Polling and what it means

What’s New Today

Story #1 looks to see if Obama’s strategy is working.  #2 has a video of John Sununu handling Andrea Mitchell as she seems to be speaking for the Democratic Party.  #3 Obama’s top fundraiser admits that Obama is engaged in class warfare.  #4 show the hypocrisy of the Democrats attacks on Romney.  #5 tells of 5 broken promises by Obama that you will probably never read about.  #6 tells how more and more Americans are tuning out the MSM news.  And #7 shows why you always need to check the demographics of any poll. 

Today’s Thoughts

There are reports that prominent Islamists in Egypt have begun to call for the destruction of the "pagan" pyramids.  It appears they are looking to fundamentally change their country.

Obama pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term.  I guess doubling it to him is the same as cutting it in half.

"Mr. President, where are the jobs?" Rep. Nancy Pelosi asked on CNN in October 2003. "The American people will not settle for—nor should the Republicans celebrate—a jobless recovery."  October 2003 after it was reported 203,000 jobs were created.  I wonder how she likes May and June 2012?

Five Democrats joined the Republicans in the House voting to repeal Obamacare.    

1.  Obama struggles

Two things have become clear in the presidential race over the past month. One, it's evident that President Obama's campaign team believes, with good justification, that attacking Romney's record at Bain Capital to portray him as a wealthy, out-of-touch millionaire is their most effective line of attack. Second, it's becoming clear that the attacks are doing more to buy the Obama campaign time than seriously change the trajectory of the race.

For all the attention paid to the effectiveness of President Obama's Bain-themed attacks, it's remarkable how Obama has been stuck right around 47 percent for a very long time.  As the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza documented, the president's team has handily outspent Romney and his allied super PACs, pouring in $91 million into eight swing states in an early spending barrage intended to make Romney seem an unacceptable challenger.  But for all that effort, the numbers haven't moved much at all: The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll out today shows the race deadlocked at 47 percent. Yesterday's USA Today/Gallup swing state poll showed Obama statistically tied with Romney, the exact same result the survey showed one month ago. 

Meanwhile, in the coming months, Romney should have a spending advantage, having significantly outraised Obama over the last two months.  Along with the RNC, the campaign has $160 million cash-on-hand, a total that will likely be greater than the Obama team's money. (The Obama campaign tellingly didn't release their cash-on-hand figures.)  That will allow Romney to match or surpass Obama on the airwaves, having survived a period when he was outgunned. The Romney campaign has already hinted it plans to counterattack by raising questions about Obama's credibility. And American Crossroads announced it has reserved $40 million of television ad time in the final two months - when more voters are paying close attention….

http://decoded.nationaljournal.com/2012/07/despite-bain-attacks-obama-sti.php

I expect to see a bounce for Romney after the nominating convention, but I doubt Obama will see one after the Democratic convention. People have already made up their mind on Obama.  47 percent is his high water line.   I’m looking for a 55-44 election for Romney with the Republicans taking the Senate and holding the House.  And the meme about his attacks on Romney in the swing states working aren’t borne out by the facts.  He won these states by an average of 8 percent and the polls show him leading among registered voters (not likely voters) by 2%.  The same poll shows him leading by 3% in states not getting the ads. 

2.  Andrea Mitchell gets taken to school

…Sununu: No. When you've sent $500 million to Fisker and it goes to Finland immediately. When you send the solar money and it goes to Mexico. When you send the turbine money and it goes to Denmark. And we can go on all day. There is $29 billion worth of purchases that came out of this administration, outsourced jobs to foreign countries.

Mitt Romney outsourced zero --

Mitchell: Zero?

Sununu: Zero. He wasn't there when those issues came up….

http://nation.foxnews.com/andrea-mitchell/2012/07/10/andrea-mitchell-gets-obliterated-romney-guy

Is offshoring a winning issue for Obama?  Watch the video and see Andrea Mitchell try to make the case while John Sununu takes her apart.

3.  Top Obama Fundraiser blasts class warfare

Millionaire developer R. Donahue Peebles  -– a 52-year-old D.C. native  whose company website touts The Peebles Corp. as "the country's largest African American real estate development company," is a top fundraiser for President Barack Obama...raising between $100K and $200K for this reelection.

But in a 20-minute conversation with HuffPost Monday, Peebles blasted Obama's campaign messaging. He said, as he told other press outlets, that his frustration was sparked by receiving an email from the DNC that mocked Romney as" out of touch" for having a boat that fit 12 people, accompanied by a picture of the Republican presumptive nominee on vacation.

