I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. Help your friends and relatives stay informed by passing the digest on. In some cases I post things sent to me by readers I might not have posted on my own, to get ideas circulating.
Always worth reading: A Political Glossary Part IV, By Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: Nowhere is political rhetoric more shameless -- or more dangerous -- than in the pious names that politicians give to the legislation they pass. Perhaps the most egregious example is the so-called "Indian Child Welfare Act," which callously sacrifices the welfare of Indian children. Time and again, children with some American Indian ancestry, who have been adopted by families that are not of that ancestry, have been suddenly taken by law from the only parents they have ever known and transferred to some distant Indian reservation, to live among strangers in a world they know nothing about.
Obama boosted, but not by a lot
Excerpt: President Obama won a big victory with the Supreme Court’s healthcare ruling. But it won’t make winning a second term much easier. The 5-4 ruling validated Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment, reaffirming the president’s decision to use his political capital to push the law through Congress. (The great irony, of course, is that Obama voted against confirming Roberts to the court. If Roberts had been a Chicago Way politician like Obama, it would have been payback time. ~Bob.)
High court gives GOP new weapon on taxes
Excerpt: Republicans have seized on the Supreme Court's decision that the health insurance mandate is a tax, believing it will help them argue a second term for President Obama would be devastating for the economy. Presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney employed the line of attack shortly after the ruling came down, asserting “Obamacare raises taxes on the American people by approximately $500 billion.” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a top contender to be Romney’s running mate, drove home the point, arguing Obama has been freed to unleash an army of tax collectors on the public.
Health-care ruling motivates Romney supporters
Excerpt: If conservatives needed any more motivation to unseat President Obama, they got it Thursday from the Supreme Court, which provided fresh political opportunities for Mitt Romney even as it handed the president a legal victory.
Roberts’s health-care decision stuns many but is in line with his outlook
Excerpt: Roberts may have sided with liberals to save the signature domestic achievement of Obama’s presidency, but he also gave conservatives important legal beachheads that could pay off down the road.
Three Cheers for Chief Justice Roberts. By Howard Galganov
Excerpt: The Supreme Court Judgment in favor of Obamacare is as Machiavellian Brilliant as it comes. … What Chief Justice Roberts did was hand Obama a 100% SUICIDE PILL.
A Medicaid Dilemma: Will the Supreme Court’s ruling force the feds to fix a tottering program? By Nicole Gelinas And Paul Howard
Excerpt: President Obama scored a huge victory today. Chief Justice John Roberts led a Supreme Court majority in upholding most of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, including the critical mandate that most people either purchase health insurance or pay a financial penalty. Yet in that victory was a significant loss—and a potential gain for federalism. The court took away one of Washington’s favorite ways of making sure that the almost-poor don’t go without insurance: forcing the states to take care of it. And the ruling just might lead to a much-needed reform of Medicaid.
A victory for Obama in June, but what about November?
Excerpt: Republicans were clearly anticipating a different outcome. All their rhetoric, all their body language and many of their preparations were based on the assumption that the justices would deal a significant setback to the president, at a minimum by striking down the individualmandate. After all, it was Republican leaders — strategists — who were warning their colleagues this week not to gloat once the ruling was announced.
Day One, Job One: Full Repeal of Obamacare
Romney ad.
Obama Campaign Health Care Tee Shirt For Sale
Classy. ~Bob
Five Possible Silver Linings in the Obamacare Decision. By Timothy Dalrymple
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:
15 Reasons Why The Obamacare Decision Is A Mind Blowing Disaster For America
Excerpt: You can almost always count on the Supreme Court to do the wrong thing. In fact, just about every major decision by the U.S. Supreme Court over the last 40 years has been bad for America. Many were hoping that the Supreme Court would strike down Obamacare, but the truth is that we all should have known better than to expect them to get something right.
Why John Roberts upheld Obamacare. By Charles Krauthammer
Excerpt: It's the judiciary's Nixon-to-China: Chief Justice John Roberts joins the liberal wing of the Supreme Court and upholds the constitutionality of Obamacare. How? By pulling off one of the great constitutional finesses of all time. (Oh, I get it. Roberts appeared to be a hater of the Constitution to avoid appearing political. So aside from specializing in appearances, what is he REALLY? And what about the Constitution? --Don Hank)
The One Percent Triumph in Obamacare. By Gina Loudon
Excerpt: As Americans of all stripes shake off their shock over Obamacare being upheld, a chilling realization will soon set in. The good news in the short term, is that the only answer for people who want to escape the federal government takeover of health care is to elect politicians of either party who solemnly commit to the rule of law and swear allegiance to the Constitution. The bad news is that the 1% just completed their utter takeover of the nation and Lord help us now.
