RUTHFULLY YOURS

At first glance, yesterday’s decision in Zivotofsky v. Kerry might seem destined to end up as but a footnote in most constitutional-law books. It decides only whether the president or Congress controls the content of U.S. passports — now Nancy Pelosi can no longer demand that the Golden Gate Bridge appear on the visa pages of your next one. But because Zivotofsky involves the treatment of Jerusalem, it adds to the president’s foreign-affairs arsenal and could affect the struggle over U.S. Middle East policy, such as an Iranian nuclear deal.

Zivotofsky upholds the executive’s right to control passports. According to the Court’s decision, the State Department, rather than Congress, decides whether to record the birthplace of a U.S. citizen born in Jerusalem as “Jerusalem,” rather than “Israel.” All of the justices agree that the president holds a monopoly on the recognition of foreign governments, which stems from his exclusive constitutional authority to “receive Ambassadors” and has existed since President Washington’s 1793 proclamation of neutrality during the French Revolution. Congress, on the other hand, has the authority to control immigration, the borders, and international travel. Justice Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion on behalf of Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor, used an ill-conceived and undefined balancing test to conclude that Congress could not use these powers to contradict the president’s position on Israel’s territorial boundaries. A law using passports to contradict the president’s decision to recognize Israel “would not only prevent the Nation from speaking with one voice but also prevent the Executive itself from doing so in conducting foreign relations.”

Safely past the hurdles of re-election and the mid-terms, President Obama has plenty of time and scope left to continue his transformative ways. Obama’s sweeping new rule, “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” (AFFH), is up next. AFFH would override local zoning authority and expand federal control over where and how Americans live. Because of its sweeping impact and the fact that potential Clinton Vice-Presidential running mate, HUD Secretary Julian Castro, will be in charge of implementation, this issue has the potential to shift the terrain of the presidential race as well.

There is a way to stop AFFH, however, and you can help. Late this evening the House is expected to vote on an amendment by Congressman Paul Gosar that would block any funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development to enforce AFFH. Now is the time to contact your congressman and urge a yes vote on the Gosar amendment.

Almost exactly two months after Hillary Rodham Clinton’s official announcement that she’s running for president, she will give her first “official campaign announcement speech,” on June 13, according to her Twitter account.

In other words, the Clinton campaign wants a do-over. Her first rollout was the most disastrous nonfatal presidential campaign debut in modern memory, so she wants another.

Her initial announcement video in April — which most outlets accurately reported as her official announcement — was well done. After that, everything went downhill; a steady stream of news stories and damning allegations about her family foundation and tenure as secretary of state has dogged her almost daily.

Her best moment since announcing was when she was captured on grainy security video at an Ohio Chipotle franchise buying a burrito bowl. ABC News and MarketWatch dubbed it an “adventure.” Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin explained that Clinton’s excellent adventure was “fun” and “new.” “We’ve never seen her get a burrito before.”

“Violence is exploding. Jihadist Trojan horses are flowing through the porous border along with the tens of thousands ID-less refugees.”

Lefties like to tout Sweden — a country of ten milliion people — whenever they’re bloviating about the joys of national socialism. But here’s one native-born Swedish-American who’s having none of it:

This is the last post on this blog. I am leaving Sweden for good shortly, and will no longer be following its descent from what was once the third most prosperous country in the world. Frankly, it’s just too damn depressing. I was born and raised in Sweden, which leaves a cultural mark even though I moved to USA in the 1990s and have spent the better part of my adult life as an American. Coming back for a few years has been a shocking experience.

