op ed review 7/8
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
Bad economic news: U.S. employers
added only 80,000 jobs in June, a third straight month of weak hiring that
shows the economy is struggling three years after the recession ended. The unemployment
rate was unchanged at 8.2 percent. One-third of the jobs were in temporary
services.
More workers joined the federal government's disability program
in June than got new jobs.
The broader measure of unemployment rose to 14.9%.
The number of women unemployed has increased by 780,000 from
when Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009.
U.S. manufacturing shrank in June for the first time in nearly
three years.
The gross domestic product dropped from last quarter's 3.0
percent to an anemic 1.9 percent.
Louisiana Gov. Bob Jindal charged that the president
“measures success by how many people are on food stamp rolls and government-run
health care.”
President Obama
brags: “..the law I passed is here to stay.”
Lawyers Have Already Drafted 13,000 Pages of Regulations for
Obamacare. “The Health and Human
Services Department “was given a billion dollars implementation money. That money is gone already on additional
bureaucrats and IT programs, computerization for the implementation.”
Obama omits reference to the 'Creator' while quoting
Declaration of Independence.
GOP House leaders said Sunday they will forge ahead with
efforts to repeal President Obama’s health care law
Florida Gov. Rick Scott now says Florida will do nothing to comply with President
Barack Obama's health care overhaul and will not expand its Medicaid program..
Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme
Court's four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President
Obama's health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his
position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law,
according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations. Roberts
then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his
original position, the sources said.
Mitt Romney is criticizing Supreme Court Chief Justice John
Roberts for his healthcare decision. In an interview, Romney said Roberts's
decision "gives the impression" it was based on politics, not the
Constitution. He also said it was "not an appropriate conclusion" to
find that the individual mandate passed constitutional muster because it is a
tax.
In the 15 states CNN calls its battleground states —
Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New
Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin — Romney leads Obama, 51 percent
to 43 percent.
The overwhelming majority of the 87 Republican lawmakers who
swept into Congress in 2010 and took control of the U.S. House are likely to be
re-elected this year, according to strategists and an analysis of redistricting
changes. That wave — fueled in large part by Tea Party momentum and campaign
pledges of fiscal conservatism — is unlikely to recede in 2012 far enough to
give Democrats the opportunity to regain control of the chamber. “Freshmen
are the canaries in the mine for November.”
While speaking at a campaign rally, Rep. Allen West, R-Fla.,
mocked politicians who use taxation as a means of regulating behavior, namely
the Obamacare tax. “I got a great idea: I believe for personal security, every
American should have to go out and buy a Glock 9mm. And if you don’t do it,
we’ll tax you,” he said.
Voters could get the right to overrule federal laws and
mandates under the terms of an initiative filed in Arizona.
It would allow Arizonans "to reject any federal action that they
determine violates the United States Constitution."
“My Three Daddies”: California bill would
let children have more than two parents.
“…a new attempt to
"revamp, redefine and muddy the waters" of family structure by a
leader in the drive to legalize gay marriage.”
The British government hoisted the rainbow gay pride flag
over one of its ministries.
A couple who claim to be Satanists believe they’re a
victim of a hate crime and were targeted because of their religious beliefs. Someone cut down a political poster stating,
“VOTE SATAN” from their front porch.
The US
envoy to Kenya,
“a close ally of President Obama”, resigned after 'threatening to shoot staff in head'. “…inquiry found he had
used a personal email account for official business and set up an office in an
embassy lavatory in order to get around the building's secure network.”
Two more voter
initiatives in Washington
State appeared likely to
squeeze onto a crowded November ballot, as supporters of charter schools and a
two-thirds requirement for lawmakers to raise taxes each submitted more than
the required number of signatures to the Secretary of State's Office.
_______________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Ann Coulter 7/4
It has become fashionable
to equate the French and American revolutions, but they share absolutely
nothing beyond the word “revolution.” The American Revolution was a movement
based on ideas, painstakingly argued by serious men in the process of creating
what would become the freest, most prosperous nation in world history.
The French
Revolution was a revolt of the mob. It was the primogenitor of the horrors of
the Bolshevik revolution, Hitler’s Nazi Party, Mao’s cultural revolution, Pol
Pot’s slaughter, and America’s
periodic mob uprisings from Shays’ rebellion to today’s dirty waifs in the
“Occupy Wallstreet” crowd. The French Revolution is the godless antithesis to
the founding of America.