Why The Supreme Court Decision on Obamacare May Dramatically Increase the Deficit. By Avik Roy
Excerpt: An unappreciated point about today’s Supreme Court ruling is that it will have significant consequences for the federal deficit. It all comes out of the Court’s opinion that states have the ability to opt out of Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid. Paradoxically, this decision by the Court could lead to dramatically higher government health-care spending.
Romney raises $4.6M after health ruling
Excerpt: Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has raised $4.6 million since the Supreme Court ruled that President Obama's healthcare law is constitutional.
ObamaCare Ruling: Pure Fraud and No Due Process. By Andrew C. McCarthy
Excerpt: Indeed, the Court not only upheld a fraud perpetrated on the public — it became a willing participant. The assessment charged for failure to comply with ObamaCare’s “individual mandate,” which requires Americans to purchase health insurance, was presented to the country by the administration and the Democratic Congress as a penalty assessed for lawlessness — i.e., for refusing to honor this new legal requirement. It was strenuously denied by proponents that they were raising taxes.
Excerpt: The justices sent a message loud and clear in their decision upholding Obamacare and the requirement that everybody has to buy a health insurance policy, or else. That’s a tax, the court held, and the power to tax is the holiest of holies for any government.
The Constitutional Importance of the ObamaCare Ruling. By Joseph Klein
Excerpt: On the other hand, Obama can no longer duck the reality that Obamacare is built on the foundation of huge tax increases that affect virtually all Americans. Furthermore, the left’s incessant attacks against the court and the right as of late — that the conservative Supreme Court has become corrupted by “politicalization” and “activism” — have suddenly become obsolete and exposed as hypocritical.
A giant hole in the safety net? By Lyle Denniston
The modern welfare state, one in which a socially sensitive Congress has been eager to soothe the pangs of poverty, hunger, disease and aging, has created a huge safety net, but people keep falling through it. It definitely has not been as sturdy as Congress or the advocates for society’s neglected, outcast or under-served had wanted. The question, in the wake of Thursday’s compromise decision by the Supreme Court, salvaging a part of Congress’s massive expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor, is whether a gaping new hole has been opened in that net. If there is a hole, huge or less so, it has a name: the “coercion” theory. Seven Justices of the Supreme Court, rescuing that theory from the back of history’s closet where it has remained totally unused, embraced at least of version of the idea that Congress can make life so tough for its state partners in a joint social welfare program that it violates the Constitution. In the form outlined in the opinion by Chief Justice R. Roberts, Jr., it can be thought of properly as a new doctrine of states’ rights, or of federalism.
Stock trades may show Obamacare leak from Supreme Court. By Neil Munro
Excerpt: The Supreme Court’s stunning rejuvenation of the Obamacare mandate into a new tax didn’t leak to Washington D.C. insiders — but it appears that it may have leaked to yet-unknown Wall Street investors. In a brief 10-minute period starting at 9:32 a.m., the stock value of the nation’s largest hospital chain, HCA Holdings Inc., jumped from $26.81 per share to $27.53 as bidders bought several hundred thousand shares before the court made its announcement just after 10 a.m
House votes to hold Attorney General Holder in contempt of Congresshttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/28/house-holds-holder-contempt/#ixzz1z8fKfpCx
Excerpt: The GOP-led House voted Thursday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to provide key information pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious, making Holder the first sitting Cabinet member to be held in contempt.
The vote was 255-67 , with 17 Democrats breaking ranks to side with Republicans in favor of contempt.
Complete List of Democrats Voting to Hold Holder in Contempt of Congress
Excerpt: While the House Democratic leadership and their allies have attempted to paint this as nothing more then pure petty politics, the roll call from today's vote reveals something interesting... 17 Democrats voted to hold Holder in contempt - destroying the media's partisan narrative, and possibly giving more Democrats wiggle room to also oppose the embattled Attorney General.
Black Lawmakers Plot 'Walkout Strategy' During Holder Contempt Vote. By Shane Goldmacher
Excerpt: The Congressional Black Caucus has called a members-only "emergency" meeting on Thursday to plot a "walkout strategy" ahead of the scheduled contempt vote of Attorney General Eric Holder later in the day. (Celebrating Eric Withholder’s dereliction of duty by being derelict in their own. ~Bob.)
