Tomorrow we get unemployment numbers

 Best Quotes from RNC

“The only just government is the government that serves its citizens, not itself.” — Cardinal Timothy Dolan

“Here is their plan. Whistle a happy tune while driving us off a fiscal cliff as long as they are behind the wheel of power when we fall.” — Chris Christie

”We believe ‘we’re all in this together’ is a far better philosophy than ‘you’re on your own.’” Bill Clinton

In describing Mitt Romney: “a person who said in four words, ‘Let Detroit go bankrupt.’” Rahm Emmanuel  (note:  Romney never said this.  An editor created a headline with those words for an op-ed Romney wrote)

Gallup:  Unemployment in August not likely to improve

The BLM’s July unadjusted unemployment rate was 8.7% last month.  Gallup is expecting the that number to remain the same or go up in August.

CBO: Under Current Law, Unemployment Will Rise Next Year to 9.1%

Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is projecting that if changes in federal taxing-and-spending policies already enacted and set to take effect at the beginning of next year do in fact take place, the unemployment rate will climb to 9.1 percent.

Democrats split, but put God and Jerusalem back into Party Platform

Having taken out of the Democratic Platform any mention of God and the acknowledgement of Jerusalem being Israel’s capital, the Democrats did an about face as it became an issue.  But it took three votes to get the approval and many in the audience booed the decision.

This is turning out to be a festering sore for the Democratic Party.  When they tried to change the platform it appeared the chairman ramrodded the changes through.  This vote brought to mind the 1930s as the idea of putting Jerusalem back in the platform as the Capital of Israel was supported by no more than half the delegates (and probably not even half).  There were boos after the chairman said it carried.

But as a Republican it is fun to watch the Democrats start coming apart.

Featured Steelworker at DNC didn’t actually work for Bain

“DavidFoster was never an employee of GST Steel’s Kansas City plant. He was employed by the United Steelworkers of America as their regional union director to represent GST Steel, but was not employed at our facility,”   But he was a speaker at the DNC passing himself off as a former Bain employee.  

From his speech:  In 2001, with GST bankrupt and Romney still CEO of Bain, I stood in front of hundreds of steelworkers in their 50s and 60s, and retirees in their 70s and 80s, and told them Romney and Bain had broken their promises. Jobs, vacation pay, severance, health insurance and pension benefits that were promised—they were all gone.

Except Romney was no longer at Bain Capital.  He was busy saving the Winter Olympics and had been there for over two years at this time. 

A New Democratic Idea:  Ban corporate profits

If you want to see how ignorant the Democrat delegates can be, this will scare the devil out of you. 

Woodward’s latest book reveals Obama’s deal breaker

Bob Woodward’s new book, The Price of Power, is coming out September 11 and that timing is not good for Obama.  Woodward details out the negotiations between Obama and Boehner who came up with a deal to reduce the deficit only to have President Obama insist on increasing the new taxes by 50%.  That was a deal breaker and Boehner went to his plan B which kept the government from defaulting on its debt.  Obama did not have a plan B and it was Boehner and Reid who kept the government out of default. 

From the write up it appears Obama doesn’t like the Republicans in congress or the Democrats and the feeling appears to be mutual.  He relates the story of inviting Paul Ryan to an address he was making where he tore Ryan’s budget apart.  Ryan related to one of the Whitehouse staff “I can’t believe you poisoned the well like that.”  It appears Bill Clinton was right when he called Obama an Amateur.

As for Obama putting out an open hand to try to get the Republicans on board that appears to be left wing spin.  On his first day in office, Obama sent a message to congress telling them he wanted a stimulus of between $800 billion and $1.3 trillion.  It was well received by both parties who were serious in their desire to work with the President on this.  Three days later, Obama invited the congressional delegates to the White House and basically rejected all the Republicans proposals.  Woodward says as if to almost rub it in, Obama told Eric Cantor, “Elections have consequences.  And Eric, I won.”

Cantor told Woodward he was “surprised how badly the White House had played what should have been a winning hand.  Though Obama won the vote, he had unified and energized the losers.” 

Obamacare summarized in one long sentence

Fabulously funny.

DNC viewership down

While Michelle Obama was praised by the media, viewership was down significantly from 2008 and Ann Romney actually had400,000 more viewers than did the first lady. 

DWS refuses to apologize after being caught in a lie

Rep.Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) told the Washington Free Beacon Wednesday evening that she will not be apologizing to Washington Examiner reporter Philip Klein after she falsely accused him of “deliberately misquoting” her.

Phony Injuns

A top five list of people who claimed to be Indians without a drop of Indian blood in them.  ElizabethWarren takes top honors but you’ll be surprised about the others. 

Whatever happened to Climate Change as a political issue?

The whole Climate Change “issue” seems to have slipped away from the left.  In the first two days of the Democratic National Convention, it was mentioned only once in 80 speeches.

http://nation.foxnews.com/climate-change/2012/09/06/climate-change-so-serious-democrats-mention-it-once-over-80-speeches-over-two-days

Democrats and abortion

Why has the party removed the sentence “Abortionshould be safe, legal, and rare” from its platform? It was in the 2004 document but not in 2008’s or this year’s. Can’t Democrats just throw a crumb to the many millions who are pro-choice but not pro-abortion?