One rather important
difference is that Americans did win freedom and greater individual rights with
their revolution, creating a republic. France’s revolution consisted of
pointless, bestial savagery, followed by another monarchy, followed by
Napoleon’s dictatorship and then finally something resembling an actual
republic 80 years later…..
Contrary to the
purblind assertions of liberals, who dearly wish our founding fathers were more
like the godless French peasants, skipping around with human heads on pikes,
our founding fathers were God-fearing descendants of Puritans and other colonial
Christians. As Stephen Waldman writes in his definitive book on the subject,
“Founding Faith,” the American Revolution was “powerfully shaped by the Great
Awakening,” an Evangelical revival in the colonies in the early 1700’s…..There
are books of Christian sermons encouraging the American Revolution. Indeed, it
was the very irreligiousness of the French Revolution that would later appall
sensible Americans and British alike, even before the bloodletting began.
Americans celebrate
the Fourth of July, the date our written demand for independence from Britain based
on “Nature’s God” was released to the world. The French celebrate Bastille Day,
a day when a thousand armed Parisians stormed the Bastille, savagely murdered a
half dozen guards, defaced their corpses, stuck heads on pikes — all in order
to seize arms and gunpowder for more such tumults. It would be as if this
country had a national holiday to celebrate the L.A. riots.
Among the most
famous quotes from the American Revolution is Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty
or give me death!” Among the most famous slogans of the French Revolution is
that of Jacobin Club “Fraternity or death,” recast by Nicolas-Sébastien de
Chamfort a satirist of the revolution, “Be my brother or I’ll kill you.”
Our revolutionary
symbol is the Liberty Bell, first rung to herald the opening of the new
Continental Congress in the wake of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and rung again to summon the citizens of Philadelphia to a public
reading of the just-adopted Declaration of Independence. The symbol of the
French Revolution is the “national razor” – the guillotine….
Of all our founding
fathers, only one died of unnatural causes……President after president of the
new American republic died peacefully at home for 75 years, right up until
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. Meanwhile, the leaders of the French
Revolution all died violently, guillotine by guillotine.
The fourth of July
also marks the death of two of our greatest founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson
and John Adams, who died on the same day, exactly fifty years after the
Declaration of Independence was signed.
We made it for
nearly another 200 years, before the Democrats decided to jettison freedom and
make us French.
_______________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“We now live in post-constitutional America. The
rule of law has been replaced with arbitrary centralized government. The
republic is dead. It has been strangled by President Obama and the Supreme
Court. Upon its ruins, a socialist state is being erected. This is the real
meaning of the court’s recent decision to uphold Obamacare.”
- Jeffrey Kuhner
“Even in a short
time, Roberts’s decision has not worn well. What initially seemed wise now
smacks of mere cleverness — less a judge’s prudence than a lawyer’s trick. To
find the health-care law constitutional, Roberts reimagined it. It was
outcome-based jurisprudence, even if the intended outcome was institutional
harmony. It was an act of judicial arrogance, even in the cause of judicial deference……Roberts
has been praised for striking a grand political compromise that the political
class could not achieve — for cooling tempers, for granting each side a useful
measure of victory and defeat. But who died and left Roberts the job of Daniel
Webster? It is the specter of Earl Warren that stirs.”
-Michael Gerson
“Congress can’t do whatever it wants…..Under this
ruling, Congress can’t put you in jail for violating a future economic mandate.
This holding stands for that proposition. Congress also can’t coerce states by
withholding all existing Medicaid funding unless they agree to new coverage.
That’s a constraint the Court has never enforced before. And the Necessary and
Proper Clause cannot be used to salvage these laws. And that’s a ruling we
haven’t had before. This is big. And it’s only the stinging disappointment of
not being able to take down Obamacare that conceals how big this was. Every one
of our arguments got accepted by five justices. Every one. This case
reaffirms everything we said about constitutionally limited government.
Everything that the other side has said was frivolous has been affirmed by the
Court. It is now the law. It will be taught in every constitutional law
class….”
Georgetown Law Prof. Randy Barnett
“I've tried -- I really have tried -- to accept the kindest
reading of Chief Justice Roberts' decision and opinion on ObamaCare. But, so far at least, I just can't bring
myself to see the positive here, let alone evidence that Roberts has outsmarted
anyone, except perhaps himself. He was not merely "exposing them." He was giving them a different -- and in his
view more acceptable -- version of their law than they had actually offered and
defended. In other words, Roberts is implying that the law itself, as written,
was unconstitutional….and so he has rewritten it for them in order to make it constitutional. It needs to be
explained how this action -- literally legislating from the bench -- falls
under the rubric of "conservative judging." …..I truly hope my
reading of the situation is wrong, and that Thomas Lifson, Clarice Feldman, and
other good people who support Roberts are right. But wishes do not give birth
to horses, and at the moment I'm seeing only gray where others are finding
silver.”
