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Barack Obama got a global standing ovation long before he was elected president. But in a fickle and fast-moving world, the overseas reviews are already turning mixed.
A deepening global recession, new hostilities in the Middle East, complications in closing the Guantanamo Bay prison, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan – an impatient world has a stake in all of them and is asking how much change Obama can deliver.
“The idealism has diminished,” said Samuel Solvit, who heads an Obama support network in France. “Everyone was dreaming a little. Now people are more realistic.”
Said Reginald Dale, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, “People everywhere simply expect too much, practically ensuring Obama will disappoint.”
“The United States can’t solve all the world’s problems,” he said in an interview. “It doesn’t have enough money or military power. And the president is constrained by Congress and the constitution. The founding fathers wanted to stop someone from being like a monarch.”
Looks like the row to hoe is even more difficult than anticipated. And a monarch? Even with the Constitution under siege, let’s hope not.
Well, you know, corporations must comply with the rules established by the states in which they incorporate. There is nothing that says states can’t make any rule they wish to make regarding CEO compensaton.
But is the Federal Government expressly prohibited or permitted to establish rules regarding CEO pay?
The Feds certainy hit all around it what with Federal Minimum Wages, Federal tax treatment of executive compensation as part of benefits programs as well as the available business tax deduction for same.
The problem as I quoted in Post #76 above is that the Feds can do just about anything if the Courts broadly interpret the Commerce Clause. Reading the clause/Constitution itself is NO GUAGE OF WHAT IT MEANS. The SCOTUS does that, quite often to the mystification of all the experts.
#65, goof,
I’d really like to see where you can find precedent or case law which will support your wild ass assertion that the Commerce Clause allows Congress to regulate pay rates of private companies.
There is ample authority to demonstrate that Congress has the authority to regulate all aspects of companies doing interstate business. Blockquotes are from the Court decision while italic quotes are from a summary.
Gibbons v Ogden, 1824
Granting State patent on waterway
National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation , 1937
RE: National Labor Relations Act
Wickard v Filburn
Agricultural Production Regulation
Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. v. United States, 1964
Civil Rights
The Court held that Congress acted well within its jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce clause in passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, thereby upholding the act’s Title II in question. While it might have been possible for Congress to pursue other methods for abolishing racial discrimination, the way in which Congress did so, according to the court, was perfectly valid. It found no merit in the arguments pursuant to the Thirteenth Amendment, finding it hard to conceive that such an Amendment might possibly be applicable in restraining civil rights legislation. Having observed that 75% of the Heart of Atlanta Motel’s clientele came from out-of-state, and that it was strategically located near Interstates 75 and 85 as well as two major U.S. Highways, the Court found that the business clearly affected interstate commerce. As such, it therefore upheld the permanent injunction issued by the District Court, and required the Heart of Atlanta Motel to receive business from clientele of all races.
United States v Lopez, 1990
Gun Regulation in schools (overturned)
.First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of Interstate Commerce.
Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of Interstate Commerce, or persons or things in Interstate Commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities;
Finally, Congress’s commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to Interstate Commerce i.e., those activities that substantially affect Interstate Commerce,
#77 bobbo.
Yes, absolutely. Real solutions take real discussion, and patience is a virtue.
The issues surrounding gun control are emotional, and therefore finding the facts from disinterested 3rd parties is paramount. Hence the references.
As gun control goes, how much more time is needed to see that more guns = less murder? I’d say the evidence of the last 30 years is more than enough.
BTW, so you’re sleep “challenged” as well?
#79, goof,
Not until FDR packed the court to pass his New Deal
You must be getting all your information from the right wing outlets. Roosevelt never packed the courts to have anything passed.
#83–Ah Yea==I’m sleep challenged enough to want to miss your humor, but awake challenged enough to see it.
So, you’ve got a study showing more guns = less murder? How do they control for the 145 other relevant variables? And thats why there is only a moderate positive correlation between number of guns and number of murders.
Within the variations of a positive correlation, yes, anything can be shown.
Regarding sleep–I’m ungodly healthy so I don’t think “its a problem.” There just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done, so I stay awake until I pass out===like I feel like doing right about now.
#78, Poison Twin,
Here is the legal definition of Commerce:
COMMERCE – The exchange of commodities for commodities.
The definition of trade:
The business of buying and selling commodities; commerce.
Hence, trade between the states is commerce.
Buy a dictionary.
Good news. Israel has decided to give Obama an inauguration present.
#83, Ah Yea,
The issues surrounding gun control are emotional, and therefore finding the facts from disinterested 3rd parties is paramount.
I agree 100%. Where we know we will disagree is where are those “disinterested 3rd parties”
*
If guns reduce crime so much, why does the US have more people in jail than any other industrialized / democratic country? Why is the crime rate so high, again in comparison.
These are rhetorical questions and I don’t expect you to answer because many criminologists have spent decades trying to find the answer.
