News, Research & Insights for American Homeowners, Patriots & Constitutional Conservatives
The beatings will continue until morale improves
If you believe Joe Biden, Barack Obama has had it even tougher than FDR. At first glance, that seems like an unfair comparison since FDR was fighting the Axis while Barack Obama seems to spend most of his time making war on American businesses. However, in Obama’s defense, like FDR he is at least gradually [...]
Unanimity.
The Republican National Committee is out with an excellent new video that highlights what is indisputably Barack Obama’s greatest bipartisan achievement: Unanimity is nearly impossible in politics, yet Barack Obama managed to inspire it. As Ed reported yesterday, every single member of the House of Representatives voted against the president’s $3.6 trillion budget. Republicans rightly [...]
"This game is not over."
How would she know? Her party’s all but given up on enumerated powers, at least in economic contexts. The first time she was asked to name which constitutional clause grants Congress the power to pass the mandate, her response was, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” Turns out we were serious. As a famous woman [...]
Not necessarily.
As the House passes Paul Ryan’s latest budget, a minor controversy brews outside Congress about whether it matters that, according to the CBO, it doesn’t balance. The controversy is occurring on the conservative side of the aisle — but it’s easy for liberals to exploit. Some lefties are already suggesting Ryan’s budget is proof positive [...]
Deja vu.
In early 2011, Barack Obama received a report from the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission he himself launched that outlined a series of significant cuts and new taxes that would have at least lowered the rate at which the country added to its debt. Obama ignored the report completely and instead proposed a budget with nearly $1.5 [...]
Pain.
Via the Washington Free Beacon, the oral argument laugh line du jour and further evidence that Scalia, whom the left once viewed as a potential vote to uphold the mandate, looks set to drop an atomic bomb on the whole scheme. The unspoken punchline is that Congress didn’t want to read the bill either (right, [...]
This is supposed to be a blog about credit and bankruptcy, but I can't help myself in making a short comment about one aspect of the oral argument and discussion from yesterday's challenge to the individual mandate. Credit Slips purists should note that many bankruptcy filers have lots of medical debt, so the topics are not completely unrelated.
There has been a lot of discussion about the search for the so-called "limiting principle." If Congress can make you buy health insurance, could it make you buy burial insurance or (gasp) buy broccoli to eat? If the Supreme Court does not protect us, what is to stop Congress from passing all sorts of dumb laws like these?
The same crowd who is aghast at the possibility of having people purchase health insurance are also the same crowd who always reminded us (or at least used to remind us) that it is not the Court's job to stop Congress from enacting dumb laws. Congress has its own limiting principle. It's called the ballot box.
Jamal Greene over at Slate makes a similar point. And, if you're still looking for a limiting principle, Charles Fried, Reagan's solicitor general, offers one in an interview with the Washington Post's Greg Sargent.
More regulation vs. the free market
There’s no getting around it… hackers are doing a lot more than just loading trojans into your important e-mails from Nigerian princes trying to send you money. Some of the most prominent “hacktivists” making news are from the group Anonymous, and they’ve been getting up to all sorts of mischief. Whether it’s targeting the government [...]
Stuck on repeat.
Friday afternoon pop quiz! Which is easier? (A) Passing a budget and bearing the brunt of political demagoguery or (B) not passing a budget and delivering the demagoguery? It must be nice to be a Democrat in Congress. It must be particularly nice to be Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose job seems to amount to spouting [...]
Needed theater.
The House of Representatives today voted 223 to 181 to abolish the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a 15-member panel of experts that has the power to, as its name suggests, independently of Congress cut Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals. IPAB is one of the worst elements of Obamacare and would contribute mightily to the evolution [...]
Blame.
Buck-passing fun via Andrew Stiles and the Washington Free Beacon. OBAMA: We are doing the all of the above strategy right. Obviously, we wish Solyndra hadn’t gone bankrupt. Part of the reason they did was because the Chinese were subsidizing their solar industry and flooding the market in ways that Solyndra couldn’t compete. But understand, [...]
Blame.
