Boehner should read the constitution and the law.

"... the president also directs U.S. foreign policy. Through the Department of State and the Department of Defense, the president is responsible for the protection of Americans abroad and of foreign nationals in the United States. The president decides whether to recognize new nations and new governments, and negotiates treaties with other nations, which become binding on the United States when approved by two-thirds vote of the Senate.^{[citation needed]}

Although not constitutionally provided, presidents also sometimes employ "executive agreements" in foreign relations. These agreements frequently regard administrative policy choices germane to executive power; for example, the extent to which either country presents an armed presence in a given area, how each country will enforce copyright treaties, or how each country will process foreign mail. However, the 20th century witnessed a vast expansion of the use of executive agreements, and critics have challenged the extent of that use as supplanting the treaty process and removing constitutionally prescribed checks and balances over the executive in foreign relations. Supporters counter that the agreements offer a pragmatic solution when the need for swift, secret, and/or concerted action arises."  wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States#War_and_foreign_affairs_powers

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Clearly it is the president of the United States who establishes and administers the country's foreign policy, not the Congress of the United States.  pl

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"A visas are issued to "representatives of a foreign government traveling to the United States to engage in official activities for that government." A visas are granted to foreign government ambassadors, ministers, diplomats, as well as other foreign government officials or employees traveling on official business [A-1 Visa]."  Wiki 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_the_United_States#Visa_denial

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Clearly it is within the legal powers of the president of the US to grant or deny a visa to enter and/or reside in the US to foreign persons who apply for such a visa.  It is not within the power of any member of the Congress of the United States to grant a visa to enter to enter the United States.  

IMO it is entirely inappropriate for the Speaker of the House of Representatives to seek to bring a foreign head of government to the US for the purpose of undermining the constitutional foreign policy authority of the presidency.

The US Congress is not the UN.  Bibi has no right at all to enter the US to address the Congress of the United States without the agreement of the US president.  President Obama should require Bibi and Boehner to come to Canossa hat in hand to beg for such a visa.  pl

Comments

[LeaNder]

readerOfTeaLeaves, this is by far one of the best rants I have ever read here, not least since it contains a very, very important information. ;)

[LeaNder]

Fred, I have problems to get too exited about that story too. No doubt the Ukrainian government has leverage, how does this figure in the larger success or missing success for that matter in the US? Davos, no doubt adds to this too, just as possibly diplomatic necessities between the US and Europe.

[confusedponderer]

IMO Bibi is fully playing this for electoral politics in Israel, and Boner is complicit in this.

IMO Bibi tries to show off his ability to 'easily move' the US, and the speech before congress and the mandatory standing ovations he will receive are meant to help his election chances. Bibi is not just utterly obnoxious, domestically he is also a capital B braggart.

And I agree that the issue beyond that is the question of who controls foreign policy. And it is an outrage that Boner pushes Bibi's request in such a way.

It is beyond my why congess has been allowed to take such a role in foreign policy at all, given how the various sanctioned bills by congress cripple the executive's freedom of action to conduct reasonable foreign policy, most notably now on Iran and traditionally on Cuba. The US would IMO be well advised to stop such travesties.

What did it take to issue the odd sanctions bill from a few weeks back directed against Russia? Three nuts late in the evening and a second on the record.

Some adults needs to tell the children that the party is over and they have to go to stop playing.

[robt willmann]

MRW,

The link to the Max Fisher article about the Zivotofsky case should work without the period at the end--

http://www.vox.com/2014/11/3/7146097/zivotofsky-jerusalem-israel-supreme-court-explainer

Here is the audio recording of the oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court on November 3, 2014 in the Zivotofsky v. Kerry case, number 13-628, that can be listened to or downloaded--

http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/2014/13-628

Here is a transcript of the oral argument before the court, which is also linked to on the page with the audio recording--

http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/13-628_o75p.pdf

The child in question in the case has quite a name: Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky.

[Tyler]

The President makes law from whole cloth and the Congress makes foreign policy.

Falcon cannot hear the falconer..gyre..etc etc.

Things are breaking down. Entropy is exponential.

[LeaNder]

I understand, Pat. MRW helped, by forcing me to concentrate on it. I was close to writing: Well, don't worry that the foreign public doesn't understand, with the exception of Iran of course, worry that the American public and its mainstream media doesn't or doesn't want to understand either.

But then, I search Google+Barack Obama+constitution I can choose between 10 to 25 violations he supposedly committed already. ...

The 25 are headed by this: "Obama Administration uses IRS to target conservative, Christian and pro-Israel organizations, donors, and citizens."

Let's see, I'll sure watch his speech. Will we again see all these standing ovations? How much additional Capital Hill support will AIPAC send out?

I am a bit hesitant of the advance celebrations on Mondoweiss based on the Politico article: There won't be a bill anyway. Citing the second to last paragraph if I recall correctly.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/john-boehner-invites-benjamin-netanyahu-congress-iran-114439.html

Advance celebrations trigger some real bad déjà vue experiences, I had with "my camp". In any case over there the constitutional angle seems to be considered non-news or a non-issue.

[Charles I]

There is some discussion and a few bon mots from Sen Graham and ilk, to the effect that Congress is divided between Israel and Europe over Iran. It notes the Jan 21 European tripartite statement against further sanctions Jan 21 in Today's Al- Monitor Daily Briefing "Congress Torn Between Europe, Israel On Iran".