-Daren Jonescu
“There is a big difference between a
free country and a country of free things. You can have one or the other, but
you can’t have both. A free country isn’t obsessed with free riders, only a
country of free things obsesses with making everyone pay their fair share for
the benefit of the people who want the free things. The rugged individualism of
Colonial America has given way to stifling crowds, co-dependent on each other,
lined shoulder to shoulder, clutching at each other’s wallets, crying, “Take
from him and give to me.”
-Daniel Greenfield
___________________________________________________________________________
GLOBALONEY
Despite glowing press clippings in which the CEO of Colorado-based
Abound Solar claimed seven months ago that his company was the “anti-Solyndra,”
the green-energy firm has filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation.
____________________________________________________________________________
ISLAM
Iraqi women face court-ordered virginity tests.
More than 100 investigations
into suspected Islamic extremists
within the US
military have been carried out by the FBI,
including 12 cases considered serious, NPR is reporting. Investigators believe the main target to be
military bases.
A terrorist plot to blow up a U.S. passenger jet timed to
coincide with the Olympics has been uncovered by security agencies
A Saudi religious scholar says that "opening sports to
women and girls will lead to immorality." Public sports events for women
are banned in Saudi Arabia,
while physical education is banned in girls’ public schools.
An Indiana Congressman (Democrat) says American schools
should be modeled on Islamic schools with religious teachings founded on the
Quran.
___________________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
The Left celebrates Independence Day by slamming America;
Update: Chris Rock joins in: ‘Happy white peoples independence day’.
The New York Times marked Independence Day in its usual
dismal fashion, with editor-novelist Kurt Andersen's op-ed, "The Downside
of Liberty," claiming that the "libertarian coin" "minted
around 1967" has made Americans shamelessly selfish.
__________________________________________________________________________
BOOKS, FILM
“Spoiled Rotten: How the Politics of Patronage Corrupted the
Once Noble Democratic Party and Now Threatens the American Republic”
by Jay Cost.
“The Democratic Party has long presented itself as the party of
the poor, the working class, the little guy. As Jay Cost's sweeping revisionist
history reveals, nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Monumental” is the story of America’s beginnings. Presented,
produced, and starring Kirk Cameron, the 90-minute true story follows this
father of six across Europe and the U.S. as he seeks to discover America’s true
“national treasure” – the people, places, and principles that made America the
freest, most prosperous and generous nation the world has ever known. Watch the trailer and order it here:
____________________________________________________________________________
ELECTION
“Democrats have always had to go to rich people for money,
but this year, it’s been a little more awkward.”
As second quarter fundraising reports start to trickle in,
the Obama campaign is already warning that it may have lost its edge in the
campaign money wars.
As Mitt Romney kicks off a campaign bus tour into what ABC
News calls "hostile territory," Barack Obama is waging a defensive
campaign, visiting states he won in 2008. It is clear, from campaign schedules
alone, that Obama does not believe he can add states to his column in the 2012
election--and that he is worried about holding the line against an increasingly
aggressive, and effective, Romney ground operation.
A fresh round of Democrats has announced they will not be
attending the party convention in Charlotte.
Most troublingly for President Obama, several of them are from North Carolina,
and not only have they decided not to drop in on a convention held in their own
state, they’ve refused to endorse Obama for president in 2012.
Obama’s legal identity problem.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio is preparing to reveal what his team
claims is explosive new evidence that President Obama was not born in the United States.
___________________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
VDH: “Until
last week, Chief Justice John Roberts was vilified as the leader of a
conservative judicial cabal poised to destroy the Obama presidency by
overturning the federal takeover of health care. But with his unexpected
affirmation, Roberts suddenly was lauded as the new Earl Warren -- an
"evolving" conservative who at last saw the logic of liberal big
government.”
Pat Buchanan: “Out of
relief and gratitude for his having saved Obamacare, (John Roberts) is being
compared to John Marshall and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Liberal commentators are burbling
that his act of statesmanship has shown us the way to the sunny uplands of a
new consensus. If only Republicans will follow Roberts’ bold and brave example,
and agree to new revenues, the dark days of partisan acrimony and tea party
intransigence could be behind us. Yet imagine if Justice Stephen Breyer had
crossed over from the liberal bench to join Antonin Scalia….”