"That offended me. Now if I were on the fence, he'd have lost me," said Peebles, who described himself as nonetheless a "big supporter of the president's."

"What I get concerned about is the message from the Obama campaign that we only want someone who has not been successful to run for president. What do we want here? You can't be successful and run the country? We don't want somebody who has been successful to run it?  That doesn't make sense," Peebles said.

"So I look at that and I see that those things are becoming offensive to some of his strongest supporters, financially."  It would be unrealistic to think that that kind of thing would not impact the enthusiasm for those who are supportive of the president, financially, and certainly would turn off others who were on the fence to say, 'You know, what the heck with it. I'm done,'" Peebles continued. "And they go on to Romney."…

http://nation.foxnews.com/r-donahue-peebles/2012/07/11/top-obama-fundraiser-explodes-over-campaigns-class-warfare#ixzz20KMZP69j

This simply is common sense, but the reason I posted it is because many on the left do not see that Obama is engaged in class warfare.  He is.

4.  Investments made overseas:  What sauce for the goose

Disclosure forms reveal that Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a member of Congress from Florida, previously held funds with investments in Swiss banks, foreign drug companies, and the state bank of India…

It’s been a consistent theme of Obama’s reelection strategy: Attack Romney for foreign investments he held, especially in Swiss bank accounts, “to try to promote his wealthy, out-of-touch businessman persona.”
But disclosure forms reveal that in 2010, Wasserman Schultz invested between $1,001-$15,000 in a 401k retirement fund run by Davis Financial Fund. As the fund discloses, it is invested in the Julius Baer Group Ltd. and the State Bank of India GDR Ltd., as well as other financial, insurance, bank institutions…
Similarly, according to disclosure forms from 2004, Wasserman Schultz had holdings in the Fidelity Advisor Overseas Fund. That fund is invested in HSBC bank (a British financial institution), Hengdeli Holdings (a Hong Kong watch company), Novo Nordisk (a Danish drug company), Volkswagen (a German auto company), Rakuten (a Japanese shipping business), Richemont Cie Financiere (a Swiss luxury goods company), and many others.

To be clear, there is nothing in Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s disclosure forms to suggest that the DNC chair invested in anything illegal. But it is clear that some of her holdings had investments overseas, in Swiss banks, foreign drug companies, the state bank of India, and many other overseas holdings….

http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/10/dws-debbie-wuvs-switzerland/#ixzz20JbghXqz

Debbie shows how she is either stupid or hypocritical.  I don’t think she is a hypocrite.

5.  The Five Obama Promises the MSM will never Mention

..BERNARD GOLDBERG: But they [liberal media] do it. They do it.

Look, can I give you another -- you like facts. Let me give you another example. There's a piece in the current edition of The Weekly Standard by a very smart fellow named Pete Wehner, who's on FOX from time to time. I'm going to just give you five facts. Just five.

Fact No. 1, as a candidate, Barack Obama promised to create five million new energy jobs alone. Just 5 million energy jobs.
Fact No. 2, he claimed that, by the end of the first term, his healthcare plan, would quote, "bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family."
Fact No. 3, he guaranteed that his financial rescue plan would help stop foreclosures.
Fact No. 4, in the first year of his presidency, he pledged, quote, "to cut the deficit we inherited in the half by the end of my first term in office."
Fact No. 5, he said he would, quote, "lift two million Americans from poverty" and, quote, "jolt our economy back to life."

Have you seen that any place in the mainstream media? That Barack Obama has failed to deliver on his promises?

BILL O'REILLY: No. Nobody has put that in. Except for The Weekly Standard, nobody has brought that up. But all politicians make promises, and few deliver, to be fair.

GOLDBERG: Yes. But it's one thing to promise vaguely, "I promise you hope and change." These are very specific promises.

Listen, the same mainstream media that put Mitt Romney's stupid stunt while he was teenager in high school all over page one and on several jump pages, and the same mainstream media that put on page one Ann Romney's horse thing, you know, where she rides horses, which is a very expensive hobby, they found enough time and space to devote to that. Why can't they find time to devote to this?...

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matt-vespa/2012/07/10/bernie-goldberg-media-will-ignore-obamas-five-major-broken-promises#ixzz20LT2zNkE

The MSM won’t mention it but count on seeing it in political ads this fall. 

