Coming up at 4:30PM EDT on BlogTalkRadio, I’ll be airing my 10/18 speech to the Charleston Tea Party rally.

Please tune in, or download from iTunes, and let me know what you think!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

In his delicious dissection of the Denver debate, George Will manages to tie Obama’s performance to his self-regard and world-view:

Barack Obama, knight of the peevish countenance, illustrated William F. Buckley’s axiom that liberals who celebrate tolerance of other views always seem amazed that there are other views. Obama, who is not known as a martyr to the work ethic and who might use a teleprompter when ordering lunch, seemed uncomfortable with a format that allowed fluidity of discourse.

His vanity — remember, he gave Queen Elizabeth an iPod whose menu included two of his speeches — perhaps blinds him to the need to prepare. And to the fact that it is not lese-majeste to require him to defend his campaign ads’ dubious assertions with explanations longer than the ads. And to the ample evidence, such as his futile advocacy for Democratic candidates and Obamacare, that his supposed rhetorical gifts are figments of acolytes’ imaginations.

Read the whole thing, particularly for his description of Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board

The Facebook group “Jews for Liberty” linked Andrew Malcolm’s post embedding the above video. It’s short, humorous and well worth your time!

Malcolm says the speaker is

Dr. Barbara Bellar, a motor-scooter-riding animal lover, Army veteran and Republican attorney who’s taking on a massive challenge of the Chicago political machine for a state Senate seat to combat the fiscal insanity in Barack Obama’s adopted home state, which isn’t an easy job, as you might imagine, so she made this hilarious homemade video that captures the colossal stupidity of ObamaCare in one (very long) sentence, like this one.

You can support her campaign here.

As I speculated in my post last night, the winds was out of Obama’s sails during his now-widely panned convention speech.  Not only was it a mere rehash of all of the speeches he’s given since 2008, Obama knew about this morning’s awful jobs reports.  It’s not just awful, it is downright disastrous.  It is the worst jobs report of the year and continues a backwards slide.

FACT: We had entered a Recovery BEFORE the 2009 Stimulus was passed.  Ever since that law was implemented, and Obamacare was passed, our economy has been in a long, slow slide into oblivion.  Today’s news confirmed it.  These are the facts, folks.  It cannot be denied.  Obama had full control of the goverment from 2009 to 2011 and so we are living in HIS economic infrastructure. 

And it is an unmitigated disaster.

The number of Americans whom the U.S. Department of Labor counted as “not in the civilian labor force” in August hit a record high of 88,921,000.

In July, there were 155,013,000 in the U.S. civilian labor force. In August that dropped to 154,645,000—meaning that on net 368,000 people simply dropped out of the labor force last month and did not even look for a job.

There were also 119,000 fewer Americans employed in August than there were in July. In July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 142,220,000 Americans working. But, in August, there were only 142,101,000 Americans working.

NINETY MILLION AMERICANS ARE NO LONGER IN THE WORKFORCE?  And someone will try to defend the economic & Obamacare policies as HELPING?  I call “bullshit” from now to November.

But wait, folks…. there’s more!!!  Obama has completely gutted the future of those who believed in him the most in 2008: Young Americans.

For most Americans, today’s jobs report was merely bad. For young people, though, the news was just downright awful.

After declining for most of the summer, the unemployment rate for workers between the ages of 16 and 19 popped up again, rising from 23.8 percent to 24.6 percent. Among 20-to-24 year olds, it hopped to 13.9 percent from 13.5 percent in July.

I honestly was NOT expecting the news to be THIS bad.  I figured another middling employment gain of 150-200K which could bolster the phantom idea that “things are getting better.”

Today, the bottom fell out of Obama’s re-election.  He was already standing on a rotted platform.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

So, writes Charles Krauthammer in his thoughtful piece on the meaning of Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate, particularly as it relates to the discussion of Medicare in the current campaign.

The eagerness of Democrats to demagogue Medicare become manifest to me (once again) earlier this morning when on Facebook, I caught a graphic a friend had shared from the “Democrats” page on that social networking site.  With an image of a smiling Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder), they asked whether Republicans thought they could win on Medicare after voting to end it.  They so helped confirm what the sage pundit offered in his column that “The Democrats’ Mediscare barrage is already in full swing”:

Paul Ryan, it seems, is determined to dispossess Grandmother, then toss her over a cliff. If the charge is not successfully countered, good-bye Florida.

