama does veto a resolution of disapproval, a bipartisan majority vote against the Iran deal would be a forceful statement to Iran and the world that Mr. Obama is acting without the support of the American people.
Breitbart reports that there are two secret “side deals” between Iran and the IAEA to accompany the main Iran nuclear deal, which will not be shared with other nations, Congress, or the public.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Humor, Politics, Statism, The United States | Tags: Good Cartoon, Overstaffing, Underperforming
(h/t: Mark Perry, AEI)
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Education, Progressives, Progressivism, Statism, Unemployment | Tags: Long-Term Poverty, Poverty and Work, Poverty As a Trap
In 2008, about 18% of children lived in poverty. Today, under the Obama ‘Recovery’ that number has increased to 22%, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation report released Tuesday. The expectation is that the ‘improving’ economy will improve those numbers. However, figures on employment show that most of the new jobs have gone to immigrants. Census numbers don’t distinguish between legal and illegal.
Everyone knows that the best anti-poverty program is not a hand-out, but a job. President Obama admits this, but insists that the poor work just as hard as the rich do, and many poor people work very hard at low wages to support their families. Economist Stephen Moore points out that statistically, the average poor family does not work nearly as much as rich families do.
The Census sorts households by income quintiles: we call the highest one “the rich” and the lowest “the poor.” In the top 20 percent of income, the average household has two full-time workers. The average poor family (bottom 20 percent of income) household has just 0.4 workers. Basic math: for every hour worked by those in a poor household, those in a rich household work five hours. But six out of ten poor households have no one working at all. With no income from work, it is not surprising that they are poor.
For rich households, 75 percent have two or more workers, for the poor households that percentage is less than 5 percent. Out of wedlock births and divorce have a lot to do with income inequality. Budget expert Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institute found that if marriage rates were as high today as they were in 1970, about 20 percent of child poverty would disappear.
The best way to help low-income families is with jobs, ideally 40 hours a week. When welfare takes the place of work, it contributes to long-term poverty. Strict work requirements for welfare programs are actually a help, every step towards becoming a worker is a step out of poverty. Raising the minimum wage destroys jobs at the bottom of the skills ladder, and leaves beginners nowhere to start.
Getting married before having children, and having a father in the home are great ways to avoid the trap of falling into poverty. The earned-income tax credit supplements low income wages. The left wants to increase the benefits of being dependent on the government. People who are dependent are apt to vote reliably for those who give them benefits. That’s how the Left made people poor in the first place, and the rules for those who are dependent make it increasingly hard to escape.
American Elephants 