Constitutional scholar locates a "consultation with businesses" clause

At his press conference yesterday, the President was questioned with respect to his delaying by one year the employer mandate whereby businesses of over 50 employees would have to provide federally-approved health insurance plans for the same.


Here was his response:

With respect to health care, I didn’t simply choose to delay this on my own. This was in consultation with businesses all across the country, many of whom are supportive of the Affordable Care Act, but — and who — many of whom, by the way, are already providing health insurance to their employees but were concerned about the operational details of changing their HR operations if they’ve got a lot of employees, which could be costly for them, and them suggesting that there may be easier ways to do this.

Now what’s true, Ed, is that in a normal political environment, it would have been easier for me to simply call up the speaker and say, you know what? This is a tweak that doesn’t go to the essence of the law. It has to do with, for example, are we able to simplify the attestation of employers as to whether they’re already providing health insurance or not. It looks like there may be some better ways to do this. Let’s make a technical change of the law.

That would be the normal thing that I would prefer to do, but we’re not in a normal atmosphere around here when it comes to, quote- unquote, “Obamacare.”

We did have the executive authority to do so, and we did so. But this doesn’t go to the core of implementation.

No. No he doesn't have the authority to unilaterally delay implementation of policy he signed into law.


And to imply blame for this on the opposition party is pathetic and weak-minded. Republicans were froze out of the negotiations during the crafting of this monstrosity but now they are being blamed for the President's unconstitutional unilateral action as if they are now suddenly required to bail the man out of the mess of his own making.


But back to the "consultation with businesses" clause... It doesn't exist.


Nowhere in either the law (“ObamaCare”) nor the Constitution is authority granted by which the President can just start winging it and choose which parts of the law he wants to implement and choosing to whom the law will or will not apply. This power is simply not granted to a single person.


We hope all the 99%ers out there are paying attention to this: the person you most likely voted for is forcing you to purchase health insurance from the big health insurance complex as this law is effectively driving the smaller health insurance providers out of the market.


The person you most likely voted for President did not consult with you, rather he consulted with the monied interests of this country before making this decision. There are many names for this government-corporate hand-in-hand arrangement: corporatism, economic fascism, Peronism… call it what you want but it is lawless and it is un-constitutional and does not belong whatsoever in the governance of this country. We cannot wait until there is an (R) back in the Oval Office whereby fidelity to the Constitution and rejection of corporate interests will matter again with all the cool kids.


3-1/2 years after ObamaCare became law, the man is diminished to unlawful actions and blaming others for the already fantastic failure of his “signature” piece of legislation.



Parting thought: perhaps the best case in favor of the Constitution is to protect us against those who do not think we need it anymore.

Things keep getting better and better for a law set to drop in 2 months

A couple items of note with respect to the unfolding trainwreck that is the rollout of the new federal healthcare law:



During the legislation of the law, proponents of ObamaCare insisted that the law simply must pass and pass sooner than later because 40,000 a year were dying because they did not have health insurance.


Since one good fear-mongering turn deserves another, we ask what are ObamaCare fanboys and fangirls to make of the President making a unilateral decision to delay for one year the employer mandate whereby businesses of over 50 employees must provide federally-approved healthcare plans to their employees?


We won't be holding our breath for any blowback from the increasingly hypocritical progressive camps but the non-partisan CBO (Congressional Budget Office) chimed in with a report detailing just what the monetary and human cost would be for a one-year delay of the employer mandate.



From Reuters:

President Barack Obama's decision to delay implementation of part of his healthcare reform law will cost $12 billion and leave a million fewer Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance in 2014, congressional researchers said Tuesday.

The report by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is the first authoritative estimate of the human and fiscal cost from the administration's unexpected one-year delay announced July 2 of the employer mandate - a requirement for larger businesses to provide health coverage for their workers or pay a penalty.

The analysts said the delay will add to the cost of "Obamacare's" insurance-coverage provisions over the next 10 years. Penalties paid by employers would be lower and more individuals who otherwise might have had employer coverage will need federal insurance subsidies.

This is a double-whammy because not only will people not be insured by their employers, the subsidy funding that would help defray the cost of healthcare insurance in the individual markets for these folks goes wanting because companies won't be paying the monetary penalty for not insuring their employers for one more year.


We are still in self-debate as to whether the hopelessly-flawed manner in which this law was constructed is due to monumental ineptness or due rather to brilliant cleverness as the unworkability of ObamaCare in its current state will just move us all towards a single-payer system, the progressive goal all along.






Title for this next subsection could be: Lawmakers freaked out they will have to live with a law they wrote and passed.


Not too long ago, we noted that members of Congress only just recently got around to the realization that… holy crap, they would be losing their current government employee healthcare plan and would be forced to shop for insurance plans in the state exchanges without, possibly, being reimbursed for the price of the plan.


The New York Times helpfully calls this a “wrinkle”:

Under a wrinkle that dates back to enactment of the law, members of Congress and thousands of their aides are required to get their coverage through new state-based markets known as insurance exchanges.

But the law does not provide any obvious way for the federal government to continue paying its share of the premiums for the comprehensive coverage.

If the government cannot do so, it could mean an additional expense of $5,000 a year for individuals and $11,000 for families under some of the most popular plans.

Not surprisingly, that idea is unpopular on Capitol Hill.

The provision to dump members of Congress and their staffs into the public exchanges was in the original Senate Bill and remained there as the House never took up the question of reimbursement.


Amazing.


Think about this for a moment: How jacked up is this law and how bad is it going to be for the rest of us if the people who legislated the damn thing did not even take time to figure out how to shield themselves and particularly their staffs from the added expense they will now be facing shopping for plans through the exchanges?



Back to the article:

At a Congressional hearing in April, House members pressed the administration to say what would happen to their health insurance if they went into exchanges.

Jonathan Foley, a senior official at the United States Office of Personnel Management, deflected the questions. “That is right now a subject of regulation,” Mr. Foley said. “It would be inappropriate for me to comment.”

Edmund D. Byrnes, a spokesman for the personnel office, echoed that statement on Monday. “Nothing has changed,” Mr. Byrnes said. “We are still working on a regulation.”

In its work plan for the next six months, the personnel agency said it was developing a proposed rule “regarding coverage for members of Congress and Congressional staff.” The agency said it hoped to issue the proposal in October.

That is rather late, since the exchanges are supposed to open on Oct. 1.

Nancy Pelosi was right, sort of. Yeah, the rest of us are, sadly, finding out what’s in this law, however, the Democrats that wrote it, 3-1/2 years later, still don’t know what is happening to their own health insurance plans. Priceless.

Congress, like, totally bummed they will be subjected to their own law

We can't quite ever recall a more delicious lede for a straight news piece.

From Politico earlier this morning:

Dozens of lawmakers and aides are so afraid that their health insurance premiums will skyrocket next year thanks to Obamacare that they are thinking about retiring early or just quitting.

In fact, the whole article is so wondrous we might just reprint the entire piece and provide running commentary. Go ahead and read while we luxuriate in our Schadenfreude...

The fear: Government-subsidized premiums will disappear at the end of the year under a provision in the health care law that nudges aides and lawmakers onto the government health care exchanges, which could make their benefits exorbitantly expensive.

Democratic and Republican leaders are taking the issue seriously, but first they need more specifics from the Office of Personnel Management on how the new rule should take effect - a decision that Capitol Hill sources expect by fall, at the latest. The administration has clammed up in advance of a ruling, sources on both sides of the aisle said.