Republicans have a twofold answer. First, hammer home that their Medicare plan affects no one over 55, let alone 65. Second, go on offense. Point out that PresidentObama cuts Medicare by $700 billion to finance Obamacare.

It’s a sweet judo throw: Want to bring up Medicare, supposedly our weakness? Fine. But now you’ve got to debate Obamacare, your weakness — and explain why you are robbing Granny’s health care to pay for your pet project.

Read the whole thing.  The second half is particularly compelling — on how Ryan is emerging as the intellectual leader of the GOP.

Ryan’s emergence is a very good sign for the party, particularly for gay and lesbian sympathetic with the Reaganite economic messages, as it shows a focus on regulatory reform, fiscal responsibility and confidence in private enterprise and individual initiative not just as the engines which drive our economic, but the ideals which inform our society.

More on this anon.  I hope.

There’s so much to celebrate today: My beautiful home state turns 136 today, Michael Phelps has made history with his 19th medal on behalf of America, and Ted Cruz not only won, but schwacked establishment candidate Lt. Governor David Dewhurst by a margin of over 13 percentage points in yesterday’s Texas GOP runoff, sending a clear message that the Constitution is back in business (or will be, come January) in the US Senate.

However, I have to admit, today is a sad dark day for America.

While Youcef Nadarkhani spends his 1024th day in an Iranian prison for the crime of having become a Christian, our Nation took another chip out of the rock of religious liberties as well. Surely we cannot compare the offense to religious freedoms that President Obama’s and Kathleen Sebelius’ mandate that employers abdicate their First Amendment rights (which goes in effect today) to those of Pastor Nadarkhani. But while mayors across the country attempt to deny a business owner his Due Process and First Amendment rights, today calls attention to just how far we’ve come in our Nation.

I actually woke this morning to a fraternity brother’s post on his Facebook page that read:

Btw american women everywhere, congratulations!

Today your insurance plans MUST ‘cover specific preventive health services for women without cost-sharing, such as deductibles, copayments and coinsurance. These services include well-woman visits, breastfeeding support, domestic violence screening, STD screening and contraceptives.’

…

I caution those who would vote for romney (especially women who would vote for romney) to recognize the implications of a repeal. We would eliminate the gains that have been made today, and will continue to be made by the landmark legislation for the next 5 years.

As offensive as it is to someone like me who’s pro-life to see someone write in literally congratulatory tones about the growth and spread of abortion, this is also symbolic of just how far we’ve come. (more…)

What else can you conclude from reading this headline:  Obama Campaign Disagrees With Supreme Court’s Health Care Ruling?  Guess they really don’t want to admit what the Chief Justice did in upholding the unpopular law nor what the administration’s own Solicitor General said (at 3:00 below):

It wasn’t just Solicitor General Donald Verrilli. In his oral arguments, that Obama appointee cited Democratic Senator Max Baucus, the bill’s “floor sponsor” who “defended it as an exercise of the taxing power“. (Via Hot Air.)

Without the Chief Justice’s vote finding that the health care mandate constitutional through the charter’s taxing power, there would not have been five votes to uphold the law.

Interesting how the president’s advisors and campaign defenders recognize just how toxic even talk of tax increases can be.  Yet, they still want to increase the size and scope of the federal government while insisting that the better part of the American people won’t have to pay for the goodies they’re bestowing.

(More on this anon (I hope); Steven Hayward does a good job of addressing the issue here.)

Last Thursday in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Obamacare ruling, CNN’s court conservative critic David Frum reassured his audience that repeal of the unpopular law “is a fantasy.” Frum himself fantasizes about Republican legislators’ “town halls filled with outraged senior citizens whose benefits are threatened”.

Um, David, senior citizens overwhelmingly oppose the law.

In the New Yorker, Ryan Lizza attempts to explain why Mitt Romney won’t repeal Obamacare, not believing the Republican “believe he will actually be able to overturn the law.”  Guess both men want to reassure their followers that once Congress enacts a policy expanding government, that expansion is here to stay.

They neglect one important fact:  never before in U.S. history has the U.S. House voted to repeal such significant legislation within a year of its passage.  The law remains unpopular.