Supreme Court Strikes Down Law That Makes It Illegal to Lie About Receiving Military Awards
Excerpt: The case involved Xavier Alvarez who was an elected member of the Three Valleys Municipal Water District Board in Pomona, California. In 2007 Alvarez said at a public water district board meeting that he was a retired Marine, had been “wounded many times,” and had been “awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor” in 1987. In fact, he had never served in the United States armed forces. (Okay, but his "sentence" is that every person of honor will shun him for the rest of his life. That may do. ~Bob.)
Another one bites the dust. Abound Solar, $400 million Energy Dept. Loan Guarantee, Goes Bankrupt
Excerpt: Another one bites the dust. Colorado-based thin solar panel manufacturing company Abound Solar on Thursday announced that it will be filing for bankruptcy next week. The company was awarded a $400 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy in 2010, but as both the company and the Energy Department have made clear today, it only claimed about $70 million of the total before the guarantee was frozen by the government after Abound failed to hit financial targets.
CBO Releases Report on Federal Efforts to Reduce the Cost of Capturing and Storing Carbon Dioxide
Excerpt: No CCS-equipped coal-fired power plants have been built on a commercial scale because any electricity generated by such plants would be much more expensive than electricity produced by conventional coal-burning plants: ... Such an investment seems unlikely in the foreseeable future and it might not occur even if the technology became more competitive economically.
TTP release video of beheaded Pakistani soldiers
Guess they didn't get the "Islam is a Religion of Peace" memo. ~Bob. Excerpt: Warning: The content of this video is extremely graphic. The video shows the aftermath of the beheadings of 17 Pakistani soldiers. The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan has released video showing the remains of 17 Pakistani soldiers who were beheaded after being captured in the northwestern district of Dir three days ago.
Russia and China vow to protect Syria from becoming another Libya. By Farooq Yousaf
Excerpt: It is now widely known that the Obama administration, with the help of its allies, is planning to launch an offensive against the Assad regime in Syria. The attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, with the help Israel, also seems to be on the cards. In such a situation, where Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have proven to be clear fiascos, the dwindling world economic scene can least afford another major conflict. (Interesting, but consider the source. ~Bob. What was all that talk about how Obama and Putin were plotting something? --Don Hank.)
Lone Star Tick causing meat allergies in central Virginia
The PETA tick, unleashed. ~Bob
Air Force Expands Sex Probe
Excerpt: The Air Force is investigating its training units following the disclosure that 31 women recruits have leveled sexual-misconduct charges against instructors at Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio. Air Force Gen. Edward Rice, commander of the Air Education and Training Command, said Thursday that a dozen instructors, nine of them from a single training squadron, are being investigated in a series of incidents stretching over 2½ years, ending in mid-2011. (This is what you get when you promote the "If it Feels good-Do It" philosophy. Again too, what you get when you promote the idea of "If you don't like a law, just ignore it" –DH.)
Rating the Best—and Worst—States to Do Business
How business friendly is the place you've set up shop? A new report rates the business climate of states and counties across the U.S., based on a survey of business owners. … For instance, Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma and Utah all earned A+ scores in rankings for states most friendly to small businesses. On the bottom end of the report card are California, Hawaii, Vermont and Rhode Island.
NPR Hosannas: Obama's Voice 'Clears Up The Weather.' By Warner Todd Huston
Excerpt: At around 130 days until Election Day, National Public Radio thought it would be nice to give the President a little boost by going back to its 2008 practice of assigning to Obama the god-like powers of The One, The Light Bringer, The Obammessiah. This time tax dollar supported NPR thought it would be nice to air the claim that the mere sound of Obama's voice can part the clouds, stop that depressing ol' rain, and bring out the sun. No, really.
California small business owner: Health care ruling means outsourcing jobs, layoffs. By Rose Corona
Excerpt: “How will this affect not only my business, but businesses as a whole, now and in the future?” First of all, in my business, the first step will be to start cutting costs … means cutting jobs…If at all possible, I will be outsourcing those jobs that we presently do in house, such as accounting and payroll and anything else…
YWCA Mobilizing Young Women to Vote in November for Their ‘Reproductive Rights.’ By Kendra Alleyne
Excerpt: Reinforcing its feminist mission, the YWCA is launching a get-out-the-vote drive, urging young women to participate in an election it describes as “critical to the well-being of women, girls and people of color.”