Buck-passing fun via Andrew Stiles and the Washington Free Beacon. OBAMA: We are doing the all of the above strategy right. Obviously, we wish Solyndra hadn’t gone bankrupt. Part of the reason they did was because the Chinese were subsidizing their solar industry and flooding the market in ways that Solyndra couldn’t compete. But understand, [...]
The buck stops ... at Fox?
After getting shellacked in the midterm elections and seeing his approval ratings plunge to the low 40s, Barack Obama must have spent some time taking stock of the situation … right? Mulled over the wisdom of spending $840 billion on a stimulus bill that didn’t stimulate, and tying Congress up for most of two years [...]
Dashing.
Why wouldn’t he support it? It’s just the kind of cause any libertarian would endorse: Government interference into personal grooming, a $250 tax credit for mustached Americans. It’s debatable whether the “mustache lobby” would actually be pleased if Congress passed its Stache Act; It’s looking increasingly probable that they’re just trying to make a point [...]
Clarification.
When George Will wrote in his March 2 column that conservatives might want to consider “Plan B” for stopping Obama, it almost sounded like he thought the White House wasn’t winnable. That’s certainly how Rush Limbaugh interpreted it, for example. Today, on ABC’s “This Week,” Will clarified that his call to focus on winning majorities [...]
Clarification.
When George Will wrote in his March 2 column that conservatives might want to consider “Plan B” for stopping Obama, it almost sounded like he thought the White House wasn’t winnable. That’s certainly how Rush Limbaugh interpreted it, for example. Today, on ABC’s “This Week,” Will clarified that his call to focus on winning majorities [...]
Executive leadership
I read a lot of complaints about Mitt Romney every week. (Many of them right here!) But whether you support him or not, Chris Christie clearly feels that Mitt has one thing going for him. Hey… at least he wasn’t a congressman. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie stumped on behalf of Mitt Romney in a [...]
In case there was any question.
In case Republican candidates need confirmation that Obamacare was and is a huge vulnerability for the president and Democrats, a new study suggests that, of all the contentious votes taken in the president’s first two years in office, how a House Democrat voted on Obamacare was the most important predictor of whether he would retain [...]
"We would come to the Congress and inform you."
Via Breitbart.com, stick with this until at least 2:40, when things start to heat up, through 3:30 when the absurdity is fully revealed. His point about international approval is mundane: If we decide to act in Syria as part of a coalition, then there needs to be some sort of joint international resolution laying out [...]
Sneaky
The massive, $109B transportation bill looked – briefly – like it might sail through Congress and to the President’s desk, but now it seems to have stalled again. The delay was not caused by some huge delegation of elected representatives suddenly waking up and realizing they have to spend our money more carefully, though. No, [...]
All wet.
I’ve called the judicially-imposed drought in California’s Central Valley “the Dust Bowl Congress created” through its creation of the Endangered Species Act, invoked in this case by the Delta smelt, a fish that’s not suitable for eating. Once a breadbasket for the nation, the cutoff of irrigation water to the Central Valley has destroyed agriculture [...]
Furious?
And … he’s also the Attorney General who was in charge when it was put into place, and the Attorney General who refused to provide Congress with documentation on Operation Fast and Furious until threatened with subpoenas and contempt, and the Attorney General who didn’t see fit to make any personnel changes after the ATF [...]
Dems to White House: Get interested in it.
Hey, at least Energy Secretary Stephen Chu gave an honest answer. When asked by Rep. Alan Nunnelee whether the Obama administration wants to work to get gas prices to come back down, Chu replied that they’re not focusing on that — and that higher gas prices mean more of a push for the alternative energy [...]
Dems to White House: Get interested in it.
Hey, at least Energy Secretary Stephen Chu gave an honest answer. When asked by Rep. Alan Nunnelee whether the Obama administration wants to work to get gas prices to come back down, Chu replied that they’re not focusing on that — and that higher gas prices mean more of a push for the alternative energy [...]
Not shovel ready?
When Barack Obama demanded $800 billion from Congress in early 2009 for his Porkulus plan, he claimed that he would rescue the economy through the funding of “shovel-ready jobs.” Later, he admitted that there isn’t any such thing as shovel-ready jobs, but if there were, Obama seems to have an allergy to them: It was [...]
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