Not just that.  Given the surge in Republican fundraising since the Supreme Court handed down its decision, Republicans know how much this issue motivates their base.  Mitt Romney must understand that he can’t afford to offend his base early in his term.

Indeed, the campaign demonstrated as much with the release earlier today of this graphic:

(more…)

Well, reports do call the guy “Mitt Romney’s senior adviser”, but from the way Etch-A-Sketch Eric Fehrnstrom sometimes expresses himself in public, you think he was working for Barack Obama:

Prominent Dems including White House chief of staff Jack Lew and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have repeatedly argued in recent days that the fee for not buying insurance under the health care law is in fact a penalty and not a tax.
They got support from an unexpected quarter on Monday: the Romney campaign.

Mitt Romney’s senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told Chuck Todd on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown that he agrees – the fee is a penalty and not a tax, as the Supreme Court ruled last week.

“The governor disagreed with the ruling of the court,” Fehrnstrom said. “He agreed with the dissent that was written by Justice [Antonin] Scalia, which very clearly stated that the mandate was not a tax.”

All Fehrnstrom needed to say was that his guy agreed with the Scalia dissent.

The Romney campaign would be well advised to take away Mr. Fehrnstrom’s media privileges.

My pal, the blogress diva extraordinaire Joy McCann yesterday posted this image, quipping “Sometimes the little man makes sense.”   So much sense does he make below that I felt it incumbent upon myself to download the image and repost it here:

Reflect upon Dr. Paul’s words as you consider the impetus behind the Democrats’ program to overhaul our nation’s health care system through greater regulation and higher taxation.

Now, the system of course was never perfect.  No human institution ever is, but, in trying to fix the small problems of that imperfect, improving and basically good system, our supposedly well-meaning legislators made the whole system worse.

Its problems (prior to the enactment of the Democrats’ overhaul) are not so much attributable to free markets as they are to the layers upon layers of government regulation implemented over the years.

In short, the Democrats tried to fix problems created by government programs with more government programs.

“Who”, wonders Jennifer Rubin, “will be the first Senate Democrat to say he wouldn’t have voted for a tax on the middle-class if he knew what he was voting for?”

RELATED:  Glenn Reynolds quips, ‘THE SUPREME COURT SAYS “YOU LIE:’ White House Already Denying That Mandate Is A Tax. If you deny that it’s a tax, you admit that it’s unconstitutional. . . .”

ALSO RELATED:  Also from Glenn Reynolds:  ”HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): 75% of Obamacare Costs Will Fall on Backs of Those Making Less Than $120K a Year. ’It’s a big punch in the stomach to middle class families.’”

I promised my Twitter followers that I would be reading the opinion front to back and have some thoughts within an hour.  That was about 5 hours ago.   I’ll try to get up something on Friday.  I’m leaning toward the more optimistic, “long-view” that Dan has expressed.

But I really want to read the opinion before I write something more comprehensive.

Good night, patriots!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Out of deference to the U.S. Supreme Court, Bruce and I have agreed to change the name of the category once labelled Obamacare to more accurately reflect the legislation which has now passed constitutional muster.

This video to which Jim Geraghty alerted us helps explain things:

Yesterday, commenting on Politico’s coverage on “this Politico report on CNN’s ratings woes“, Ed Driscoll took issue with the notion of the network as a non-partisan purveyor of news:

And if you believe that CNN really is “committed to nonpartisan news-gathering” free of partisanship (cough —shilling for Saddam, getting cozy with Kim Jong Il — cough — Wright-Free Zone — cough — Anderson Cooper’s painful “teabagging” references, baking cakes for Obama and on and on and on) then you might be working for a “news” organization that is also a partisan shop pretending to be objective, and wondering why it’s losing audience as well.

Whatever Fox and MSNBC’s other issues, at least consumers know what sort of product they’re getting when tune into those networks. Trying to pretend to be objective is a long-outdated model that’s reached the end of the production line.

(H/t Instapundit.)

Today, while doing cardio at the gym, caught CNN’s coverage of the Obamacare decision.  Wolf Blitzer was interviewing two beaming left-of-center pundits, the smarmy  journolister Jeffrey Toobin and Dahlia Lithwick.

An objective news source would have included a conservative on this panel.

You know, I think I may have set a land-speed record moving through the five stages of grief on this Obamacare thing.