6.  Gallup:  More and more Americans tune out the News

According to a new Gallup poll measuring Americans' confidence in television news, the level is the lowest since the poll was begun in 1993. 21% of adults expressed a great deal of confidence in television news reporting. No wonder CNN’s ratings are in the toilet.

Gallup tested 16 institutions, including newspapers, and TV news ranked 11^th. Newspapers were ranked 10^th. There was an interesting divide among those on the left; Democrats were the most confident in television news of all the groups surveyed (now there’s a shock) but postgraduates, who are more generally Democrats, had the least confidence in the TV news industry. This would tend to imply that well-educated people were more distrustful of what was spoon-fed them by the TV media, while those who were lower-income Democrats didn’t question the TV media’s bias toward the left. 
A very important statistic showed that moderates were much less confident than they were in 2008, which could mean a great deal in the November election because if the moderates view the TV news with suspicion, they will be less likely to vote for Barack Obama.

As the reality of Barack Obama’s failed economy sinks in, more and more Americans are skeptical of the TV news departments that insist on painting a rosy picture that doesn’t match the bleak world of foreclosures, closed businesses, and radically high unemployment that’s out there….

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/07/11/new-gallup-poll-Americans-TV-news

People don’t trust the media.  If you are a conservative that isn’t a surprise.  If you are a Democrat you probably feel that the media is slightly biased to the right, but generally get it correct (which if you think about it means they are leftist, just not as leftist as you are). 

7.  Always Check a Poll’s Demographics

Public polling is supposed to predict and reflect public opinion, not drive it.  But by the looks of two consecutive national surveys, it seems as though certain media organizations are far more interested in achieving the latter end than the former.  Yesterday, the Washington Post and ABC News published a poll purporting to show the presidential race tied at 47 percent.  As Dan mentioned, the poll 's partisan sample was a D+9, with a D/R/I of 33/24/36.  This is preposterous.  That would mean that this fall's electorate will be two points more Democratic than the Democrat wave year of 2008.  As a point of reference, the 2010 midterms showed Democrats and Republicans represented exactly evenly.  In spite of this terrible sample (for which WaPo polls are becoming infamous) the race is all knotted up.  One crucial note from the internals: Romney is beating Obama among independents by 14 points.  Let's be frank -- if Mitt Romney wins indies by anything close to 14 points in November, Barack Obama will be a one term president.  It's that simple.  But one risible poll wasn't quite enough for this week apparently; Reuters has gotten in on the action as well.  Their samples have been notoriously bad all cycle, too, and this latest survey is no exception.  Like its WaPo counterpart, Reuters' polling outfit concocted am identical, ludicrous partisan sample of D+9 (among adults, D+5 among registered voters).  The new poll's findings?

(1) Barack Obama "leads" Mitt Romney by 6 points overall, with independents woefully under-represented.
(2) Obama's job approval rating is 48/47, a +1 result in a D+9 sample.  That's bad news for the president.
(3) Worse news for The One: Of the few independents sampled, only 41 percent approve of his job performance.  As Jay Cost notes, that's worse than Dukakis territory.
(4) The president is 10 points underwater on the economy -- again, with a sample skew that should really goose his numbers on every question.
(5) Almost inexplicably, Republicans hold a four-point advantage on the survey's generic Congressional ballot.  I repeat, D+9 sample….

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2012/07/11/another_hopelessly_slanted_poll_spells_danger_for_obama

Something to keep in mind when the polls don’t make a lot of sense.  I’ve seen two now that say Romney has a big lead with independents but Obama is tied or ahead of him.  That doesn’t make any sense.  But the polls keep over polling Democrats. 

Obama and 2012

What’s new today

Story #1 reviews the logic of Class Warfare to see if it makes sense.  #2 shows the gap between those who want to repeal Obamacare and those that want to keep it at 20%.  #3 a member of OWS Boston discovers that OWS Boston has become fascist.  #4 tells us of the new reality Obama and the Democrats face in 2012.  And finally #5 tells us of the new reality we all will face if Obama gets a second term.

1.  Does Class Warfare Make Sense?

P.J. O'Rourke: The "Occupy This, That and the Other Place" people are right about the sins of the financial system and right about the evil of government supporting and subsidizing this malfeasance. IT'S NOT FAIR THAT 1 PERCENT OF AMERICANS ARE ROLLING IN DOUGH while the rest of us are scrimping to pay for our Internet connection so we can go on Groupon.