In what was perhaps the most idiotic line of reasoning ever formulated by a politician, it was Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi that claimed we had to pass ObamaCare so we could find out what's in it. Fully 3+ years after its passage now, Congress kinda-sorta knows what's in it to the extent that they aren't asking if the new federal healthcare law is going to screw them, they are asking how bad it's going to screw them. Good times, gang, good times.


Back to the article:

If the issue isn't resolved, and massive numbers of lawmakers and aides bolt, many on Capitol Hill fear it could lead to a brain drain just as Congress tackles a slew of weighty issues - like fights over the Tax Code and immigration reform.

(italics, ours)

In light of monumentally dubious legislative achievements such as TARP, the American Recovery Act (Porkulus), Dodd-Frank Fin-Reg, Cash for Clunkers and, of course, the subject law away from which the very members that wrote it and passed it are running as fast as they humanly can, we'll let that term percolate for a moment....

And given the legislative trainwrecks mentioned above, someone please explain to us again what is so bad about gridlock.



And back to the article:

The problem is far more acute in the House, where lawmakers and aides are generally younger and less wealthy. Sources said several aides have already given lawmakers notice that they'll be leaving over concerns about Obamacare. Republican and Democratic lawmakers said the chatter about retiring now, to remain on the current health care plan, is constant.

You do recall the President telling all of us that if we liked our current healthcare plan, we could keep it, right? We believe members of Congress sure do.


Continuing:

Rep. John Larson, a Connecticut Democrat in leadership when the law passed, said he thinks the problem will be resolved.

"If not, I think we should begin an immediate amicus brief to say, 'Listen this is simply not fair to these employees,'" Larson told POLITICO. "They are federal employees."

Words that probably should've been aired some 4 years ago, wouldn't you say Representative Larson?


One more time for the Politico piece:

Republicans, never a fan of Democratic health care reform, are more vocal about the potential adverse effects of the provision.

"It's a reality," said Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas). "This is the law. . It's going to hinder our ability with retention of members, it's going to hinder our ability for members to take care of their families." He said his fellow lawmakers are having "quiet conversations" about the threat.

Alabama Rep. Jo Bonner said the threat is already real, especially for veteran lawmakers and staff. If they leave this year, they think they can continue to be covered under the current health care plan.

We've heard ObamaCare called many things and indeed this blog has had its share of pejoratives to associate with ObamaCare but referring to the federal law as a "threat" is a new one.



Woops, we lied... check this out:

The Affordable Care Act - signed into law in 2010 - contained a provision known as the Grassley Amendment, which said the government can only offer members of Congress and their staff plans that are "created" in the bill or "offered through an exchange" - unless the bill is amended.

Wait. What? They had an opportunity to effectively exempt themselves from the apparent horribleness of ObamaCare during the crafting of the legislation and they failed to do even that?

We shouldn't be amazed but we are. It tells you all you need to know about the caliber of people we send to represent us in D.C. that they are now freaking out over that which they will be subjecting the rest of us. Yep, we're in the very best of hands.

Quickies

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A round-up of news items, articles, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.


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First up, in Garden Grove, CA, gun-wielding jewelery store owner frightens off... the Keyston Cops?

Seriously, check these guys out.





0:34 : You would not be mistaken if you at first thought that the robbers were scared off by the dog on the counter.






Someone actually wrote this:

It’s so ironic, people. The national electorate is totally turned off by partisan standoffs. You can almost hear the public imploring, will you guys please just make some back-room deals? And, at that same moment, the Republican candidates are being pushed into being more and more intractable.

(italics, someone)


That someone is Gail Collins, columnist for the New York Times.

Can we officially stick a fork in Hopenchange? We knew it to be a farce all along but America's newspaper of record is, in print, championing business as usual.

What's ironic, Gail, is that Obama's two greatest legislative accomplishments were fashioned in the manner for which you are pining. Porkulus (aka: the American Recovery Act) and to a much greater degree, ObamaCare, were epitomized by back room deals, bribes, kick-backs and business as usual politics.

How sad that the Hopenchange set has been reduced to supporting the most shamelessly cynical politician in our lifetime.

If Bill Clinton was shamelessly cynical, and he was, he at least had the political sense to realize that to build his legacy he would have to work with the opposition party to achieve legislative goals that were popular with a majority of Americans.

If the current Occupier of the Oval Office wins a second term, will he have a similar instinct? At this point, we have seen nothing in his behavior pattern that would suggest he is anything but a hard-line ideologue. Intractable, to use Collins' words.







What we've been tweeting...

So, this Olympic trampoline business... The Man Show, right?

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Headline from CNBC:

Get used to the 'New Norm' of 6-7% US Jobless Rate


Memo to CNBC: In case you haven't noticed, the jobless rate has been above 8% for 41 straight months. There would be nothing normal about a 6-7% jobless rate.

This tack is notable in two ways: 1) softening the expectations going into the heat of the presidential campaign. The President can't talk about the economy so his water-carriers will in the form of lowering the bar and 2) it's sickening. The most innovative and hard-working people on the planet are being told to just get used to the 'new malaise' of the 'new norm'. That's not the American exceptionalism we'd heard about from our parents and some of our teachers while growing up. We're not taking this laying down - will you?



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For all of you yacking about the do-nothing Congress: rejoice! They did something even if it meant further curtailing of free speech rights.

99.999% of Americans can agree that there are no more dispicable humans that blight this country of ours than the 7 or 8 members of the Westboro Baptist Church, but guess what, gang? There rights need to be protected as well. Congress, evidently, felt otherwise.

Westboro Baptist Church protesters will soon be severely limited in their ability to disrupt military funerals, after Congress passed a sweeping veterans bill this week that includes restrictions on such demonstrations.

According to “The Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012,” which is now headed to President Barack Obama’s desk, demonstrators will no longer be allowed to picket military funerals two hours before or after a service. The bill also requires protestors to be at least 300 feet away from grieving family members.

This aspect of the legislation was introduced by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who, at the urging of a teenage constituent, proposed new limitations on military funeral demonstrations as a response to a 2011 Supreme Court case that ruled such actions were protected under the First Amendment.

Yep. Your tax dollars spent on legislation that was already struck down by the Supreme Court.

And even more importantly: we would need no 1st amendment if we all spoke and thought the same. The whole concept of free speech is to protect that which you may find offensive. That's what this big ol' experiment of a constitutional republic is all about. Looks like we have some elected officials charged with stewardship of this experiment, however, that are not so mindful of this.




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This must be some more of that "new civility" I've been hearing so much about.

Think that the Chick-fil-A "kiss-in" on Friday as a counter to the "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" was largely a bust but that didn't prevent some meaningful exchanges from the two camps.

Anne Sorock, blogging at Legal Insurrection was at a Chicago event. Here's what she heard and saw:

I attended Friday night’s “Kiss-in” protest outside the only Chick-fil-A location in Chicago. The small group of between twenty to thirty protesters gathered outside the restaurant around 7pm. A few same-sex couples took the opportunity to kiss in public, as the protest organizers encouraged attendees to do on their facebook page.

I asked many of the protesters whether they agreed with Alderman Moreno’s actions; the reactions were mixed. Some agreed — one woman told me she took a “European view” of our Constitutional Rights — while others felt he was in the wrong despite agreeing with him in a general sense.

While there, a group formed around an elderly African-American homeless man, who was reading his bible while seated along a fence rail off to the side of the protest. Some in the group confronted the man, who was reading the bible aloud, and engaged him in theological debates. A few others took the opportunity to mock the man, which I captured on video:

Nearing the end of the protest, someone from the group wrote on the sidewalk in front of the homeless man, “He’s Really Gay Deep Down,” with an arrow pointed to where he was seated.