#86, Loser,
Read the WHOLE section, not just one word. The courts have defined the Commerce Clause to pertain to anything dealing with interstate commerce. Included laws are:
National Labor Relations Act,
Civil Rights Act, Title II,
Occupational Safety and Health Act,
The Minimum Wage,
Agriculture for sale,
The Pure Food and Drug Act,
Sarbannes-Oxley,
Sherman Anti-Trust Act,
While there are many more, this should suffice that Congress has enacted, and the Courts have upheld the right of Congress, under the Commerce Clause, to regulate the internal machinations of interstate businesses, even if the subject does not include trade.
Do you ever get the feeling you are just pissing into the wind? A strong wind?
#82, You are taking those quotes out of context and you know it. They are all related to businesses doing business with each other or their consumers. Not capping what compensation employees receive.
However, I will agree that setting a minimum wage has regulated commerce – it’s made things more expensive which jacks up the sales and income taxes looted.
#89, Poison Twin,
And NONE of them state they can cap wages. They can set a minimum wage (which is baulderdash but another argument), but they can’t come in and say, “You are making too much money.”
#91, Loser,
The question put to Cow-Paddy was:
“What part of the Constitution forbids Congress from regulating CEOs wages. ”
This was posed after Cow-Paddy claimed that it was unconstitutional for Congress to regulate CEO’s wages.
That Congress has not regulated wages directly (they have to some very small degree in securities and reporting regulations) does not mean they do not have the authority to do so.
None of the quotes I mentioned above were taken out of context. They are all quotes I found on Wikipedia under each specific case as that is usually the most important and quoted portion of the decision. Supreme Court decisions may be, and always are, quoted by the short passages as I have done. If the Court says the Commerce Clause is relevant in regulating commerce, it is. Period. The last I checked, wages were a part of commerce.
Note, I did not link to each case as the spam filter doesn’t like it when you do that. Each case may be found on Wikipedia by pasting the case name in the Wikipedia search box.
#84 – True, after his humiliating defeats in the early Thirties, he attempted to pack the SCOTUS by expanding the number of Justices. That attempt failed. Due to retirements an deaths he was able to pack the Court with his chosen Justices who then approved a number of his Socialist agenda items in 1937, culminating in the disgraceful finding of the Social Security Tax being Constitutional. A sad end for which we will be paying ever more for as far as the eye can see.
Sorry for not being specific enough.
#90 You’re talking to a reality bending cuban who loves to read Marx. That’s what conFusion is. Don’t waste your time on a troll.
#92, The last I checked, wages were a part of commerce.
That’s where you are wrong.
You asked, “What part of the Constitution forbids Congress from regulating CEOs wages?”
It has been answered time and again. Just because SCOTUS chose to ignore that amendment does not change the writing of the Constitution.
Good friend of Pres elect Obama kept from entering Canada due to being, well, a nut.
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/573462
Yes, the bloom is off the skunkweed.
#95, Loser,
Ya jes can’t put it away, can ya?
It has been answered several times and the answer keeps coming back “Yes Congress has the authority to regulate wages”.
It doesn’t matter if you think the Supreme Court ignored an amendment. They didn’t. They DEFINED the law. So when you consider your (actually geofgibson) earlier assertion that the 10th Amendment stops Congress, you haven’t read Article I, Section 8, Clause 3. Because that already gave Congress the power.
Ignoring or dismissing the law, as defined under the Constitution, by the Supreme Court shows you don’t care about America. If you are unwilling to follow the laws of the land maybe it is time for you to move somewhere that they have anarchy and don’t have a Constitution. I hear Antarctic is nice this time of year.
#93, goof,
Still trying?
True, after his humiliating defeats in the early Thirties,
In 1936 elections, Roosevelt and the Congressional Democrats won a landslide victory. Mostly due to the obstructionist Republicans and the Supreme Court decisions. The people wanted change and they got it. In the first “New Deal” case to hit it, the Supreme Court backed down from it’s previous stand and accepted the law Congress passed as good law. Thus, the people’s will was done and a Constitutional stand off defused.
Try actually learning some history instead just spouting what Rush Limbaugh shouts.
#85 bobbo, Lol! Good response!
As far as “How do they control for the 145 other relevant variables?”
The papers cited have reams of data which covers this down to the minutest detail.
#97, Poison Twin,
What part of “it’s not written in the Constitution so they can’t do it” don’t you understand?
Maybe this will help. http://tinyurl.com/p6mrd
Put the following phrase, without the double quotes” in the red box and hit translate:
“The 10th Amendment Forbids It”
They DEFINED the law.
No they didn’t. They MISINTERPRETED the law.
If you are unwilling to follow the laws of the land maybe it is time for you to move somewhere that they have anarchy and don’t have a Constitution.
If you want to live in a country where those in power wipe their ass with the Constitution, perhaps you should move somewhere with an oligarchic government. I hear Chavez is looking for some more sheep.
I am not going to support a government that permits this to happen.
Thus, the people’s will was done and a Constitutional stand off defused.
Free Ice Cream for Everyone!