But the Occupiers are wrong about something much more important. THEY BELIEVE IN THE ZERO SUM FALLACY -- THE IDEA THAT THERE IS A FIXED AMOUNT OF THE GOOD THINGS IN LIFE. ANYTHING I GET, I'M TAKING FROM YOU. If I have too many slices of pizza, you have to eat the Dominos box. The Zero Sum Fallacy is a bad idea -- dangerous to economics, politics, and world peace. It means any time we want good things we have to fight with each other to get them. We don't. WE CAN MAKE MORE GOOD THINGS. We can make more pizza -- or more tofu, windmills and solar panels, if you like.

THE ZERO SUM FALLACY IS JUST THAT, A FALLACY. …

….THE GOOD THINGS IN LIFE ARE REMARKABLY EXPANDABLE, but it's ordinary people who expand them. Look at China, look at India. Yes, it's upsetting that some people have so much while other people have so little. It isn't fair. But I accept this unfairness. Indeed, I treasure it. That's because I HAVE A 13-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER AND THAT'S ALL I HEAR, "THAT'S NOT FAIR," she says. "That's not fair! That's not fair!" And one day I snapped, and I said, "HONEY, YOU'RE CUTE, THAT'S NOT FAIR. YOUR FAMILY IS PRETTY WELL OFF, THAT'S NOT FAIR. YOU WERE BORN IN AMERICA, THAT'S NOT FAIR. Darling, you had better get down on your knees and pray that things don't start getting fair for you."

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/commentary/orourke-if-1-had-less-would-99-be-better

If we look not simply at the USA, but at the world, 38,000 USD per year puts us in the 1%.  I’m not sure how many Americans would want to go out and protest themselves as being in the rich 1%. 

 

2.   55% Favor Repeal of Obamacare

Most voters still want to repeal the national health care law, even though they tend to believe the law won’t force them to change their own health insurance coverage.

THE LATEST RASMUSSEN REPORTS NATIONAL TELEPHONE SURVEY SHOWS THAT 55% OF LIKELY U.S. VOTERS at least somewhat favor repeal of the health care law passed by Congress in March 2010, WHILE 35% AT LEAST SOMEWHAT OPPOSE REPEAL. The intensity remains on the side of the law’s opponents since these findings include 42% who Strongly Favor repeal versus 26% who are Strongly Opposed….

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/health_care_law

The numbers bounce around a bit, but since August, the numbers have shown about a 20% majority for repealing the law.  So much for Nancy Pelosi’s prediction that once the American public found out what was in it, they would support it. 

3.  Boston OWS Participants “The Occupy Boston Movement as a whole became Fascist”

Dispirited Occupy member Stephen Campbell, 24, said when asked why he didn’t get arrested, HE SAID HE WITHDREW FROM THE CAMP EARLY TODAY AS THE END WAS CLEARLY IN SIGHT.”THE OCCUPY BOSTON MOVEMENT AS A WHOLE BECAME FASCIST,” he said, adding he still believes in the Occupy idea but not the organization. “At a general assembly this week we spent four hours trying to evict people rather than focusing on our political causes. ”He went on to say the general assembly betrayed the movement, so he left the Dewey Square encampment before he got arrested. He also told the Herald’s Dan O’Brien that Boston police were the smartest in the nation by coaxing occupiers out. “They got Occupy Boston to leave, themselves.”  

http://bostonherald.com/blogs/news/city_desk_wired/

What he didn’t realize is that OWS is a fascist movement from the very beginning.

4.  Obama faces New Reality in 2012

Since the heady days of 2008, a new USA TODAY/Gallup Swing States Poll finds the number of VOTERS WHO IDENTIFY THEMSELVES AS DEMOCRATIC OR DEMOCRATIC-LEANING IN THESE KEY STATES HAS ERODED, DOWN BY 4 PERCENTAGE POINTS, WHILE THE RANKS OF REPUBLICANS HAVE CLIMBED BY 5 POINTS.

Republican voters also are more attentive to the campaign, more enthusiastic about the election and more convinced that the outcome matters.

The contrasting conditions of the nation's two major political parties — discouraged Democrats and resurgent Republicans — underscore how different Obama's re-election campaign is from the contest four years ago.