(italics, ours)

A "European view" of our Constitutional rights, huh? Kind of like, the constitution means whatever the hell we want it to mean? Looks like that whole tyranny of the majority thing is catching on.

But why do those little boys have to behave like such mean girls?


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OK, gang. That's it for today. We'll catch up with you all tomorrow.


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ObamaCare SCOTUS ruling round-up (UPDATED)

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(please scroll to bottom of post for update)



Well, despite having some queasy feelings about it as recently as yesterday (when we put a hundy down at The Double Standard getting 5/2 odds that the mandate would be upheld) we certainly did not see this coming...


Via Sir Charles at Doo Doo Economics:

From the National Journal:

The Supreme Court upheld the health care reform law on Thursday in a ruling in which conservative Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal wing and spelled out ways to keep the highly controversial law within the bounds of the Constitution. The ruling vindicates President Obama’s signature domestic policy initiative, even if it doesn’t stop the political debate over the sweeping Affordable Care Act.

The 5-4 ruling lets stand the mandate – the requirement that just about everyone carry health insurance or pay a fine. But the ruling calls the fine a tax, allowing the law to escape arguments that it violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

And here we thought it was Justice Kennedy, who voted with the dissenters that would be the swing vote.


Some thoughts:

The short take-away: The Supreme Court has granted the federal government the power to do whatever the hell it wants as long as it can be called a tax. But, remember, the President, in selling the legislation insisted the penalty for not complying with the mandate was not a tax.

Remember, this guy?:



We actually thought it a penalty instead of a tax as well.


The irony, as we see it, is that ObamaCare was saved by what many on the right insisted it was all along (a tax) and which the President and the rest of the Democrats insisted that it wasn't in order to grease the legislative skids. Let's face it: Roberts bailed them out.

And now that the honor and integrity of the Supreme Court has been restored, we're curious as to what the left is going to whine about now? Oh, that's right: all that money in politics.



Our favorite moral scold, KT, responded to the ruling in precisely the manner we expected (there is much to be said for consistency):

So What's The Big Deal?

If you're hoping that 9 guys in robes are going to save you from your own feckless greed and laziness, you've got some serious problems. With the Supreme Court decision upholding ObamaCare, the culture of demanding what you have not earned rolls on.

And "lee" in the comments:

I was really hoping just five guys in robes were gonna save me from some other clowns' feckless greed and laziness. And I know in November, I will vote, and I will vote for people who CLAIM they will undo this evil, but it's Washington, and it's a monster that makes the creature in "Aliens" seem as cute as a beagle puppy eating a cupcake.

I got twenty more years before they hand me the pamphlet, "So You Want to Die and Leave More Room and All Your Limited Access to Healthcare to Someone Younger Who Deserves It More Than You, You Old Goat," before I shove off down the Soylent Green Highway....

Both valid points.



Here's Leslie at Temple of Mut:

Basically, the US Supreme Court has said: “If you like your death panel, you can keep your death panel”. I cannot understate how disappointing it is to see that Chief Justice John Roberts decided to side with the big-government oriented justices, and merely amend the poorly written law developed by both houses of Congress. However, Roberts did leave us one clue on how we citizens can still fight back, as controlling healthcare is merely a front for controlling every other aspect of our lives. His decision includes this passage:

The Framers created a Federal Government of limited powers, and assigned to this Court the duty of enforcing those limits. The Court does so today. But the Court does not express any opinion on the wisdom of the Affordable Care Act. Under the Constitution, that judgment is reserved to the people.

drozz over at The Double Standard had these thoughts:

Double Standard Industries pays Dean over at Beers With Demo 375 (100 investment + 275 payout) internet dollars. Congratulations.

Hey I correctly interpreted Kennedy's vote (who cares).

Ginsberg, like all liberal judges argues that the mandate is necessary so it's proper in her separate concurring opinion. Her opinion is garbage based on the line that the mandate "solves an economic and social problem" (see Ginsber's opinion at p.12). Bullshit, it solves an economic problem.

Another promise made by Napoleon regarding of Obamatax has been broken.
Know who loves having their taxes raised? Young adults, small businesses, the middle class. And I hope they reward Napoleon by voting in November.

Ann Althouse's opinion of the verdict "President Romney".

Snark aside, this is a huge loss. The opportunity to reign in federal power was there, and now it's gone.

Roberts drew a clear line for Congressional power under the Commerce Clause. Then gave them a loophole to get around it.

Where do we go from here? Well, I'd say the Tea Party hornet nest was just stirred. My hope is that others wake up and realize what exactly just happened.

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you know just how we feel about this ruling. We've been covering all manner of things related to ObamaCare and this ruling is indeed hugely disappointing as we're not sure what limiting powers the federal government via Congress now has. Again, the majority logic appears to be, if you can attach a tax to it, then Congress can mandate it.
Will this now extend to GM cars and Solyndra solar panels?

And as Captain Ed over at Hot Air pointed out: Hey, Lefties, you realize that this tax, though imposed by the feds, will be going directly to the private insurance companies. Let's alter that slightly for full effect: that tax money will be lining the pockets of for-profit private health insurers. Your welcome.


Silver lining?: We didn't have the courts do our heavy lifting in the fight for freedom and liberty. No? Well, then, we suppose we've got some work to do ahead of November 6.





(UPDATE #1): B-Daddy of Liberator Today fame finds some cheer from his parsing of the decision:

But here are my reasons why this isn't the full-fledged disaster I might have thought.

1.The ruling didn't expand the power of the commerce clause to infinity. From the WSJ: "The Commerce Clause is not a general license to regulate an individual from cradle to grave, simply because he will predictably engage in particular transactions," the chief justice wrote.

2.Most conservatives had always felt that had the mandate been honestly labeled as a tax, it would have never been challenged. Even though J.E. Dyer at HotAir asks what limit there is on the power to tax, the fact is, there has never really been a limit, so the ruling changes nothing.

3.I always thought the mandate's financial penalty was too weak to force compliance.

4.The mandate has no criminal enforcement provision, including asset forfeiture in the portion of the tax code in which it resides.
5.Because the mandate is a tax, it's repeal can't be filibustered in the Senate, where the rules on filibuster do not apply to spending bills.

6.The ruling on the Medicaid portion is likely to be more substantive. From Volokh: the federal government may deny the states additional Medicaid funds if they refuse to comply with the coverage expansion requirement, but may not take away their preexisting Medicaid funds. The states may then opt out of the expanded coverage, without risk to their current Medicaid funding. In the long run, this may kill the whole scheme. I am encouraged that seven justices accepted a states' rights argument.

7.The Chief Justice worked to protect the reputation of the court. I disagree with the way he did it, but understand the concern. The court should give deference to the legislative branch. The court's failure to interfere here may buy it good will in the future with Americans less invested in right vs left politics.

8.This is likely to help Romney, who is making the argument that the only way to get rid of Obamacare is to get rid of Obama. Supposedly, $1 million has rolled in since the decision.

9.The court has ruled officially that Obama has raised taxes on the middle class.

10.Ultimately the public got what it deserves for electing Democrats in such overwhelming numbers, including the 2008 nominee, who lacked the experience to inject any leadership into this miserable bill. We are reminded of why we need a tea party movement to restore government to constitutional limits because we, the people, demand it.

