Tom Davis Doesn't Heart George Soros
Here's a question. Numerous members of the Republican House majority are freely giving quotes to the press to the effect that they won't let George Soros have any ownership stake in the new Washington Nationals baseball team. Nor do they make any bones about the fact that it's because he's a Democrat.
Since when do members of Congress get to impose political tests on private businesses or major league baseball?
Doesn't that fall a bit short on the old rule of law front?
This is more like a gaffe you'd expect a backbencher to have made and then quickly withdrawn. But it's apparently caucus-wide policy.
And what's with Virginia Congressman Tom Davis (R)?
His other big beef with Soros seems to be that Soros is a Jew of the questionable cosmopolitan internationalist variety. Says Davis: "This is the Nationals, and they're going to give it to some multinational (i.e., George Soros)."
Sort of reminds you of last year when a slew of Republicans were serenading Soros right from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion hymnal.
Washington hasn't batted an eye. Because it's power-town. They worship it; their collective lips water for it. And Tom Davis et al. have it.
Congress' long-time position that it is entitled to meddle in baseball however it pleases has always annoyed me. Yes, baseball has an antitrust exemption, but if Congress doesn't like that, let them repeal it. Their hanging the repeal over baseball's head like a Sword of Damocles just so every piddling congressman can play Commissioner for a Day is revolting.
But this particular abuse of power is particularly offensive -- and scary. You're right, Josh: is there no one in Washington who is the least bit troubled by this naked exercise of power? I mean, there's no possible public interest to justify it, and as far as I can tell, the Republicans aren't even trying to come up with one even as a fig leaf.
June 30, 2005 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
not just not come up with a fig-leaf; in their usual way, they are coming up with phony crap, like the idea that because baseball has a steroids problem, someone like Soros who gives money to an organization that wants to change some of our drug laws is inappropriate.
Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, of course, should tell Davis et al to go fuck themselves, but since Selig is an awful commissioner and a weasel human being, that won't happen.
And to think, this is all to support Jew-counter Fred Malek's getting the team....
June 30, 2005 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here is Tom Davis's quote in Roll Call, it would appear that the Republican don't have any problems messing with the free market after all:
"I think Major League Baseball understands the stakes," said Government Reform Chairman Tom Davis (R), the Northern Virginia lawmaker who recently convened high-profile steroid hearings. "I don't think they want to get involved in a political fight."
Davis, whose panel also oversees District of Columbia issues, said that if a Soros sale went through, "I don't think it's the Nats that get hurt. I think it's Major League Baseball that gets hurt.
They enjoy all sorts of exemptions" from anti-trust laws.
June 30, 2005 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a law against people with political power threatening to take action against a citizen who does something perfectly legal. Not being a lawyer I can't quote it, but I am sure there is a law against it. If not, let's call it Hoppy's law and pass it forthwith!
June 30, 2005 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Congress' long-time position that it is entitled to meddle in baseball however it pleases has always annoyed me. Yes, baseball has an antitrust exemption, but if Congress doesn't like that, let them repeal it. Their hanging the repeal over baseball's head like a Sword of Damocles just so every piddling congressman can play Commissioner for a Day is revolting."
I don't understand that exemption anyway. Why was it granted, what the hell for? Why not give one to curling?
Let the goddam sports team owners sink or swim on their own, pay for their own goddam stadiums.
June 30, 2005 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
"His other big beef with Soros seems to be that Soros is a Jew of the questionable cosmopolitan internationalist variety. Says Davis: "This is the Nationals, and they're going to give it to some multinational""
I think you yourself had added in the fact that Davis objecting to a specifically Jewish international businessman, as opposed to just any owner of multinational enterprises without much in the way of local connection, perhaps because others have said dubious or worse things about Soros because of his background.
Here you elide two possible objections to Soros, both stupid, but only one vile, without evidence for the vile one.
June 30, 2005 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
"This is the Nationals, and they're going to give it to some multinational (i.e., George Soros)."
Is this another example of what the Right calls "American Exceptionalism"? Asking the question "Why should we let a foreigner in part own this team?". To me the Right's positions on "American Exceptionalism" are based in racism. I don't know if it is just partisan politics, racism or both. I am guessing both.
I am glad I am a Red Sox fan, Tom Werner and John Henry are both big supporters of the democrats. Therefore I buy a lot of Red Sox merchandise. (Note to self: No purchasing any Nationals merchandise)
June 30, 2005 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
A great uncle of mine who is a refugee from Nazi Germany, and as far as I know a Republican, looking at the rise of the religious right said this is how it started in Germany. My other great aunts and uncles all Republicans, unlike us in the younger generations, switched to being Democrats and very happily voted for Clinton.
I appreciate that baseball gets the blood going but why have not more people noticed how anti-Semitic the Republican Party is or at least some of their leading lights?
It reminds me of the debate over whether Pat Buchanan is an anti-Semite. Every Jew I knew Buchanan was an anti-Semite long before Bill Buckley said so and Al Hunt and other media types gave him a pass.
