We should cut Pakistan aid for 33 years

(PNI) A Senate panel voted to reduce aid to Pakistan by $33million to express our outrage at the 33-year prison sentence given to the doctor who helped us find Osama bin Laden.

This may not survive a full congressional vote or presidential veto.

Even if it does, it is a total joke as this is a little over 3 percent of the total dollars we send to Pakistan yearly. I doubt it will suffer much from this action.

I would prefer that we abolish all aid to Pakistan for 33 years. That might send a stronger message.

--David H. Holmes, Sun City West

Did Obama learn Economics 101?

According to John Taft, head of RBC Wealth Management in the United States, the purpose of financial managers is "to connect people who have capital with people who can deploy capital in such a way that everyone is better off."

When I read and hear the president saying that Wall Street is concerned only about profit and not employment, frankly, I wonder whether he audited Economics 101 instead of taking the class for grade. Isn't it obvious that if the deployment of capital is not beneficial, there will be little or no profit or employment, and if it is beneficial, there will be both?

Given the common-sense fact above, the president must feel that government bureaucrats are the better financial stewards of the nation's wealth. Do people really believe this?

--Jerome Glazer, Scottsdale

Cat hoarder, 81, should be pitied

When an 81-year-old woman takes in 64 cats and makes soup out of those that die, she is to be pitied not prosecuted ("Wittmann cat hoarder arrested in new cruelty case," Valley & State, Thursday).

Ironically, her acts were probably motivated by love of animals, not a desire to be cruel to them.

We can't say for certain that those cats had worse lives than they otherwise would have.

Feral cats have high death rates and live in bad conditions. Many of them are run over by cars. Many of them are killed by coyotes. Many of them starve or die of disease, not better fates than those that were under her care.

Lucienne Touboul's behavior was clearly dysfunctional, but it was not depraved or evil. She is a sick, old woman who belongs in a nursing home, not a criminal who belongs in jail.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's decision to treat her like a criminal is the real cruelty.

The proper way to address this issue is to have Touboul declared incapacitated and placed in guardianship, not to have her prosecuted and placed in jail.

--Kevin Walsh, Phoenix

Legislative supermajority perilous

When we gave one party a supermajority in the Arizona Legisalture, it sent a signal that its members could do anything they wanted and still get re-elected. We removed the checks and balances of "other thinking."

Remember, "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The Republican-controlled House, Senate and administration have done very well proving it over the past few years.

Hopefully, in the elections this year, we will correct our error and spread the power so that some debate, negotiation and compromise will take place, and rather than extremism, we will have some moderation and negotiated legislation coming out of our elected officials next year.

On second thought, the ideal situation would be to send enough independents, Libertarians and Democrats to the state Capitol so that the Republicans would have to build coalitions to get bills passed.

In today's political "my way or the highway" atmosphere, nothing would get done and the people of Arizona would be safe from stupidity for two years.

--Mike Saari, Peoria

Many ex-offenders deserve a job

Regarding a recent letter about ex- offenders being good hires:

I was waiting for a relative to finish up a mentoring session conducted through Arizona Women's Education and Employment (AWEE), an agency that helps ex-offenders (both men and women) gain education and employment.

I sat outside the meeting door listening to them discuss the emotions of trying to get a job, the excitement of getting a lead or call back and the feeling of failure when they were told "no" again.

Their eyes are mixed with hope and fear. They want to support their children, earn the community's respect, mentor others one day. They just need a chance.

Even when the economy bounces back, these folks still carry the mark of an ex- offender.

Our community is generous through all the donations and volunteer time provided to non-profit agencies dedicated to feeding hungry children, providing housing assistance to the poor, and many other valuable services.

But can't we also be generous and give them a chance through employment?

Not every ex-offender is serious about changing his or her life, but the faces I saw at AWEE were.

Maybe folks could take their generosity further and give an ex-offender a chance.

--Susan Robustelli,Glendale

How I could become a Democrat

I support the Democratic Party on many issues, including reduced military spending, progressive taxation (the rich pay more), minimum wages for laborers, more gun control, programs for the poor, etc.

However, there are two planks to the Democratic Party platform that cause me to no longer be a member: abortion and gay rights.