The last point, is something we related in a FaceBook post (yes, we realize that FB and politics don't miss, but...) as an appeal to all our friends be they liberal, middle-of-the-road or conservative. We're all stuck with this miserable thing for the time being and we need to come to grips with the fact that this cozy, corporatist relationship that exists between the government and the health insurance companies will do anything but bend downward the cost of healthcare. If we are going to get this thing repealed, it will take people across the political spectrum to act in good faith with the knowledge that ObamaCare is not reform rather a furthering of an already miserable status quo.



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Constitutional republics are, like, hard

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Out: Amassing of executive power is bad.

In: Amassing of executive power... not a problem.


After about two years of wondering how it was that the liberal-left of this country was going to justify what they allegedly hated Bush for now that the current President has taken executive orders and signing statements to a competitive sporting level, we now have our answer: America's dead tree outlet of record, the New York Times chimes in with this OpEd feature:

President George W. Bush used his executive power to bypass Congress, almost as a matter of routine. Now President Barack Obama is pulling a similar stunt.

I was appalled, and so was the Times editorial board (and so, in fact was Senator Barack Obama) when a Boston Globe reporter, Charlie Savage, documented Mr. Bush’s use of presidential signing statements and executive orders. But I am not appalled by the way Mr. Obama is relying on those instruments – as detailed in today’s Times by that same enterprising reporter, who now works for us. Context and intent make all the difference.

The author Andrew Rosenthal attempts to bolster his argument later in the article but right out of the gate, his rationale is summed up as: it's OK, because he's our guy.


Rosenthal then starts up the waaaahmbulance and complains that Obama was forced into this position because of an uncooperative Congress.

For nearly three years, President Obama devoted a great deal of effort to finding compromises with Congressional Republicans. That was futile, in my view, since those Republicans had made it clear from the day he was inaugurated in 2009 that their plan was to oppose everything he wanted, and then paint him as a failed president. (Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, said his party’s “number one goal” was to keep the president from winning a second term.)

Mr. Obama got fed up, finally, last fall, according to Mr. Savage’s article, and the result was the “We Can’t Wait” project, which has led to dozens of executive actions on a range of issues, including jobs for veterans and fuel economy standards.

Unlike the Bush/Cheney team, Mr. Obama did not take office with the explicit goal of creating new powers for the presidency. That was not part of his agenda. Moreover, his executive actions often are more modest in their effect than the White House’s public relations team might admit.

Government by executive order is not sustainable in the long-term. Nor is it desirable, whether you agree or disagree with those orders. But in this particular case, there may be no alternative.

Rosenthal is either ignorant of the constitutional concepts of separation of power and checks and balances or he is so desperately grasping at straws, he's forced to produce drivel such as this. Being a water-carrying hack is one thing but to pen this column is embarrassing.

Memo to Mr. Rosenthal: quit whining and quit defending the indefensible. Constitutional republics aren't supposed to be easy. Dictatorships are easy. Passing legislation should be a painful affair and when that piece of legislation doesn't get past the, uh, legislative bodies, it should be considered dead.

That's the way things work in constitutional republics of which we are apparently in the "post-" phase as the sitting President is impatient with things and Rosenthal automatically assumes that all the President's executive orders are inherently productive and benign and therefore acceptable regardless of their mighty constitutional dubiousness. (We would love to hear Rosenthal's justifications for our unauthorized kineticism in Libya as goal-unspecific as it was and especially that for the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without cause and wacking U.S. citizens overseas without traditionally-recognized due process) .


It doesn't matter if this consolidation of executive power would cure cancer or, you know, stop the rising of the seas. That's not the point. When the President starts issuing executive orders with the alacrity that Obama has, it's a sign that things are too hard and that "easy" is the preferred governing M.O. and as we inferred two paragraphs ago "easy" is no good... "easy" sucks and "easy" leads to very bad outcomes.


As incredibly lame as it was, at least, now we have our answer.

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Some folks still having real difficulties with that "freedom of speech" thing in the Constitution

(ed. note: Blogger has introduced some new formatting that we are not fans of so we apologize in advance for the "look" of our posts. We hope to figure it all out and conquer this learning curve as quickly as possible)

Forever, seemingly, butt-hurt over the Citizens United decision, Democrats have taken a new tack in combatting all that evil corporate money that has invaded politics: Amending the 1st amendment. Of course, for a challenge this daunting as well as hopelessly insipid, they have chosen as their point person none other than that glittering jewel of colossal ignorance, House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday endorsed a movement announced by other congressional Democrats on Wednesday to ratify an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would allow Congress to regulate political speech when it is engaged in by corporations as opposed to individuals.

Pelosi said the Democrats' effort to amend the Constitution is part of a three-pronged strategy that also includes promoting the DISCLOSE Act, which would increase disclosure requirements for organizations running political ads, and “reducing the roll of money in campaigns” (which some Democrats have said can be done through taxpayer funding of campaigns).

The constitutional amendment the Democrats seek would reverse the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In that decision the court said that the First Amendment protects a right of free speech for corporations as well as for individuals, and that corporations (including those that produce newspapers, films and books) have a right to speak about politicians and their records just as individuals do.

Sorry. The founders got it right. Better to make freedom of speech as universal as possible and cast as wide a net as possible than to open it up to too much interpretation whereby exceptions are made based solely upon political whim. That's extremely dangerous territory upon which you are treading when you start inserting clauses like "... except for corporations or entities as deemed such by Congress." Think we are being a little too paranoid, here?

“In Citizens United, what the court said is that Congress has no authority to regulate this kind of political speech,” said Edwards. “And so all of these constitutional amendments go to this question of giving Congress the authority that the Supreme Court, I think wrongly, decided isn't within Congress's constitutional--our constitutional purview.

“And so, you know, the traditional rights of free speech that we have known as citizens would not be disturbed by any of these constitutional amendments,” said Edwards. “But what it would do is it would say, all of the speech in which, whether it's corporations or campaign committees and others engage in, would be able to be fully regulated under the authority of the Congress and--and under our Constitution.”

(italics, totally ours) Eh, what could possibly go wrong? What could go wrong was laid out in the Citizens United case:

In 2009, when the Supreme Court first heard oral arguments in the Citizens United case, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart told the court that the administration believed the Constitution allowed the government to ban a corporation from using its general treasury funds to publish a book if the book advocated voting for something.

"Take my hypothetical," Chief Justice John Roberts said to Stewart as he asked him about what kind of books the Obama administration believed it could constitutionally ban, "... This [book] is a discussion of the American political system, and at the end it says: Vote for X."

"Yes," said Deputy Solicitor General Stewart, "our position would be that the corporation would be required to use PAC funds rather than general treasury funds."

Roberts followed up: "And if they didn't, you could ban it?"

"If they didn't, we could prohibit the publication of the book using corporate treasury funds," Stewart answered.

(again, italics ours) A legislative body that has been part and parcel to this country facing a $16 trillion dollar debt and which has succeeded in making hash of our health care system and which half of said body has not bothered to pass a budget in over three years is now going to get into the business of what we can and cannot say?

Free speech as defined by election cycles is not free speech by any rational standard.

It's not just a presidential election coming up here in November. Fortunately, in this post-constitutional republic of ours we still have the means to put an electoral cap in the asses of these anti-democratic enemies of free speech and elect in defenders of the very first things our founding fathers saw fit to put into writing as the most sacred of all our rights. Can we please make this happen?

Giving voice to what we've known all along

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Nearing the one-year anniversary of our kinetic Libyan military adventurism, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin E. Dempsey and the Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta are testifying before Congress and in this case facing questioning from Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) regarding the legal justification for military action against another country.