James Delingpole:
“Welcome, America,
to the British NHS. That may not be what you were promised when your president
first dreamed up Obamacare. But the National Health Service is what you’re
going to get all the same. I did warn you about this, four years ago in my
(depressingly) prophetic book “Welcome to Obamaland: I’ve Seen Your Future and
It Doesn’t Work”
For Obamacare to be enacted in the first place required each
of more than a dozen, highly unlikely or even suspect, occurrences or actions.
It then took some serious constitutional hocus pocus for it to survive in court.
Consider the awful litany…..
“Not only does (Obamacare) perpetuate the largest transfer
of wealth from the young to the older in world history, it promises a quantity
and quality of care it can't deliver while stifling the medical innovation on
which the world depends for continuously improving health outcomes. The story
of Deamonte Driver, a 12-year old Medicaid beneficiary, is instructive. Unable
to secure appropriate and timely treatment, he died of an infection that
started with an abscessed tooth — not because he was uninsured, but because he
was government-insured.”
“Conservatives often warn that the sky will fall if the next
piece of liberal legislation becomes law. Liberals retort that conservatives
are always warning about an Armageddon that never shows up….. Actually, they
both are right. Government does
smother growth….But it does so slowly and incrementally, making it difficult
for the average person to notice from day to day or year to year. Armageddon
never comes. We don't go over some "cliff." Because of this, statists
have been able to get away with growing government without alarming the
populace. To the average voter, government grows a bit every year, yet things
get a little better every year (on average, over time), so there must not be a
conflict. In fact, many believe that
more government caused the
improvement. I can explain all this in fairly precise terms -- an equation, in
fact…..”
Pruden: “One in seven of all Americans is now on food
stamps, but that’s not enough for the bureaucrats at the Department of
Agriculture. They’re determined to
increase that number, and to do that they must eliminate the “mountain pride”
of certain Americans, who value personal responsibility and independence above
all else, and get them on the government dole….the food-stamp agency has dispatched agents to overcome mountain pride
with parties and games…..over the past four months the agency has spent nearly
$3 million on radio commercials soliciting Americans to sign up. Sen. Jeff
Sessions….is particularly concerned that the Department of Agriculture focuses
on trying to reform “culture” by eliminating long-held cultural beliefs which
are none of the government’s business. “I think it’s a deep problem,” he tells
the Daily Caller, “when [federal] officials think it is their duty to overcome
‘mountain pride’ or the American sense of independence and individual
responsibility.”
___________________________________________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
Inspiring: Sit
quietly and watch this:
Trailer for Herman Cain’s new Internet TV network takes
shots at Sandra Fluke, Hillary Clinton, President Obama and many others
Funny billboard:
Here are the salaries of all 468 White House employees.
Five major ObamaCare taxes that will
hit your wallet in 2013
Ten reasons why jobs market even worse than weak June
employment report.
Online Washington
State primary voters
guide:
Scary moment for this F-15 pilot:
____________________________________________________________________________
DONALD TRUMP EXPLAINS OBAMACARE
“Let me get this straight . . .We’re going to be “gifted”
with a health care Plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don’t, Which
purportedly covers at least ten million more people, without adding a single
new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee
whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that didn’t
read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a President who smokes, with
funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, for which
we’ll be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government
which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen
by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s broke!!!!! What
the hell could possibly go wrong?”
____________________________________________________________________________
LATE NITE:
Leno: Last night
was the big annual congressional baseball game between the Democrats and
Republicans, and the Democrats won 18-5. Of course the Democrats won. Did you
see who the umpire was? Chief Justice John Roberts…… The Democratic Convention
is $27 million in debt. They had to cancel the kick-off event at the Charlotte
Motor Speedway. A speedway is the perfect place for the Democratic Convention.
You go around in circles, turn left every few seconds, and you end up right
where you started.
____________________________________________________________________________
WISE WORDS
"In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set
the example ... of charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in the
practice of the world, may, with an honest praise, be pronounced the most
triumphant epoch of its history, and the most consoling presage of its
happiness."
-James Madison
"If men of wisdom and knowledge, of moderation and temperance, of
patience, fortitude and perseverance, of sobriety and true republican
simplicity of manners, of zeal for the honor of the Supreme Being and the
welfare of the commonwealth; if men possessed of these other excellent
qualities are chosen to fill the seats of government, we may expect that our
affairs will rest on a solid and permanent foundation."
posted by gary at
12:00 PM
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