Democrats say they believe abortion should be a personal choice, but they want me to approve and pay for others abortions. They say they believe in separation of church and state, but they want me to violate my church's doctrine on homosexuality and not only condone but approve the gay lifestyle.

Neither of these two issues should be addressed by Congress or the president. These issues should be left to our conscience and the courts to decide.

Then, I could be a Democrat!

--Dan McMahon, Chandler

Hey, 'sell crazy somewhere else'

In response to Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett checking on the issue of President Barack Obama's birth certificate:

I thought of a line from the movie "As Good as It Gets."

Jack Nicholson said, "Sell crazy somewhere else. We're all stocked up here."

--Casey Franzen, Chandler

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Democrats Excited About Bain Should Remember Jeremiah Wright (The Atlantic Wire)

It's odd David Axelrod is so excited to see the attacks on Mitt Romney's business career in the Republican primary, considering that four years ago, the early airing of another emotional issue in the primaries was expected to stop Axelrod's own candidate, Barack Obama. Axelrod told old The New York Times' Jackie Calmes Thursday that Romney won't get valuable practice in responding to his rivals' "vulture capitalism" attacks. "Rather than immunizing him, this will likely just open the floodgates," he said. "I guess the only downside is that Mitt Romney might not be the nominee." It seems like Axelrod is forgetting fairly recent history. In the long 2008 primary, Obama had to deal with the inflammatory comments of his former preacher, Jeremiah Wright, who said a lot of things white folks found provocative ("Goddamn America," and so on.) Not only did Obama go on to win the general election, he won North Carolina --  a state with such charged racial politics that it had a eugenics program of forced sterilization until 1974.

Related: The Likeness of Being Romney and Obama

In the spring of 2008, the conventional wisdom held that video of Wright's speeches meant Obama was doomed. "Liberal apologists who grasp the devastating impact the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has on Barack Obama's chances of being elected president of the United States this year join the candidate in explanation and excuses. Sorry. No cigar," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker wrote. The New York Times' Bob Herbert warned, "the apparent helplessness of the Obama campaign in the face of the Wright onslaught contributes to the growing perception of the candidate as weak, as someone who is unwilling or unable to fight aggressively on his own behalf." And yet, Obama gave a celebrated speech on race, and this fall the first black president is up for reelection.

Related: Obama Slips in Battleground States; Gingrich Slips in Iowa

Related: Gingrich Admits Negative Campaigning Is Great

Democrats are oddly unified in claiming the early Bain attacks are awesome. "We were shocked that his rivals went there but nonetheless pleased because now the charges about his status as a corporate raider enjoy the luster of bipartisan ship," a senior Democratic strategist emailed Politico's James Hohman. This senior Democratic strategist was so sure of this analysis that he or she emailed the exact same thing to Talking Points Memo, including the misspelling of bipartisanship. The senior Democratic strategist is one of the few who wouldn't lend his or her name to the analysis. “It’s a total win-win, ” pollster Geoff Garin, of the pro-Obama superPAC Priorities USA, told Calmes.

Related: Mitt Romney's Secret Weapon: Mormonism

Soon we'll have a chance to see Romney's practice in action. Politico's Reid J. Epstein reports that Romney's campaign is working on a response "tailored to rebut Republican and Democratic attacks separately." Here are two problems identified by conservatives that Romney can work on responding to now:

Related: Gingrich Is the Most Polarizing Candidate But Also Most Admired

Not everyone buys the "y'all are just haters" defense. In his New Hampshire victory speech, Romney said his rivals were echoing Obama's "bitter politics of envy." The Times points out that the National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru warned, “Careful, Mitt. Don't want to insinuate that people only oppose you because they resent your success.”Romney supported TARP. RedState's Erick Erickson summarized Romney's argument Wednesday, saying, "Bain participated in capitalism, revitalized defunct companies, spun off as needed, and from the ashes of creative destruction of capital made a profit, saved or created companies, and saved or created jobs therefore let’s not attack Romney for his time there." Okay then, Erickson says, "If Mitt Romney saw, knew, profited from and participated in the creative destructive of capital, why did he advocate the government passing the troubled asset relief program (“TARP”)? Why not let the creative destruction of capital solve the problem and potentially make a profit off it?"And it looks like Romney might get the chance to practice and get his competitors off his back. Wednesday, Newt Gingrich indicated he might back off Romney a little bit, because, "Obama just makes it impossible to talk rationally in that area because he is so deeply into class warfare that automatically you get an echo effect." Democrats might be officially let down by this retreat, but it's hard to imagine they feel the same way privately.