ISIS released video today of a training camp of “caliphate cubs” in Mosul that shows boys being groomed for jihad with live-fire exercises and abusive adult trainers.
The boys are masked in the video except for mealtime, when the camera pans away from their faces. Their higher voices and average heights suggest mostly pre-pubescent boys to some in their early teens.
The release comes as ISIS is preparing for its one-year anniversary of sacking Mosul and establishing the caliphate on June 29. The group has put heavy emphasis on raising younger generations as jihadis, including boys who were already living in areas seized by ISIS and children brought to the Islamic State by their parents.
The full video was viewed by PJM. Here are some images captured from the 7-minute film.
Boys are subjected to fights in a cage ringed with ISIS flags
A trainee is shown breaking a pile of tiles with his head
The trainer sledgehammers a pile of tiles on a boy’s chest
The trainer walks on the chests of boys stretched out on the ground
The trainer hits boys with a stick as they traverse climbing bars
The trainer breaks a stick across the torso or heads of boys as they’re not supposed to flinch
Boys crawl through an astroturf-lined tunnel while ISIS trainers fire live rounds at their path
Boys are put through an exercise in how to ambush a car
A boy fires at a fellow trainee in the grass

Before winning a minority government in 2006, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised to get to the bottom of the climate change file and handle the issue properly. Neither he, nor most members of his party, believed that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities were causing a climate crisis. Emission reduction regulations were clearly not necessary, they said.

In a 2002 fundraising letter for the now-defunct Canadian Alliance, Harper called the UN climate process “a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.”

Somewhere along the road to power, everything changed. Now, like the Chretien and Martin Liberal governments before them, the Conservatives officially support UN negotiations to “stop dangerous climate change.”

Proposals to curb emissions from trucks, airplanes, oil and natural-gas operations, and power plants

The Obama administration is planning a series of actions this summer to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions from wide swaths of the economy, including trucks, airplanes and power plants, kicking into high gear an ambitious climate agenda that the president sees as key to his legacy.

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce as soon as Wednesday plans to regulate carbon emissions from airlines, and soon after that, draft rules to cut carbon emissions from big trucks, according to people familiar with the proposals. In the coming weeks, the EPA is also expected to unveil rules aimed at reducing emissions of methane—a potent greenhouse gas—from oil and natural-gas operations.

Does the White House think it is going to lose this year’s big ObamaCare subsidy case at the Supreme Court? We’re beginning to wonder given President Obama’s increasing show of pique when he talks about the law.

On Monday in Austria, Mr. Obama responded to a question about the looming decision in King v. Burwell by treating the Supreme Court like first-year law students for even considering the case.
“There is no reason why the existing exchanges should be overturned through a court case. It has been well documented that those who passed this legislation never intended for folks who were going through the federal exchange not to have their citizens get subsidies,” Mr. Obama averred. That conveniently ignores comments by ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber, but the President kept rolling.

A while ago I took a walk on a desolate stretch of the Oregon coast. When I returned to the cabin, I realized I had dropped a purple glove on the beach. When my husband went out for his walk, I asked him to be on the lookout for my glove. When he returned, I asked, “Did you happen to see my glove?” He said, “Well, I saw a purple glove on the beach, but I wasn’t sure it was the right purple glove.”

It is said a doubtful friend is worse than a certain enemy. Israel has many certain enemies. They appear to be a wretched lot, manufacturing their own misery by avoiding the best things in life, like canine kisses and silk print dresses billowing with April. Israel’s certain enemies rant, “Death to Israel.”

“Muslim children, too, need to come to terms with German history.” — Günther Felbinger, MP with the Free Voters Party.

“At a time of increasingly rampant anti-Semitism and even anti-Semitic terrorism across Europe, the Steiner Bavarian plan, together with your generous Federal Islamic education program seems a recipe for Jihadism, ISIS recruitment and incitement to Jew-hatred, to be inevitably followed by attacks on other traditional Nazi victims: Roma, gays, women and disabled.” — Shimon Samuels, Simon Wiesenthal Center.

“We must never consider it normal that for a Jewish child growing up in Germany his kindergarten, his school and his synagogue must be guarded by police. This circumstance should provide us with an incentive to combat anti-Semitism by all means available to us within the rule of law.” — German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière.

A debate has erupted in Germany over whether Muslim students should be exempted from mandatory visits to former concentration camps as part of Holocaust education programs.