.




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Jaw-droppingly stunning is the only term we can muster at this point.


"International legal basis", the U.N., NATO... and it can be definitively inferred, the Arab League, as was the case in Libya where we were protecting civilians, taking out military targets, assassinating foreign leaders, are all given as examples as legal justification for military action ahead of the United States Congress.


Panetta trots out the strawman of the right of the President to "defend this country if it's necessary". What direct threat did Libya pose and what direct threat does Syria pose to this country? None.


If you want to make the case that military action against those countries is justified as those same countries are state sponsors of terrorism, then fine... make the case before Congress. But that's not the case here and everyone knows it.

And shame on Congress for letting the Arab League nudge them out of the Constitution and being relegated to merely an "informed" body rather than an "authorizing" body.

It's certainly shaping up that Syria will be a Libyan redux where our Nobel Peace Prize-winning Commander-in-Chief will be currying favor outside our borders in order to expend resources from within our borders.

Just another fine moment there in the continuing erosion of our Constitution.

He can't wait!

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When the President gives his campaign State of the Union speech this evening, he will, no doubt, make a plea for an end to the divisive, grid-locked and do-nothing behavior of Congress. We say amen to that as today marks the 1000th day since the Democratic-controlled Senate passed a budget* while sitting on between 20-30 jobs-related bills that have passed the House.

So, have at it, Mr. President and let'er rip!





H/T: Hot Air


* Then again, perhaps not having a budget put together and passed by poor ol' Harry Reid and his gang of big spenders really is cause for celebration.

Republicans shocked... shocked...

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... that President Obama would abuse his Executive power.

Pushing the limits of his recess appointment powers, President Obama on Wednesday bypassed the Senate to install three members of the National Labor Relations Board and a director for the controversial new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - moves Republicans said amounted to unconstitutional power grabs.

Mr. Obama said the appointments, which he previewed during a campaign-style speech in Ohio, were necessary because Senate Republicans have blocked him at every turn. But in making the move, he rejected three precedents, including two in which he played a part, that would have blocked the appointments.

“I refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer,” Mr. Obama said in Shaker Heights, drawing applause from his audience. “When Congress refuses to act and as a result hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, then I have an obligation as president to do what I can without them.”

Mr. Obama tapped former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head the consumer protection agency and named three others - two Democrats and one Republican - to the labor board. Those nominations had all been stymied by congressional Republicans, who said Mr. Obama was accruing too much power to himself through those two agencies.

The president acted just a day after the Senate held a session, albeit a pro forma one without any business transacted.

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So, let's get this straight: Boehner and McConnell, respective leaders of the Republican House and Senate, whine about a (not in) recess appointment but are entirely complicit in the passage of a Defense Authorization Bill that includes the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil without cause? Got it.

While we may be game for a certain degree of politics-as-usual up on the Hill, we also believe there needs to be a serious re-racking of priorities when it comes to raising a ruckus over appointing a new HMFIC of yet another worthless new federal bureaucracy as opposed to casting aside some of our most treasured and cherished American liberties such as due process and the prohibition against illegal search and seizure.

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That may just be us. Let us know what you think.

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Project Gunrunner/Operation Fast and Furious update: the Friday evening dump edition

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It doesn't get much dumpier than this.

Remember how the Justice Department was adamant that they did not sanction the sale of weapons to straw purchasers to Mexican drug cartels and how they claimed to have made every effort to intercept those weapons before they got to those same cartels? Allow them to revise those stances just a tad and to set up a fall guy while they're at it.

The Justice Department on Friday provided Congress with documents detailing how department officials gave inaccurate information to a U.S. senator in the controversy surrounding Operation Fast and Furious, the flawed law enforcement initiative aimed at dismantling major arms trafficking networks on the Southwest border.

In a letter last February to Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department said that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had not sanctioned the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser and that the agency makes every effort to intercept weapons that have been purchased illegally. In Operation Fast and Furious, both statements turned out to be incorrect.

The Justice Department letter was responding to Grassley's statements that the Senate Judiciary Committee had received allegations the ATF had sanctioned the sale of hundreds of assault weapons to suspected straw purchasers. Grassley also said there were allegations that two of the assault weapons had been used in a shootout that killed customs agent Brian Terry.

In an email four days later to Justice Department colleagues, then-U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke in Phoenix said that "Grassley's assertions regarding the Arizona investigation and the weapons recovered" at the "murder scene are based on categorical falsehoods. I worry that ATF will take 8 months to answer this when they should be refuting its underlying accusations right now." That email marked the start of an internal debate in the Justice Department over what and how much to say in response to Grassley's allegations. The fact that there was an ongoing criminal investigation into Terry's murder prompted some at the Justice Department to argue for less disclosure.

Some of what turned out to be incorrect information was emailed to Lanny Breuer, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's criminal division. Breuer sent an email saying "let's help as much as we can" in responding to Grassley.

The emails sent to Capitol Hill on Friday showed that Burke supplied additional incorrect information to the Justice Department's criminal division that ended up being forwarded to Breuer. For example, Burke said that the guns found at the Terry murder scene were purchased at a Phoenix gun shop before Operation Fast and Furious began. In fact, the operation was under way at the time and the guns found at the Terry murder scene were part of the probe. Breuer was one of the recipients of that information. In written comments this week to Grassley, Breuer said that he was on a three-day official trip to Mexico at the time of the Justice Department response and that he was aware of, but not involved in, drafting the Justice Department statements to Grassley. Breuer says he cannot say for sure whether he saw a draft of the letter before it was sent to Grassley.

(emphasis, ours)




The rest of the article can be found at the link and which details the internal debate at Justice regarding just how much information to give to Grassley and Issa.

Burke, who has since been re-assigned, certainly looks like he is being set up to the take the fall for this for providing, ahem, "inaccurate" information. Even with this, we are not any closer to identifying how high up the food chain the decision was made to a) let the guns walk and b) not bother to track them back across the border once the purchase was made.

Though this seems big and it is, Grassley and Issa's committees should not let this distract them from finding out who actually signed off on a politically cynical plot to advance a gun-control narrative that wound up putting 2,000 guns in the hands of violent Mexican drug cartels and which resulted in one dead Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry and countless additional Mexican officers and innocent civilians.

Wait, what?

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One in a series that takes a look at the unexpected and certainly the absurd.



Something that jumped out at us on the San Franciso Chronicle's summation of 60 Minutes piece on Congress profitting from the legislation they write:

Laws against insider trading - making stock bets based on information the public doesn't have - do not apply to Congress. Studies have shown that stock portfolios on Capitol Hill outperform the market. Legislation that would ban insider trading by members and staffers has languished.

[...]

Several studies have shown that members of Congress and their staffs do better in the stock market than the public. A 2011 study by four university researchers found that a portfolio that mirrored stock purchases by House members from 1985 to 2001 beat the market by 6 percent a year. The same authors found that senators beat the market by 12.3 percent from 1993 to 1998.

Wait, what?


These guys write the legislation, they make the rules... and they're completely immune from taking advantage of gaming the situation in any manner they feel... and they still can't make out any better than 6 and 12 percent above the market average?



U.S. Congress: where corruption meets complete incompetence.

News item of the day

Why bother having a Congress?

Also, file this under what could possibly go wrong?

This afternoon, in yet another executive action intended to boost the economy, President Obama signs an executive order that addresses prescription drug shortages.

The signing marks yet another move in the president’s “we can’t wait” campaign to grow the economy through unilateral actions while his $447 jobs bill remains stalled in Congress.