Consider the math: In 2008, when Obama carried the swing states by 8 percentage points, Democrats there swamped Republicans in party identification by 11 points. Now, that partisan edge has tightened to a statistically insignificant 2 points.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2011-12-12/2012-election-swing-states-poll/51844930/1

Obama is in trouble.  As Dick Morris likes to say about undecided voters, it’s as if someone asked you if you’d marry your spouse again and you said, “I’m undecided on that.”  It’s not a very good sign for the incumbent.

 



The Voters Face a New Obama Reality In The Coming Years

Every Obama speech is fraught with lies and half-truths. He relies on his belief in the ignorance of his audience, and that Americans are too lazy and soft to recognize his dishonesty. When your record is abysmal, you can't tell the truth.

OBAMA, HASN'T A CLUE ON HOW TO FIX THE ECONOMY. Instead, without ideas, he copied Teddy Roosevelt's 100-year-old speech in Osawatomie. With Barack Obama, it's always yesterday's answers to today's problems...and this is the man they told us was a genius. The president maintains that the rich get richer by making everyone poorer. Ah...BITTERNESS AND ENVY, THE ILLEGITIMATE STEPCHILDREN OF HOPE AND CHANGE.

THE FIX, OF COURSE, IS HIGHER TAXES, but when the taxes to pay for ObamaCare go into effect in 2013 and the Bush Tax cuts expire, EVERYONE'S TAXES WILL INCREASE -- NOT JUST THE HIGHEST INCOME BRACKETS. People in the top 1%, while earning 17% of the nation's income, already pay almost 40% of all taxes and are scheduled for an almost 20% rise even before the president's proposed increases.

The tax on capital gains will rise by 33%. This is a tax on the sale of assets purchased with after-tax income and held for a specific period of time. A lower rate promotes long-term investment; economists understand this, and every time the rate has been cut, revenues have increased. Yet BARACK OBAMA WOULD RAISE THE RATE IN THE INTEREST OF FAIRNESS. The nation doesn't need investment; that would just provide jobs, and the country doesn't need jobs. Besides, a higher rate on investment income makes a good slogan, and it "fits well on a bumper sticker….”  

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/barack_has_a_record.html#ixzz1gPPPJl5K

You can’t argue with a liberal Democrat.  They have their dogma and facts do not effect someone who believes.

Is Obama losing it?

Politics

Obama’s class warfare

Barack Obama, after extending the Bush-era tax cuts in the lame duck session last year against his wishes, is seeking to redeem himself by launching an all new (but oh-so-familiar) assault upon wealthy Americans. And this time, in his desperation, the attacks are all the more venomous, and concentrated on Republican support of the extremely wealthy. HE HAS GONE TO GREAT LENGTHS TO ASSURE AMERICA THAT WHILE DEMOCRATS SUPPORT CHILDREN, SAFE FOOD, WEATHER TECHNOLOGY, AND MEDICAL RESEARCH, REPUBLICANS SUPPORT CORPORATE JETS.

Of course, the big, bad corporate billionaire that gallivants around the globe on a personal jet burning carbon and money makes a great enemy of the people. And best of all, with a $10-million average price tag, it's probably safe to say that you don't know anyone who owns a private jet, and therefore have no reason to defend anyone who does. But all the "corporate jet" talk is nothing more than a flamboyant diversion.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/the_underhanded_endgame_to_achieve_social_justice.html

Pathetic pandering from a desperate man.

No drama Obama losing his cool

Something unexpected happened along the president’s breezy cruise to re-election. “NO DRAMA” OBAMA IS SUDDENLY LOOKING ABOUT AS CALM AS JERRY LEWIS IN A FRENCH FILM, about as brave as Ted Kennedy after an evening drive through Chappaquiddick. Witness Team Obama’s recent panicky behavior.

OBAMANOMICS ANXIETY. The White House is reeling as its reverse Midas touch to the economy is being exposed. Its own economists acknowledge now that EACH JOB CREATED OR “SAVED” BY THE SO-CALLED “STIMULUS” COST TAXPAYERS A WHOPPING $278,000. THIS IS STILL FANTASYLAND BECAUSE THERE ARE 1.9 MILLION FEWER JOBS ON RECORD NOW THAN ON THE DAY THE STIMULUS WAS SIGNED INTO LAW, but nonetheless, the quiet pre-holiday Friday night news dump of an announcement reveals the administration’s worry. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke admitted last month that he’s clueless why America’s economic malaise continues. Tax cheat and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who called President Obama’s budget “unsustainable,” wants to abandon ship along with the rest of the “economic dream team” escapees: Lawrence H. Summers, Christina Romer and Austan Goolsbee. Meanwhile, the president, apparently believing no news is good news, has put his fingers in his ears - “LA LA LA, I CANNOT HEAR YOU” - AND, AT ONE POINT, CANCELED HIS DAILY ECONOMIC BRIEFINGS.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/6/no-drama-obama-losing-his-cool/

Things are going well for The One as more and more that title seems to refer to how many terms he will serve.