Democrats and Poverty

There is a striking absence of any mention of poverty at the Democratic National Convention.  If you want to know why look here. 

Government vs Corporation

"Government" is just a word for things we do together. "Corporation" is just a word for things we do together voluntarily.  David Burge

At Last an Honor Killing we can support

They got the right person this time.

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SCOTUS and Obamacare

What’s New Today

Story #1 is the story gives you five silver linings for the survival of Obamacare.  #2 lists the seven tax hikes associated with Obamacare. #3 lists the 10 worst things about Obamacare.  #4 looks at the Robert’s decision to see if it is a benefit or a tax to those who are opposed to it.  #5 links you to a viral video of the Obamacare decision.  #6 is Mickey Klaus’ look at the future for Obamacare and specifically can it be repealed.

Today’s Thoughts

Today’s SCOTUS ruling makes you wonder if Obama is thanking his lucky stars his vote against Roberts didn’t carry the day.

“It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”  Chief Justice John Roberts on Obamacare   So elections do have consequences. 

As we start looking at Obama’s achievements, the successful completion of the relief well (Deep Water Horizon) was on September 17, 2010 some 148 days after the disaster occurred.

1.  Five Possible Silver Linings in the Obamacare Ruling

I have not been as overwhelmed with grief at the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act as some of my fellow conservatives.  I was wondering whether I was just being naive, but since I just listened in person to a talk from Paul Clement, who actually argued the case on behalf of the states before the Supreme Court, and his feelings seemed to resonate with my own, I feel a little more confident now to share what might be some of the silver linings in this decision…:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2012/06/28/five-possible-silver-linings-in-the-obamacare-decisio/

Cutting to the chase the five silver linings are 1) it pushes new power grabs out of the commerce clause and into the taxing power and tax laws are more difficult to pass, 2) as a tax it will be easier to repeal (no filibusters allowed), 3) the state can now back out of the Medicaid expansion, 4) the Democrats now own the most deceptive tax hike in history, and 5) this focuses the election on whether the government should have more power over the individual or less. 

2.  Obamacare’s 7 tax hikes on people earning under $250,000

By ruling that ObamaCare is constitutional, the Supreme Court has set in motion a slew of tax hikes. Well, someone has to pay for it. For rich folks, looming big is the 3.8% Medicare surtax on investment income, and the 0.9% Medicare payroll tax hike (from 1.45% to 2.35%). And then there are the tax hikes for everybody else.

Obama’s pledge against any form of tax increase on Americans making less than $250,000 a year “was thrown out the window” when he signed the healthcare law, says John Kartch, communications director with Americans For Tax Reform (founded by anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist).

Here’s a rundown of seven ObamaCare tax hikes that affect the hoi polloi…

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleaebeling/2012/06/28/obamacares-7-tax-hikes-on-under-250000-a-year-earners/

Another promise broken.  Here’s a list of 20 tax increases by the Obama Administration.

http://www.atr.org/full-list-obamacare-tax-hikes-a6996

3.  10 Worst things about Obamacare

Now, all the rest of us are going to find out a lot more about what’s in the 2,700-page health overhaul law.
The president now must spend the next four months defending a law that the majority of Americans dislike, and the more they learn about it, the more they dislike it. Worse, the part of the law that is the least popular — the individual mandate — has now been declared a tax.

That’s double jeopardy for the president: The unpopular mandate stands, and it is called a tax.  Either the president admits it’s a tax as a way of keeping the law on the books, or he says that the Supreme Court is wrong, that it’s not a tax, in which case his law would be invalid….

…Here’s a quick checklist of the ten worst things in the law — in addition to the individual and Medicaid mandates:

1. Employer mandate. Most companies will have to provide and pay for expensive government-determined health insurance for their employees or face federal fines.
2. Anti-conscience mandate. Religious organizations will be required to provide free sterilization, contraceptives, and abortion-inducing drugs to their employees, even if it violates their religious beliefs.
3. New and higher taxes. The law contains at least 20 new taxes totaling $500 billion that will hit medical innovators, health insurance, and even the sale of your home.
4. The Independent Payment Advisory Board. IPAB will still stand, with its rationing power over Medicare.
5. State exchanges. States will be compelled to set up vast new bureaucracies to check into our finances and families so they can hand out generous taxpayer subsidies for health insurance to families earning up to $90,000 a year.
6. Medicare payment cuts. $575 billion in payment reductions to Medicare providers and Medicare Advantage plans will cause more and more physicians to stop seeing Medicare patients, exacerbating access problems.
7. Higher health-care costs. The Kaiser Family Foundation says the average price of a family policy has risen by $2,200 during the Obama administration. The president promised premiums would be $2,500 lower by this year. Hospitals, doctors, businesses, and consumers all expect their taxes and health costs to rise under Obamacare.
8. Government control over doctor decisions. Value-based payments, quality reporting requirements, and government comparative-effectiveness boards will dictate how doctors practice medicine. Nearly half of all physicians are seriously considering leaving practice, leading to a severe doctor shortage.
9. Huge deficits. The CBO has raised its cost estimate for the law to $1.76 trillion over ten years, but that is only the opening bid as more and more people lose their job-based coverage and flood into taxpayer-subsidized insurance. At this rate, the cost will be $2 trillion, not the less than $1 trillion the president promised.
10. 159 new boards, agencies, and programs: The Obama administration will work quickly to set up as many of the law’s new bureaucracies as fast as it can so they can take root before the election.

http://www.nationalreview.com/critical-condition/304361/top-ten-worst-things-obamacare-grace-marie-turner

This will be playing out over time and offers Romney plenty of fodder to use in the coming election. 