The president will direct the Food and Drug Administration to take steps to further reduce and prevent drug shortages, and price gouging. Obama will also reiterate his support for bipartisan legislation that will give the FDA new tools to avoid drug shortages.

Hmmm... price gouging. Let's see: the FDA will prevent this alleged gouging by capping prices thus exacerbating this drug shortage. Count on it. It's what they do.

Constitutional republics are, like, hard

Do you remember when they told us that if we voted for McCain it would mean at least 4 more years of a Constitution-shredding, separation of powers-ignoring, imperial-style Presidency? Well, they were right.

New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel told The Daily Caller that “gridlock” in Congress has made it “necessary” for President Barack Obama to unilaterally implement mortgage refinancing and student loan programs without congressional authorization.

“I do, but I don’t want it to be interpreted that I welcome the executive branch using their powers instead of having the legislative branch do it. It’s necessary now because it’s a gridlock between the president and the United States. I hope that is just so very, very unusual,” Rangel told TheDC after a rally on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

“All these things as a veteran of the House are very, very painful, very painful; so while the president’s doing the best he can by executive order, I don’t have my list for him to go down,” he said.

In other words, it's cool if it's our guy doing it.

And this notion of "gridlock" is, of course, entirely politically-motivated if not entirely false as there have been 15 jobs-related bills that have been passed in the Republican-held House but have been left to languish in the Democratic-held Senate in addition to 3 separate free trade agreements with Columbia, South Korea and Panama that have been signed into law by the President in recent weeks.

The Democrats are attempting to pawn off on the Republicans the two years where they held both chambers of Congress and the White House and which resulted only in failed statist policies which stagnated economic growth and killed jobs. November of 2010 was a referendum on these policies and America spoke-out strongly against them giving the opposition party control of the House so in a sense who Rangel is really blaming for this "gridlock" is the American voting public.

Nice strategy, Chuck. Let's see how that works.

Don't fall for the "gridlock" or "dysfunctional" schtick. The system is working as intended and cries to the contrary are merely political whining.

Quickies

A round-up of news items, articles, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.





B-Daddy: It's not the capitalism, it's the crony.






Awesome: Convicted cop-killer just chillaxin' in jail supports the #Occupy Wall Street movement.





Doubly awesome: Eugene Robinson of WaPo totally stoked for the Democratic Party to embrace the Nazi and aforementioned fascist pig-killing Rastafarian endorsing #OWS movement.







Another 53 percenter:

Remember, gang... Days not weeks. Just another O > W moment.

US and Italian defense chiefs on Monday said they examined prospects for ending the allied air campaign over Libya and how to support the country's post-Kadhafi transition in talks at the Pentagon.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who expressed thanks for Italy's role in the NATO-led operation, said alliance commanders favored pressing on with bombing raids as Moamer Kadhafi's loyalists were still putting up resistance in Sirte.

We're hearing the death of Gadaffi is a success for the Obama administration's foreign policy? Uh, sure. But what was the policy? How is it considered a success when you tell the American people you are merely protecting the Libyan citizens when you were clearly attempting to wack the dictator of a foreign country who posed no direct threat to this country? And how does sniveling about thousands of ancient Iraqi artifacts gone missing compare to thousands of surface-to-air missiles gone missing? Might've been something we should've considered before we threw in for this "days not weeks" overseas kinetic adventure.

Are we glad he’s gone? Sure. But the question nobody seems to want to ask is by what means is Congress going to develop the stones to demand accountability of our Commander-in-Chief. If Obama suddenly decides that he doesn’t like Assad, is Congress going to sit on their collective hands again while the President employs this country’s resources to wack him? What is the foreign policy criteria for getting put on the President's hit list? Seems kind of loosy-goosy from where we're sitting.

There are names for governing by mere whim and none of them rhyme with constitutional republic.






Yeah, kind of like the tea party:

Efforts by the Occupy Baltimore protest group to evolve into a self-contained, self-governing community have erupted into controversy with the distribution of a pamphlet that victim advocates and health workers fear discourages victims of sexual assaults from contacting police.

The pamphlet says that members of the protest group who believe they are victims or who suspect sexual abuse "are encouraged to immediately report the incident to the Security Committee," which will investigate and "supply the abuser with counseling resources."

The directive also says, in part, "Though we do not encourage the involvement of the police in our community, the survivor has every right, and the support of Occupy Baltimore, to report the abuse to the appropriate authorities."

Go to the police or don't go to the police? Dammit. We're racking our brain trying to remember what instructions were given to us at tea party rallies.





Also, quote of the week:

One Oakland police supervisor said that the participants first appeared to him as “freethinking activists” but have since devolved into something more sinister. He said it was “interesting for a group that claims to be against current civilization and rules to set up a far more oppressive society than our own.”

KT reminds us to be thankful for... flies... sure as heck beats winged piranhas and just think where human civilization would be if that were in Earth's evolutionary deck of cards. Don't have to think... KT figured it out for you, here.





W.C. Varones finally comes clean and, uh, reveals himself as a 99er.

Washington Post the most politically-biased paper in America? We're still sticking with the New York Times. Hell, even our hopelessly biased home-town L.A. Times has been covering Fast and Furious, our federally funded and operated gun-running scheme to Mexico.




So, what is the point behind the NFL's bye week? This week: no Philly, New York Giants, New England Patriots, and San Francisco Forty Niners. No Tom Brady, Michael Vick and one of the surprise teams in the NFL this season. Who thought this was a good idea? We hate the bye week. Roger Goodell, make it go away!



Alright, gang, that's probably all for now. We'll be back on Monday.

Constitutional republics are, like, hard

Remember when they told us if we voted for John McCain back in 2008 it would mean just 4 more years of shredding the Constitution, ignoring the separation of powers and ruling from the Oval Office by fiat? Well, they were right.



Here's the President talking about how he will get Congress to fund his jobs bill (aka Porkulus Pt. II) himself.

We're not going to wait for Congress. So, my instructions to Jeff and Gene to Valerie and all the advisors sitting around the table is to scour this (jobs) report and identify all those areas in which we can act administratively without additional Congressional authorization.

You know, if we didn't know any better, it sounded like the President was ready, willing and able to do an end-around Congress' constitutionally-mandated authority to spend federal money. But as a Constitutional scholar he knows this and probably just chose his words poorly.



Then again, Jesse Jackson Jr. seems to take the President at his word:

Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. told The Daily Caller on Wednesday that congressional opposition to the American Jobs Act is akin to the Confederate “states in rebellion.”

Jackson called for full government employment of the 15 million unemployed and said that Obama should “declare a national emergency” and take “extra-constitutional” action “administratively” — without the approval of Congress — to tackle unemployment.

“I hope the president continues to exercise extraordinary constitutional means, based on the history of Congresses that have been in rebellion in the past,” Jackson said. “He’s looking administratively for ways to advance the causes of the American people, because this Congress is completely dysfunctional.”


“President Obama tends to idealize — and rightfully so — Abraham Lincoln, who looked at states in rebellion and he made a judgment that the government of the United States, while the states are in rebellion, still had an obligation to function,” Jackson told TheDC at his Capitol Hill office on Wednesday.

“On several occasions now, we’ve seen … the Congress is in rebellion, determined, as Abraham Lincoln said, to wreck or ruin at all costs. I believe … in the direct hiring of 15 million unemployed Americans at $40,000 a head, some more than $40,000, some less than $40,000 — that’s a $600 billion stimulus. It could be a five-year program. For another $104 billion, we bailout all of the states … for another $100 billion, we bailout all of the cities,” he said.