As I understand it, Chief Justice Roberts held that the mandate was in fact constitutional because it’s a TAX, not a PENALTY. When it comes down to it, I have to agree 100% that Congress surely has the power to levy a tax on the American people, and as such was clearly within their rights to do so in this case.

Also, given that they have the right to absolve people of a tax burden, they’re entitled to do so in this case when someone has purchased health insurance. After all, if I donate money to a charity, I get a tax break. If I pay taxes and interest on my home mortgage, I get a tax break. If I have a kid, I get a tax break. So this is really just like that: EVERYBODY in the country gets a higher tax. If you have health insurance, you get a tax break. QED.

Although I disagree with the first step in the process (it is in my opinion, a penalty which is beyond Congress’ authority), I can’t argue with that logic at least.

That said, I do have a problem with how we got here:
(more…)

Perhaps, conservatives are so upset this morning because they had expected the Supreme Court to overturn at least the individual mandate.  And maybe I’m more sanguine than most because I had thought the court would uphold the unpopular law.

Indeed, on Facebook, liberal blogress Pam Spaulding is having a field day mocking some over-the-top conservative reaction.  And this perhaps is her day to exult — as it for others on the left.  Exult they may, but their victory is most Pyrrhic.

Conservatives shouldn’t be so downcast.

For example, on Facebook, I’m learning of a surge in donations to the Romney campaign and GOP, even from conservatives once critical of the now-presumptive Republican nominee.  (Seems he’s already raked it $1.5 million.)

Bear in mind that Obamacare remains unpopular — and the court upheld it by calling the mandate to be a tax.  The court delivered a great campaign line to the president’s opponents.

Overturning the law would have rallied the president’s base.  Now, conservatives are energized.  And have better ground to dub the president a tax-hiker.  Bad policy this may be, but it’s worse politics for the Democrats. They now have to defend it before voters who don’t much like it.  And will have a harder time fighting the charge that Obama has hiked taxes on the middle class.

Democrats today lost an occasion to energize their base.  Meanwhile, conservatives are fired up.   Plus it seems, the Chief Justice carefully crafted his opinion to limit the scope of the Commerce Clause, making it easier to challenge federal legislation as beyond the purview of the constitution.

The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld the mandate to purchase health insurance as a tax.

“As an exercise of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause,” writes the Washington Examiner’s David Freddoso, “the individual mandate does not hold water. But under Congress’s taxing power, it is a legitimate provision.”

My quick analysis. Pyrrhic victory for Obama. He’ll have a few good days. Vote holding Eric Holder in contempt won’t get much media coverage.  But, decision could prove to be political headache for the president.  The court may have found the law constitutional, but it remains unpopular.  Mitt Romney will be able to use this against him:  the only way to repeal this law is to replace Obama.

So, if Obama celebrates the decision, he’ll be acknowledging that he broke this campaign promise:

UPDATE: Walter Olson offers a roundup of his tweets here.  Glenn has a great roundup here; seems others bloggers/blogresses have offered titles similar to my own.

Ann Althouse is more sanguine than are most conservatives, having “said repeatedly that Obama would be worse off if Obamacare were upheld, but what I’m really seeing is how bad it is for him with the mandate declared a tax.”

UP-UPDATE:  From Ira Stoll, linked by Glenn above:

By calling the mandate a tax, the court made an official ruling that President Obama had violated his 2008 campaign promise not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 a year. And the ruling also keeps ObamaCare alive as a political issue. A ruling that struck down the law might have energized Obama supporters. This ruling may make the law’s opponents even more determined to elect a Republican president and Congress so that they can repeal the law or, failing that, defund it.

UP–UP-UPDATE: “The Supreme Court,” quips Jim Geraghty, “just gave Mitt Romney a very, very useful line: ‘As President, I will repeal President Obama’s health care tax.’”

FROM THE COMMENTS:  boatseller forecasts that “in about 4 weeks, liberal bloggers are going to start chattering about a conspiracy between Justice Roberts and the Romney campaign to uphold the law in order to hurt the President.”  Heh.

See here, I’m going out on a big limb. I’m going to use my power of Sudoku-winning to cast my vote on how SCOTUS will rule on Obamacare. Just to be fair, I am a master at Sudoku and I use my skill of “if it can’t be THIS…it must be THAT” in order to chose my numbers. It is a combination of logic and realizing at some point that there’s no other alternative.