Calls for Ginsberg to retire: from the left

GINSBURG COULD RETIRE NOW AND ALLOW [PRESIDENT] OBAMA TO NAME A LIKE-MINDED SUCCESSOR WHOSE CONFIRMATION WOULD BE IN THE HANDS OF A DEMOCRATIC-CONTROLLED SENATE. "She has in her power the ability to prevent a real shift in the balance of power on the court," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Irvine law school. "On the other hand, there's the personal. How do you decide to leave the United States Supreme Court?" . . .

But some on the left say that the focus on the personal is misplaced. GINSBURG NEEDS TO PUT SELF-INTEREST ASIDE AND ACT FOR THE GOOD OF THE ISSUES THEY BELIEVE IN, HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR RANDALL KENNEDY WROTE RECENTLY. Kennedy said 72-year-old Justice Stephen Breyer should leave, too.

Too much is at stake and both life and politics are too fickle to take the risk that everything will work out as the justices desire, Kennedy said.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/07/02/us/politics/AP-US-Supreme-Court-Future.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Does this look like a left that is confident that Obama will be reelected?

Is this the best we can do?

The Republicans’ 2012 presidential nominee will run against Alibi Ike. Lardner, a Chicago sportswriter, created that character (“His right name was Frank X. Farrell, and I guess the X stood for ‘Excuse me.’ ”) who resembles Chicagoan Barack Obama. AFTER BLAMING HIS PREDECESSOR FOR THIS AND THAT, AND AFTER FIRING ALL THE ARROWS IN LIBERALISM’S QUIVER — THE STIMULUS, CASH FOR CLUNKERS, ETC. — OBAMA SEEMS POISED TO BLAME THE RECOVERY’S ANEMIA ON REPUBLICAN RESISTANCE TO SIMULTANEOUSLY RAISING THE DEBT CEILING AND TAXES.

So the Republican nominee’s campaign theme can already be written. In 1960, candidate John Kennedy’s theme was: “We can do better.” In 2012, the Republican candidate should say “Is this the best we can do?”…

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/2011_0707alibi_obama_is_ripe_for_takedown_ready-made_slogan_is_this_the_best_we_can_do/

The left’s constant parade of failed programs is always alibied by the claim we didn’t spend enough.


Conflict of interest?

Many of the issues raised in the constitutional challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) seem hopelessly arcane and confusing, and not merely to those of us who lack law degrees. Among legal scholars, there are as many opinions about these lawsuits as there are scholars themselves. For every constitutional expert who claims that PPACA’s individual mandate goes far beyond the authority legitimately wielded by the federal government there is another who insists that it falls well within its enumerated powers. There is, however, at least one point on which there is unanimous agreement -- OBAMACARE’S ULTIMATE FATE WILL BE DECIDED BY THE U.S. SUPREME COURT. AND IT IS INCREASINGLY OBVIOUS THAT ONE OF THE COURT’S JUSTICES IS BURDENED WITH A CONFLICT OF INTEREST WHERE THAT UNPOPULAR LAW IS CONCERNED.

From the moment President Obama announced her nomination, ELENA KAGAN HAS FACED SERIOUS QUESTIONS ABOUT HER ROLE IN PREPARING THE LEGAL DEFENSE OF PPACA. And, contrary to the claims of the White House and its allies in the news media, these queries cannot be written off as politically-motivated smear tactics generated by the "Republican noise machine." IT’S HARDLY UNREASONABLE TO ASSUME THAT, IN HER FORMER ROLE AS SOLICITOR GENERAL, SHE WOULD HAVE PLAYED SOME PART IN PREPARING FOR THE ONSLAUGHT OF LAWSUITS THAT OBAMACARE WAS BOUND TO PROVOKE. Nonetheless, both Kagan and the Department of Justice (DOJ) insist that she did not, a claim undermined by THEIR DILATORY RESPONSES DOCUMENT REQUESTS FROM CONGRESS AND NUMEROUS FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA) REQUESTS.