Jackson added that his $804 billion stimulus plan is the only way to solve the unemployment crisis. “I support the jobs plan. I support the president’s re-election. I support Barack Obama,” he said. “But at this hour, we need a plan that meets the size and scope of the problem to put the American people to work.”

“We’ve got to go further. I support what [Obama] does. Clearly, Republicans are not going to be for it but if the administration can handle administratively what can be done, we should pursue it. And if there are extra-constitutional opportunities that allow the president administratively to put the people to work, he should pursue every single one of them,” Jackson suggested.

It's truly breath-taking how ignorant and idiotic these people are. And scary given their positions of authority.

Forget for a moment the jobs plan Jackson is calling for is just a repeat of the spectacular failure of his original $800 jobs plan, what Jackson is essentially calling for is the effective dissolution of Congress, is he not? It certainly sounds that way to us.

And about this dysfunctionality? It's called a multi-party system and it's called sour grapes on behalf of a bunch of whiny-ass Democrats that were on the losing end of an electoral ass-kicking last November.

America had had enough of the failed statist policies of the Democrats who had a two year run of the joint in D.C. and voted with their feet to the polls and sent a group of freshman Congressmen to D.C. to hold the line against and/or roll back these same failed policies. That's what happened. It's really that simple and contrary to what ol' Triple J would have you believe, that's how things work in a constitutional republic where every two years the electorate gets a chance to "grade" the performance of those in D.C.

In reality, Jackson is showing the ultimate disdain for the voting public and the Constitution with his statements for which he should be tarred and feathered and rode out of town on a rail... electorally speaking, of course.


It's crap like this that makes it easier and easier to pay little or no attention to the Republican primaries as at this point, we'd probably even vote for Mittens if it meant unemploying the current power-mad (P)resident.

Take a wild guess as to what we are going to hear quite a bit about on Thursday night

Consider this a companion piece to the previous post as the Hoffa "call for civility" happened to take place right before the President's speech on jobs on Labor Day.



Priceless... simply priceless:

President Obama sent a warning shot across the bow of congressional Republicans in his Labor Day speech in Detroit this afternoon, pledging to hold them accountable publicly if they fail to support the job-creation plan he puts forth later this week.

The proposal he’ll outline in his address to Congress on Thursday is filled with “bipartisan ideas,” Obama said, and Republicans can either get on board or explain their refusal to the American people.

“I’m going to propose ways to put people to work [that] both parties can agree to,” Obama said. “We’re going to see if congressional Republicans will put country before politics.”

Obama held back specifics of his plan as he addressed the crowd of union activists, many of whom want to see him propose a bold spending plan that would create jobs and spur the economy. The Democratic president suggested he will call for road and bridge construction, but he did not hint at its scope or cost.

Bridges! Again with the bridges! Is there a Freudian component to bridges within redistributionist statists that we are unaware because they simply cannot stop talking about the damn things whenever it relates to jobs and/or "stimulating" the economy which along with "Hussein" has been stricken from the vocabulary of polite company.

But good to know it's come to this for our post-partisan economic illiterate in the Oval Office: The President will hold accountable and question the patriotism of congressional Republicans who don't agree with his jobs plan which if the leading indicators are correct will simply be a rebranding of the same old failed Keynesian gimmickry that the President himself acknowledged a couple of months ago didn't work.




We don't think he sounds very patriotic, do you?





While we were out of pocket last week, we missed the dust-up between Speaker of the House, John Boehner and the White House with respect to this dreaded jobs speech before a joint session of Congress and the Republican primary debate in California on Wednesday evening.

Everyone thinks Team O got rolled by Boehner because Team O backed down and agreed to do the jobs speech the following night on Thursday but that's not the real story. Whether or not the White House got rolled is beside the point because guess what the President is going up against Thursday evening?

That's riiiight. The NFL kicks off Thursday evening with "America's Team", the New Orleans Saints taking on the other "America's Team" and defending Super Bowl champs, the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field.

Sorry. No one beats the NFL and no one is beating them opening night in the primetime, especially. Doesn't anyone at the White House own a calendar? This one has been on the schedule for a while... this potential schedule conflict should have come as no big surprise.

And speaking of putting country above politics, we would gladly offer our services to any Presidential administration, Republican or Democrat to keep them out of these types of needlessly ridiculous situations. It just doesn't speak well of the leader of the free world and this great country when he thinks he is going to take on this veritable Colossus of Rhodes and believe that anyone is actually going to care.

But go ahead and give that speech, Mr. President and let us know how that all works out for you.

Your unauthorized Libyan military kinesiology update (UPDATED)

(please scroll down for update)





We're all neo-cons now, brother!


So, it looks like Gaddafi is out. Good news, right? Sure is, but of course the $64,000 question is who/what is going to replace he and his regime.

(ed. note: One of the great things regarding blogging about our military adventureism in Libya is that you could spell the dude's name any ol' damn way you wanted and no one would question it. Awesome, right?)


At the end of the day, however, we're wondering precisely what U.N. sanctions Libya was in violation of and what direct threat they posed to our country.

And perhaps most importantly, we're left wondering by what authority the Commander-in-Chief was waging war because it sure as hell didn't come through the usual channels, i.e., Congress. Now, we know that there was quite a bit going on here stateside but that Congress could not muster anything but the feeblest of protest and demand for accountability is not encouraging for the Republic.




But you know what? Screw it. Let's party.

Who's up for a little Bushian, neo-con bellicosity and triumphalism? Formerly anti-war liberals, that's who.

Check out the gloat-fest over at Left Coast Rebel, here. The irony of celebrating domestic unilateralism as the method of ridding an overseas strongman will not be lost on you.

And if these Congressional-free, newly-minted adherents to neo-conservatism are being consistent, they will be in full-throat for the bombs to begin dropping on Damasacus right quick, now - so let's hear it!



(UDATE #1):

From the L.A. Times: White House touts Libya strategy

Wait. There was a strategy?

After taking months of heat from both political parties for its decision to assist in a NATO-led mission in Libya, the Obama administration was not only pleased with the results but also eager to tout the strategy, crediting it with weakening Moammar Kadafi’s forces over time while giving rebel forces time to regroup.

And the administration offered a response to criticism that Obama’s plan lacked an endgame in Libya: “Six months is not a long time to bring down a 42-year dictatorship,” said Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security advisor for strategic communications, in a telephone interview.

“Over time, all the pressure on Kadafi built up because we were destroying his forces on the ground while denying him ability to replenish them, so he was getting steadily weaker and at the same time the opposition was getting better organized,” Rhodes said.

Sorry, pal, 6 months is a long time when the Commander-in-Chief said this conflict would last days not weeks. But let's not talk past each other here as what is really at issue is that the President embarked upon this overseas adventure without approval from Congress while hiding behind a 60, then 90-day grace period in the War Powers Act. And when we raced right past those deadlines, the White House had the temerity to tell us that everything was on the up and up because NATO was not engaged in any actual, you know, "hostilities".

And then came all the intermittent non-sense regarding just what was our M.O. or "strategy": "Protecting civilians", then "Going after military installations, then "taking out infrastructure" before returning to "protecting civilians". Change from day to day depending upon the circumstance and the convenience when what it was all along but the administration knew was a political loser: "regime change".

When your predecessor actually sought and was granted authorization for "regime change" while you didn't even bother to ask, it just might remind people of what it was they thought they despised that administration for and who needs the potential of that boomeranging back and knocking your adminstration upside the head.