4.  Robert’s ruling a Benefit or a Tax?

OK, it’s hard to admit but my initial reaction to this morning’s Obamacare decision by the Supreme Court – a snide tweet branding  Chief Justice John Roberts as another “gift” from President George W. Bush like the Medicare Prescription Drug benefit program – was embarrassingly hasty.

After reading and stewing about it all day, I’ve concluded that what Roberts has done is fundamentally shift the constitutional debate away from the liberal assumption since the Woodrow Wilson era that an Imperial Presidency and supine Congress can pretty much do as they please so long as it’s covered by at least one of those fig leaves known as the General Welfare, Necessary and Proper or Commerce clauses of the Constitution.

The new assumption is, thanks to Roberts, that at least two of those clauses in fact cannot simply be dragooned into the service of whatever a passing majority in Congress wants to do. And having shifted the meaning of those two clauses, courts will likely now have to view the other clause differently as well.

In other words, the Constitution means something today that it didn’t yesterday, at least in terms of constitutional precedent. It’s not a grand rout of liberalism from the field of battle, but the correlation of constitutional forces has now shifted under their feet in such a way that they must go over to the defensive on ground not of their choosing.

Further, the holding that Obamacare passes constitutional muster if it is understood as a tax may be an even more significant victory for conservatives. To understand why, which of these two words sounds more positive? “Benefit” or “tax”? Who is more likely to prevail – the advocate offering a positive benefit without having to explain in any detail how it will be funded, or the advocate who right out front says your taxes have to go up but, trust me, you’re going to love this new benefit?...

http://washingtonexaminer.com/updated-roberts-is-not-the-goat-in-todays-supreme-court-decision/article/2500914

This is probably the best silver lining I’ve read about since the verdict on Obamacare was written.  Precedent is a powerful force and Roberts has changed the precedents not to the liberals benefit.  In fact they will now be taxed with the responsibility to telling people not only the benefit but the cost.

5.  Viral Video on ObamaTax

http://nation.foxnews.com/obama-tax/2012/06/28/viral-video-obamatax

Expect to see a lot more like this.  I especially thought “not any of your taxes.  You will not see your taxes go up.”  Barack Obama was particularly effective.

6.  Mickey Klaus on the Repeal of Obamacare

…After all, why couldn’t Republicans use the “reconciliation” process to get around a Dem filibuster? Lizza says:

But reconciliation wouldn’t work here—the process can only be used for policies that have budgetary effects and a C.B.O. score. Much of the A.C.A., such as the insurance exchanges and subsidies, would fall under these categories. But a lot of it, including the hated individual mandate, does not. Repealing the exchanges and subsides without repealing the mandate and the other regulations and cost controls in the law would create a health-care Frankenstein that a President Romney would be rather nuts to support.

Huh? The individual mandate is a tax! The Supreme Court has now told us. Maybe the Senate parliamentarian calls it something else–but whatever you call it, it raises revenue and repealing it would have a budgetary effect, and hence be reconciliationable.  Here’s Republican Congressional expert Keith Hennessey admitting that the mandate is subject to reconciliation (and this at a time when his interest was in blocking Obamacare, which meant having as few things subject to reconciliation as possible). Certainly the GOPs could cut the monetary penalty (ax-tay) for not having health insurance to, say, a dime. That would certainly have a budgetary effect and a C.B.O. score.

Maybe the exchanges themselves wouldn’t be reconcilable, but if Romney could get rid of the mandate and the subsidies the exchanges would be stripped of their power as a vehicle to ensure universal coverage. Obamacare would effectively be repealed.

Frum,** for his part, thinks politics will preclude repeal even before the main parts of the Act kick in in 2014:

[E]ven if Republicans do win the White House and Senate in 2012, how much appetite will they then have for that 1-page repeal bill? Suddenly it will be their town halls filled with outraged senior citizens whose benefits are threatened; their incumbencies that will be threatened

Again, huh? Senior citizens already have Medicare. They hate Obamacare, in part because it came packaged with Medicare cuts. Why would they storm town halls to protest its repeal?

http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/29/yglesias-1-lizza-frum-0/#ixzz1zBqPCXkd

Facts are not things the left really likes to look at if it goes against them.  I thought Frum’s comments about senior citizens filling town halls with because their benefits are threatened is true.  But it will be Democrats town halls, not Republicans for the reasons Klaus outlined here.