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Could Obama ignore Congress if they refuse to raise the debt ceiling? Yes, and he should, some experts say (The Ticket)

Obama brushed off question about whether the debt limit is constitutional at Wednesday press conference (Carolyn …

As both major parties debate their conditions for raising the nation's debt ceiling, some Senate Democrats and constitutional scholars are questioning whether the limit is constitutional in the first place.

Delaware Sen. Chris Coons told The Huffington Post this week that he's part of a group of lawmakers now examining whether, in the case that debt negotiations fail, the Treasury could ignore Congress and continue paying its bills on time.

"This is an issue that's been raised in some private debate between senators as to whether in fact we can default, or whether that provision of the Constitution can be held up as preventing default," Coons told Huffington Post reporters Ryan Grim and Samuel Haass. "[I]t's going to get a pretty strong second look as a way of saying, 'Is there some way to save us from ourselves?' "

Critics of the debt limit cite the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states: "the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." (Emphasis ours)

Of course, the Fourteenth Amendment is open to wide, and varying, interpretation and debate. The most basic question here is, does a limit on debt "question" the "validity" of the debt?

Legal scholar Garrett Epps, writing in The Atlantic in April, said that a case could easily made for simply ignoring the congressionally mandated debt limit.

"This provision makes clear that both the monies our nation owes to bondholders, and the sums promised in legislation to those receiving pensions set by law from the federal government, must be paid regardless of the political whims of the current congressional majority," Epps wrote.

In essence, Epps argues that Obama should stand before Congress and say, Tough luck--the Constitution says we can't default. Epps argued that in the event that Congress does not act, Obama should (and could) instruct the Treasury Department to issue "binding debt instruments on the world market sufficient to cover all the current obligations of the United States government, even in default of Congressional action to meet those obligations."

President Obama's own views on the subject, however, are unclear. During his press conference Wednesday, Obama dodged a question about the debt limit's constitutionality, telling NBC's Chuck Todd: "I'm not a Supreme Court justice, so I'm not going to put my constitutional law professor hat on."

Obama understandably didn't want to show his cards by hashing out a plan for how he would act in the event Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling. But some observers have already outlined how he could--and still get away with it.

Writing in the Financial Times in April, Former Reagan adviser and Treasury official Bruce Bartlett said the Obama administration could justify ignoring Congress to ensure the nation pays its debts.

"The president would be justified in taking extreme actions to protect against a debt default. In the event that congressional irresponsibility makes default impossible to avoid, he should order the secretary of the Treasury to simply disregard the debt limit and sell whatever securities are necessary to raise cash to pay the nation's debts. They are protected by the full faith and credit of the United States and preventing default is no less justified than using American military power to protect against an armed invasion without a congressional declaration of war," Bartlett wrote. "Under those circumstances, when default is the only possible alternative, I believe that the president and the Treasury secretary would be justified in taking extraordinary action to prevent it, even if it means violating the debt limit."

However, if Obama were to follow that route, it's still unclear how the courts would rule.

Grim and Saass point to the 1935 Perry v. U.S Supreme Court ruling, which determined that the language in the Fourteenth Amendment does apply to the national debt. What's more, they observe, according to the majority opinion on the case, no act of Congress can undermine promises of debt payment from the federal government.

"To say that the Congress may withdraw or ignore that pledge is to assume that the Constitution contemplates a vain promise; a pledge having no other sanction than the pleasure and convenience of the pledgor," wrote Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who presided over the case.

Even with that precedent, however, the specific debt limit as we know it today has not yet seen its day in court. Should the White House's negotiations with Congress on the debt ceiling fail, it will be up to Obama to decide whether he wants to start that fight, which would no doubt require years-long court battles to settle.

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