So here goes….

Chief Justice John Roberts hasn’t written an opinion yet this session.  My Sudoku instincts say he’s going to write the Obamacare ruling.  If that’s the case, it is going to be a BIG ruling.  So if you accept that premise (which is debatable, of course), then here is how I think it will go down.

1. Obamacare will be entirely overturned.  If it was just the mandate, Roberts would leave Kennedy to writing it (or Scalia).  But this is going to be a bigger decision.
2. I believe there is a better than 60% chance that it will be a 6-3 decision, including Kennedy & (wait for it) Sotomayor.  Again, if Roberts is writing the opinion that leads me to think that it will be a bigger than 5-4 ruling.
3. Scalia hinted recently that in the much lauded ‘Commerce Clause’ case involving marijuana, he erred.   I think that this is a hint that the Roberts Court is going to make a much broader ruling on the Commerce Clause itself which (demonstrated by Obamacare) threatens the very nature of the Federalist system that our Founders carefully crafted.
4. The Arizona immigration ruling was interesting today.  It didn’t so much say what Arizona was doing was unconstitutional, it said that a STATE doing those things was the problem.  SCOTUS told the Obama Administration today, “Hey! Immigration is your deal and you aren’t doing your job.  Do it, schmucks!”
5. Keeping #4 in mind, I think the Roberts Majority will be consistent on Obamacare and say on Thursday:  ”Obama & Pelosi, you ignorant sluts!  You can’t do this! Stick to what is the domain of the Federal Government and stop meddling in the affairs of individuals & States on matters you have no Constitutional authority to do so.”

So there it is.  If I’m right — it is all right here for me to brag about for the rest of my life.

If I’m wrong, you can all laugh at me for 24 hours — and then after than no one will care.

Win-win! 

UPDATE:  I forgot #6 – I think another clue that this will be a major anti-Commerce Clause decision and that Roberts is the author due to the fact that they are holding it until the last day of the session.  And if Roberts IS the author, due to seniority, it will be THE last case released on Thursday.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

From AOL’s headlines in the early hours of the new month:

If the Supreme Court rules against President Barack Obama’s signature health care reform law in a decision expected at the end of the month, it could mean back to the drawing board for the White House.

Bloomberg News reports that the president told donors that his administration may have no choice, but to revisit the issue in his second term. Obama reportedly made the suggestion at a closed-door New York City fundraiser earlier this month.

It seems like the president just made the case for his defeat this November.

The American people just don’t like what he’s attempted to do with our health care system.  We just don’t want his team revisiting the issue.  According to April’s NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, “36% call the health-care reform a good idea, while 45% call it a bad idea . . . [with] 36% call the health-care reform a good idea, while 45% call it a bad idea.”   (more…)

A number of conservatives, including yours truly, have been wary about backing Mitt Romney because of the health care reforms he signed as Governor of Massachusetts, i.e., Romneycare.  And although he has repeatedly (and explicitly) said that if elected, he would repeal Obamacare, some on the right remain unconvinced.

His campaign has even touted his commitment to repeal as this telling image from the Los Angeles Times indicates:

Note the shadow of the candidate on the sign, hence, the use of the adjective “telling” above to describe the image. Take a look at the sign the campaign produced; it doesn’t just include repeal, it also promise to “replace”.  And focusing on that replacement is key for Romney to turn popular opposition to the president’s health care overhaul to his advantage — even if the Supreme Court overturns the president’s signature initiative.

Topping Jennifer Rubin’s list of the 10 things Romney “needs to do . . .in order to position himself for the final sprint to November” is developing . . .

. . . a health-care plan to replace Obamacare. Whatever the Supreme Court does, Romney should be the one with a constitutional, free-market-based health-care plan. Then he can put the spotlight on President Obama: Is he going to use the post-election “flexibility” to implement a single-payer plan?

Such a plan would help him better appeal to conservatives, showing that he advocates conservative reforms.  And it would help him appeal to independent voters as well who, even before the passage of Obamacare, believed our health care system needed reform, ifnot the overhaul Democrats favored.

Here, Rubin considers some of the ideas conservatives have been considering.  Romney will improve his standing with conservatives as well as with wavering independents if he spells out the kind of reforms he favors to replace Obamacare.