I do not understand why any Jew even the most devout do not see the danger of Republicans and I have similar questions for Catholics.
I urge great attention to what is going on in relgion and its ties to the Republican Party.
June 30, 2005 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
someone will probably look up the relevant case, but basically the reason baseball has an AT exemption is that almost 100 years ago a judge ruled that baseball is not interstate commerce (i.e., a game takes place in one location at a time, not across state lines, or something like that) and therefore cannot be regulated by federal AT statutes.
June 30, 2005 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, that's basically right: In 1922, the Supreme Court ruled that baseball was not in interstate commerce and therefore outside the reach of the antitrust laws. Over the years, despite the increasingly obvious incorrectness of that holding, the Court failed to reverse it. In Flood v. Kuhn in 1970 (which has Justice Blackmun's famous rattling off of a long list of baseball greats), the Court said that yes, it was plain that baseball was part of interstate commerce, but that the "aberration" of its exemption was of such longstanding, and that Congress had never moved to repeal the exemption, that the Court would let it stand. Which is about as unprincipled a ruling as one could imagine, but there you have it.
Here's a link to Flood v. Kuhn:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol
=407&invol=258
June 30, 2005 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oops, sorry, it was 1972, not 1970.
June 30, 2005 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bravo, Mr. Marshall! I joined your website today after reading that atrocious piece in the Wall Street Journal attacking you. Clearly, the writer is an anti-Semite who opposes our land and our people.
Now, it's this evil man Davis in Congress, fighting George Soros, who's done so much for the state of Israel and our people throughout the world. I read his words and think only of the ones who killed my dear grandparents in the war they refuse to acknowledge.
If it's not those evil people at the WSJ, it's the morally degrading Hollywood types who write for the Los Angeles Times who write terrible things about our children struggling for freedom and fighting terrorism on the West Bank and in Gaza. They lie to try to make us seem evil in their stories when the real evil lies with the terrorists.
I have some Palestinian friends. Palestinians are some of my best employees. Don't tell me about suffering! Don't question my will for freedom!
I call on everyone to join me in supporting George Soros and Mr. Marshall in the fight for our rights and against our enemies, whether they be terrorists or sadly in Congress.
June 30, 2005 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The thing I have never understood is what possible argument can be used to keep an antitrust exemption for baseball and not extend one to the NFL, NBA and NHL?
June 30, 2005 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Their hanging the repeal over baseball's head like a Sword of Damocles just so every piddling congressman can play Commissioner for a Day is revolting.
But it isn't just about the anti-trust exemption. The District of Columbia is Congress's little plaything. See K B Hutchinson's current attempt to repeal D.C.'s strict gun laws so she can keep a handgun in her Capitol Hill rowhouse (S. 1082) if you want to see revolting.
June 30, 2005 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm shocked to learn that a politician - and a Republican to boot! - is suggesting an arrogant and possibly illegal abuse of power.
Next thing, you'll be telling me they've been letting no-bid contracts to their contributors...
I don't know Davis from a hole in the ground. But the Post piece doesn't mention that he's alluded to Soros being a Jew - so, Josh must have some other source for his allegation that
'His other big beef with Soros seems to be that Soros is a Jew of the questionable cosmopolitan internationalist variety.'
(The writer invites us to infer from her stuff on Fred Malek that Davis is, at the least, not zealously anti-antisemitic. If that's all he's got, it's a tad on the thin side.)
June 30, 2005 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Below I have a lot of stuff about the attacks from various sources on George Soros. I have always been disgusted that Democrats don't seem proud to have him aboard, that Republicans dare to slime him the way they do, and that the media play along with the BS.
.
Immigrant success story, refugee from Hitler and Stalin, self-made billionaire, helped bring down the Evil Empire. Infinitely less creepy than Scaife and Moon, not the criminal that Murdoch is, and a nicer guy than the Koch brothers. What's not to like?
But everything's OK if you're a Republican, and Democrats will never stick up for their own.
http://seetheforest.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_seetheforest_archive.
html#109340451498604290
http://seetheforest.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_seetheforest_archive.
html#109382393631411505
June 30, 2005 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Soros has been an American as long as I have. (He emigrated here the year I was born.)
The governor of California hasn't been an American that long.
This is a nation of immigrants. Unless Tom Davis can produce proof that his forebears were all here when John Smith arrived in Virginia, he doesn't have any right to tell any citizen of the US that he's not American enough.
June 30, 2005 9:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
'Scuse me, but he doesn't have any such right even if he can produce proof.
July 1, 2005 1:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gee, Anon, I'd have to call that veiled anti-Semiticism, if it were wearing a veil.
July 1, 2005 1:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
And yet that Australian, FauxNews maven and patron saint of the Republican party, Rupert Murdoch, was allowed to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers. But of course, that was different.
July 1, 2005 8:13 AM | Reply | Permalink