From the beginning, the DOJ has claimed that "DURING HER TENURE, FORMER SOLICITOR GENERAL ELENA KAGAN DID NOT PLAY ANY SUBSTANTIVE ROLE IN LITIGATION CHALLENGING HEALTH CARE REFORM LEGISLATION, AND THE DOCUMENTS THAT WERE RELEASED REFLECT THAT." In reality, however, the released documents reflect precisely the reverse. A series of 2010 emails obtained pursuant to the numerous FOIA requests clearly show that the acting Solicitor General who recently defended ObamaCare in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals was assigned to the PPACA litigation team by Kagan herself. In anticipation of "the inevitable challenges to the health care proposals that are pending," then-Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal asked Kagan for permission to begin defense preparations and she explicitly granted it…..
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/07/07/obamacare-and-kagans-conflict

This is another interesting sidebar to the Obamacare story. And in a follow up story

THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE IS LAUNCHING AN INQUIRY TO PROBE THE INVOLVEMENT THAT SUPREME COURT JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN had in “health care legislation or litigation” when she was serving as President Barack Obama’s solicitor general and was responsible for defending the administration’s position in federal court cases.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/judiciary-committee-launches-probe-kagan


Here are the important dates. Obama signed the PPACA into law March 23, 2010. On that same date Florida and Virginia file lawsuits against the law. Obama nominates Kagan to the Supreme Court on May 10, 2011. There are a lot more specifics in the story. A good read if you want to be conversant in this issue.

Romney is right: Obama has made it worse

There are 2 MILLION FEWER PRIVATE-SECTOR JOBS NOW than when Obama was sworn in, and the unemployment rate is 1.5 percentage points higher.

• There are now MORE LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED THAN AT ANY TIME SINCE THE GOVERNMENT STARTED KEEPING RECORDS.
• The U.S. DOLLAR IS MORE THAN 12% WEAKER.
• The number of Americans on food stamps has climbed 37%.
• THE MISERY INDEX (UNEMPLOYMENT PLUS INFLATION) IS UP 62%.
• And the NATIONAL DEBT IS ABOUT 40% HIGHER than it was in January 2009.
In fact, reporters who bother to look will discover that Obama has managed to produce the worst recovery on record.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/577501/201107061854/Romneys-Right-It-Is-Worse-Now.htm

Education
More on the Atlanta Schools scandal

…. The chosen ones’

The district passes its scores on to the state each year and pledges they are accurate. Giving a “false official writing” is also a felony.

In some schools, the report said, CHEATING BECAME A ROUTINE PART OF ADMINISTERING THE ANNUAL STATE CRITERION-REFERENCED COMPETENCY TESTS. THE INVESTIGATORS DESCRIBE HIGHLY ORGANIZED, COORDINATED EFFORTS TO FALSIFY TESTS WHEN CHILDREN COULD NOT SCORE HIGH ENOUGH TO MEET THE DISTRICT’S SELF-IMPOSED GOALS.

The cheating cut off struggling students from the extra help they would have received if they’d failed.
At Venetian Hills, a group of teachers and administrators who dubbed themselves “the chosen ones” convened to change answers in the afternoons or during makeup testing days, investigators found. PRINCIPAL CLARIETTA DAVIS, A TESTING COORDINATOR TOLD INVESTIGATORS, WORE GLOVES WHILE ERASING TO AVOID LEAVING FINGERPRINTS ON ANSWER SHEETS.

Davis refused to answer the investigators’ questions. She could not be reached Tuesday.
AT GIDEONS ELEMENTARY, TEACHERS SNEAKED TESTS OFF CAMPUS AND HELD A WEEKEND “CHANGING PARTY” AT A TEACHER’S HOME IN DOUGLAS COUNTY TO FIX ANSWERS.

Cheating was “an open secret” at the school, the report said. The testing coordinator handed out answer-key transparencies to place over answer sheets so the job would go faster.

When investigators began questioning educators, now-retired principal Armstead Salters obstructed their efforts by telling teachers not to cooperate, the report said….

http://www.ajc.com/news/investigation-into-aps-cheating-1001375.html

This is not a happy story but an important one.

Just for fun: A history of the English Language.

http://www.metafilter.com/105032/Those-poor-forgotten-Jutes