JPMorgan Trading Loss May Reach $9 Billion.http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/jpmorgan-trading-loss-may-reach-9-billion/?partner=MYWAY&ei=5065
Excerpt: Losses on JPMorgan Chase’s bungled trade could total as much as $9 billion, far exceeding …When Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chief executive, announced in May that the bank had lost $2 billion in a bet on credit derivatives…
JP Morgan and Obama in Cahoots!
Excerpt: Remember back in the good ol' days when Nancy Pelosi said "Food Stamps Create Jobs", and then Tom Vilsak said "Food Stamps Create Jobs", and then Obama Pushed to Expand Food Stamp Eligibility, and then you had Jesse Jackson saying "It was an honor to be the Food Stamp President. Remember that ?Then you had Newt Gingrich saying "Obama is the Food Stamp President", and then Everybody Chastised Gingrich for saying those words. Remember that ?
JPMorgan Chase & Co Affiliates and Other Wall Street giving to Obama and Democrats in 2008 Elections. (Only affiliates that have given money are included in this list)
Democrats' New Motto: Never Let a Wildfire Go to Waste. By Michelle Malkinhttp://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2012/06/29/democrats_new_motto_never_let_a_wildfire_go_to_waste/page/full/
Excerpt: Did you know that President Obama has been incommunicado with Colorado's governor for more than two weeks as the nation's worst wildfires rage across the state? Maybe he thought we were all "doing fine." After an embarrassing Beltway press briefing revelation about our out-of-touch White House, the administration finally decided to divert the campaigner in chief from his nationwide fundraising frenzy for a quick look-see at our devastated city on Friday. It's "leadership from behind" you can count on.
'These kids don't expect to lead a full life': Fears for Chicago teens as fatal shootings in city outnumber US troops killed in Afghanistan
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2161690/Chicago-crime-More-people-shot-dead-Chicago-killed-duty-Afghanistan.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2161690/Chicago-crime-More-people-shot-dead-Chicago-killed-duty-Afghanistan.html
Excerpt: The worrying revelation by Spencer Leak, Sr. came as it emerged that more people have been shot dead on the streets of Chicago this year than U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan. … Over the course of the war since 2001, around 2,000 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan compared to the 5,000 gunfire victims in the Illinois city. (So, will Obama get us out of Chicago? ~Bob.)
26/11 Mumbai terror attacks suspect 'confirms Pakistan role'
Excerpt: "The argument that non-state actors were behind the massacre is no longer valid. He has confirmed that he was in the control room (and) this has confirmed our suspicion that there was some organised effort," Chidambaram said. (Can we get our billions in aid money back? Can we at least stop giving them more? –Robert Spencer, www.Jihadwatch.com)
State Department Removes Christian Persecution From Human Rights Report
Excerpt: In a major blow to persecuted Christians living in oppressive nations, the U.S. State Department for the first time removed the section on religious persecution from the Country Reports on Human Rights that it released at the end of May 2012. The report, which this year highlighted the success of the “Arab Spring” – the assisted “revolutions” for a democratic society in several Middle Eastern nations such as Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, purged the sections which discuss the rampant abuse, persecution and loss of freedom for the Christians who live in these countries under their new “democratic regimes” in these predominately Muslim countries. (The neocons insist we must stay involved militarily in the Middle East, where our military and political adventures have led to the almost total elimination of the Christian population. Despite his engagement in a bloody civil war, Assad is the head of the only pro-Christian nation in the region, but the West wants him dead. Of our allies, ONLY China and Russia (powers that we can't afford to mess with) are willing to defend these Christians. The world is topsy-turvy. The only thing that makes sense is to stay out of this. --Don Hank)
Elected Officials Should Have to Pass a Test on the Constitution before Running for Office
Excerpt: House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) says that support for nationalized healthcare is constitutional under the ‘Good and Welfare Clause.’ Huh? CNSNews.com asked Rep. Conyers, “What part of the Constitution do you think gives Congress the authority to mandate individuals to purchase health insurance?”
Big banks craft "living wills" in case they fail
Excerpt: Five of the biggest banks in the United States are putting finishing touches on plans for going out of business as part of government-mandated contingency planning that could push them to untangle their complex operations. The plans, known as living wills, are due to regulators no later than July 1 under provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law designed to end too-big-to-fail bailouts by the government.
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Robert A. Hall
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