That's right: The Obama adminstration out-W'ed W.

So, the muddle described above and which for brevity's sake we will refer to from here on out as "leading from behind" is now this country's "strategy" for removing the bad actors in the Middle East. Good to know. A far cry from the Powell Doctrine we suppose so how about neo-con lite and doing just the minimum to make sure no one at home and certainly no one in a compliant media is making too much of a fuss over.

Mr. Obama is proving imperial presidencies aren't really all that difficult to pull off if you're committed to your craft and no one is paying any attention.

Two worlds... two sets of rules

A thought or two regarding local, state and federal book-keeping:

The Congress that passed Sarbanes-Oxley concluded that the only way to ensure transparency in corporate numbers was to require corporate officers to certify that their numbers were correct. The penalties for falsely certifying are substantial -- fines of as much as $5 million, and up to 20 years in prison -- on the theory that the fear of personal liability will reduce the incentive to exaggerate future revenue or conceal future liabilities.

By contrast, congressional appropriators and federal agency heads, are under no similar constraints. True, the government does have its own accounting principles. But nobody faces liability if the numbers are off. Nobody has skin in the game.

Consequently, if we need Sarbanes-Oxley (as its supporters still insist) to give us reassurance that we can believe corporate America’s numbers, ought we not to have something similar (as Peterson among others has argued) to reassure us that we can believe the numbers coming out of Washington?

Well, there's skin in the game, alright, but only in the sense of not being allowed back into the Puzzle Palaces of D.C., Sacramento, San Diego, etc. where you get to make up the rules as opposed to not having to worry about serving hard time as a result of any misbehaving in the private sector.

To wit: How is it that GSEs (Government Sponsored Entities) "Fannie Mae" and/or "Freddie Mac" have not replaced "Enron" in our cultural lexicon for criminal financial malfeasance?

Guess Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac won't fit on a bumper sticker.

Quickies

A look at some news items, articles, columns and blog posts that caught our eye over the past week or so.





Confirmed: Fewer Laws Make Better Beer in Japan

“This vibrant craft brew scene is a recent development—in part because it was actually impossible not long ago. Before 1994, microbreweries were illegal in Japan. Licenses were granted only to brewers producing well over half a million gallons a year. That protected the well-entrenched large brewers from any upstart competition.”

All things being equal, we believe fewer laws would make better beer, wine, spirits everywhere. We saw it here in California in the late 70s when wine makers broke out onto the international scene because they refused to be hemmed-in by strict French regulations and classifications and again in the early 80s in the craft beer scene when the last vestiges of the Volsted Act were wiped off the books.





Profiles in courage: House votes for resolution against our involvement in Libya yet does not pass a bill to defund our military kinesiology there.


Plus this from the NY Times marshalling all their strength to wrist- slap the President. It must have hurt. The Times that is.

Mr. Obama made the wrong choice, trying to evade his responsibility under the 1973 War Powers Act to seek Congressional authorization within 60 days of introducing armed forces into “hostilities” — or terminate the operation. The White House claimed that the Pentagon’s limited operations are not the sort of “hostilities” covered by the act. It is not credible.

Mr. Obama would have done better arguing his case for the Libyan operation. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was playing catch-up on Capitol Hill on Thursday. We are certain if NATO had not intervened, thousands more Libyans would have been slaughtered. We also believe Congress has an important role to play in this debate. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee plans to vote on the Kerry-McCain measure next week. The majority leader, Harry Reid, has said he has the votes in the Senate. Thankfully, some Senate Republicans also seem to understand the importance of the United States following through on its national security commitments.

(italics, ours)

Perhaps these born-again hawks from the Times can explain to us precisely what those national security interests are because the President sure as hell isn't interested in doing it.


And more from Charles Krauthammer:

But things are not so simple. No president should accept — and no president from Nixon on has accepted — the constitutionality of the WPR, passed unilaterally by Congress over a presidential veto. On the other hand, every president should have the constitutional decency to get some congressional approval when he takes the country to war.

The model for such constitutional restraint is — yes, Sen. Obama — George W. Bush. Not once but twice (Afghanistan and then Iraq) did Bush seek and receive congressional authorization, as his father did for the Persian Gulf War. On Libya, Obama did nothing of the sort. He claimed exemption from the WPR on the grounds that America in Libya is not really engaged in “hostilities.”

To deploy an excuse so transparently ridiculous isn’t just a show of contempt for Congress and for the intelligence of the American people. It manages additionally to undermine the presidency’s own war-making prerogatives by implicitly conceding that if the Libya war really did involve hostilities, the president would indeed be subject to the WPR.

The worst of all possible worlds: Insult Congress, weaken the presidency. A neat trick.

So, we've finally found that one area where the Nobel Peace Prize winner isn't like the cowboy? Good to know.






Terrific: Pam Geller, publisher of Atlas Shrugs comes out in favor of banning the burqa. Is it us or does anyone else see an inherent contradiction in the previous sentence?







There's that word again...

Reuters writing pretty much the same lede they have been for the past two years... as expected.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week, suggesting little improvement in the labor market this month after hiring stumbled badly in May.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits climbed by 9,000 to 429,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists had expected claims to come in at 415,000.

(italics, ours in case you missed it)




Rich Lowry on Rick Perry and throwing dirt on the grave of that vile concept, compassionate conservatism.

The Republican noncandidate flavor of the week is Texas governor Rick Perry. If you squint just right, you could mistake him at a podium for his predecessor, George W. Bush. Except for his message.

There might be no more powerful symbol of the death of compassionate conservatism in the Republican party than Bush’s successor and former running mate in Texas stomping all over it with cowboy boots emblazoned with the words “Freedom” and “Liberty.”

We would love to see the Texas governor in the race. Nowhere close to endorsing/supporting anyone yet but it does make the dating pool that much more attractive.





Jonathan V. Last reviews a book that claims that since the late 70s, 163 million female babies have been aborted by parents seeking sons.

Mara Hvistendahl is worried about girls. Not in any political, moral or cultural sense but as an existential matter. She is right to be. In China, India and numerous other countries (both developing and developed), there are many more men than women, the result of systematic campaigns against baby girls. In "Unnatural Selection," Ms. Hvistendahl reports on this gender imbalance: what it is, how it came to be and what it means for the future.

Here's some more of that "new civility" everybody has been talking about.



If you're curious about a double standard here, remember that as per Harry Reid, it would be rather difficult to mock President Obama's dialect.

Besides, we actually like the idea of 3-page bills and wonder just how is it that Jon Stewart sees law-makers not bothering to even read what they want to foist upon us as somehow a "fictional issue".




B-Daddy on gun control and racism

So Garry McCarthy, Chicago Police Superintendent, links federal gun control regulation to racism. Turns out he is right, but not in the sense he means. First, his comments:

“I want you to connect one more dot on that chain of African-American history in this country, and tell me if I’m crazy: Federal gun laws that facilitate the flow of illegal firearms into our urban centers, across this country, that are killing black and brown children,”

Well, Garry, you are crazy. Keeping guns out of the hands of blacks and Hispanics has been the racist goal of gun control attempts. A review of the historical record reveals that gun control in America has been directed at keeping guns out of the hands of blacks.

We've had a strong notion all along that gun control was all about power, control and social engineering and had, at best, a tenuous relationship with public safety. Read more at the link about the soft bigotry of low expectations that is codified in the liberal-Left mentality.


And finally...
Shane Atwell's weekly regulation watch, here.


We may be back later today with a new post or an update to this one but we'll definetely be back tomorrow.