I've read it, however at this very moment, the site appears to be undergoing server problems.

http://al-monitor.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f1566964eaf39ab18387973ed&id=273a1b257d&e=ca9e396cfa

[Charles I]

Al-Monitor back up, though my original email link still doesn't work.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/01/europe-israel-iran-sanctions-congress-pick-sides.html

[William R. Cumming]

News reporting Bibi may cancel trip! Apparently Israel restricts appearances on TV by pols two weeks before elections.

[Cee]

All:

Finally Rachael Maddow is off the bench.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/republicans-netanyahu-outreach-changes-the-game

Even the Mossad is warning the US to NOT to listen to Netanyahu and the rightwing, fairy tale believing crazies in the US.

Perhaps it's time to let the dog catch the car and we stand back and watch the Zionists be destroyed.

Watch this and see if you haven't had ENOUGH! I don't care how she died or anyone else died, ENOUGH!

http://www.globalresearch.ca/israeli-soldier-gives-water-to-blind-elderly-palestinian-woman-for-propaganda-then-kills-her/5425972

http://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-soldiers-expose-atrocities-gaza/8146

[Cee]

All,

I was distracted and I think my prior post went into the Saudi thread. Sorry.

My point was on the need to educate the American believers on the myths of the state of Israel. Like the Pope, I believe in reality and science and practice common decency!
If more people knew the truth, Israel couldn't get away with this chosen people madness.

An Israeli-born filmmaker is slamming the British Broadcasting Corp. for pulling his documentary on the Jewish exodus from Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

Ilan Ziv said in a blog post on April 27 that the BBC exhibited "a mixture of incompetence, political naivete, conscious or subconscious political pressure and ultimately, I believe, a lack of courage of broadcasters when they are faced with the complexity of the Middle East issue and the intense emotions, fears and aggression it generates."

At issue is the documentary “Exile: A Myth Unearthed,” which theorizes that many Jews did not leave Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple, and that many modern-day Palestinians may be in part descended from those Jews. The BBC had been scheduled to show the documentary, cut and renamed "Jerusalem: an Archaeological Mystery Story," late last week before it was taken off the schedule at the last minute.
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/bbc-pulls-documentary-claiming-story-of-jewish-exodus-from-jerusalem-is-a-myth-1.518768#

[confusedponderer]

The ever well informed Jim Lobe writes:

"Meanwhile, it will be very interesting to find out who initiated the idea that Netanyahu should be invited to address Congress at such a critical moment and to do so without any consultation with the State Department, the White House, or the minority leader in Congress. It’s hard to believe that either Boehner or McConnell would have the temperament or imagination to act on their own. One wonders whether Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer or someone at the RJC or Bill Kristol thought it was a great idea. Or maybe it was Bibi himself. Certainly the Emergency Committee for Israel welcomes the visit and plans to hold a reception for Bibi when he gets to Washington. Still, it’s hard to figure out how Israel’s relations with the United States or Europe are going to be improved by this.

AN ADDITIONAL THOUGHT: I think mainstream Jewish organizations that place a high stock in maintaining their bipartisan identity — including the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, and even AIPAC — are going to have a difficult time dealing with this situation due to the fact that Boehner has acted in such a transparently partisan manner. It’s important to remember that both Kristol’s ECI and Adelson’s favorite Zionist group, the Zionist Organization of America, implicitly attacked AIPAC last February for essentially throwing in the towel on the Kirk-Menendez sanctions bill precisely because the powerful lobby group had run into a solid wall of Democratic opposition and didn’t want to risk its bipartisan image. As Kristol said at the time, “[I]t would be terrible if history’s judgment on the pro-Israel community was that it made a fetish of bipartisanship — and got a nuclear Iran.” If Democrats line up strongly against Boehner’s and Bibi’s little coup, that same community is going to have to make some hard decisions."

http://www.lobelog.com/chutzpah-cubed-bibi-and-boehner/

[LeaNder]

The oral argument is very confusing if you don't use the transcript, to better understand who is speaking.

What I don't quite understand. If you scroll down here:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docketfiles/13-628.htm

Are all these parties involved?

Poor kid.

***********************

What I do not understand either is the link of this article, and how it comes about:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2015/01/httpenwikipediaorgwikipresident_of_the_united_stateswar_and_foreign_affairs_powers.html#tpe-action-resize-406

I can shift from Firefox to IExplorer and it remains the same. At least for me.

Anyone else?

[Cee]

CP,

The Israel lobby has overreached at last. John Boehner’s invitation to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to a joint session of Congress and rebut President Obama on Iran is turning into a political scandal that could reduce the power of the Israel lobby inside US politics.

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/01/netanyahu-political-football

This is outrageous and shows again how much control that lobby has.

The ‘hasbara’ tweeps who brought down Jim Clancy, and their ties to Israel and the Israel lobby

Veteran CNN journalist Jim Clancy’s resignation this week is one of the odder media fallouts from the Charlie Hebdo Paris attack. On January 7, 2015 Clancy got into a late night Twitter spat regarding the French satirical magazine with online adversaries. He told them they were ganging up on him and practicing “hasbara,” the Hebrew word for “explaining” that describes pro-Israel advocacy. As it turns out, Clancy was not off base. Some that spared with him have worked for the Israeli government and pro-Israel lobby groups. - See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/?s=jim+clancy#sthash.C3AMKXi5.dpuf

http://mondoweiss.net/?s=jim+clancy

[LeaNder]

thanks, confused, I didn't look at the authors of the Bloomsberg article. ... Jim reminds of earlier events in this context details, of course. I should have recalled myself. As much as considering political context and resulting pressure. But I was pretty busy with the constitution issue overload at the time the Lake/Rogin article surfaced here.

I wish he is correct. But let's see how enthusiastic the audience will be, and what he has to offer this time around. Over here in the US. And later Israeli election results after.