ObamaCare Tits Up, For Now [UPDATED]
[source]
Bet Meghan McCain thinks this court is rude.
Eyeblast, Ace, everyone has the story.
Briefly, the FL judge hearing the case ruled that the Individual Mandate was unconstitutional, and not severable from the rest of the mess.
Thus, the keystone legislative accomplishment of the constitutional scholar's presidency to this point is null and void.
Maybe he could work on that jobs thingie?
CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?
Pelosi: “Are you serious? Are you serious?"
CNSNews.com: “Yes, yes I am."
And we would have gotten away with it too, if not for those meddling courts and their pesky interpretations of the Constitution.
Three branches of government:
D'oh! Forgot something, Sparky.
On his way out the WH door, Axelrod took a shot at Romney, apparently under the delusion that he's the likely GOP nominee.
UPDATE: Sorry, Bob!
UPDATEx2: Jennifer Rubin on the idiocies and oversights that compelled Judge Vinson to nuke the whole thing.
Federal Judge declares Obamacare unconstitutional and not severable
Which in plain english means that the entire law is null and void. Some of Judge Vinson's opinion via Dave Weigel at Slate:
Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications. At a time when there is virtually unanimous agreement that health care reform is needed in this country, it is hard to invalidate and strike down a statute titled "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act."
But what is really sweet is this sentance which lends some insight into the Judge's thinking:
It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place.
Wow...What do you bet, that in the coming interval until SCOTUS takes up the almost certain appeal of this ruling, that Judge Vinson is decried as an obviously partisan filthy teabagger, by the CIVILITY NOW! crowd that Obama counts among his allies on the progressive left? Let's just say if one could bet on that possibility, like one can on sporting events in Vegas, that I would be taking the "over"...
Now I wouldn't be throwing any victory celebrations just yet, as this still has to go through SCOTUS. But it seems as if Judge Vinson has provided a lot of considered thought here in his decision. And, God willing, maybe the Robert's court can use this as a basis to not only declare Obamacare dead, but establish more firm limits on the oft-abused commerce clause of the US constitution.
As an addendum, I'll just present this observation by AllahP:
A fun fact about ObamaCare: Unlike virtually every other federal statute, it contains no “severabililty clause” at the end requesting that if any part of it should be held unconstitutional in court, the rest should be preserved as good law. Vinson actually mentions that fact in the opinion and notes that an earlier draft of the law did contain such a clause, suggesting that it was deliberately dropped because even Congress agrees that you can’t sever any one part from such an elaborate scheme. The truth, however, may be more prosaic: According to a Democratic aide who spoke to the Times back in November, the clause was omitted because of … an “oversight.” Oops!
I guess Madame Pelosi was right after all, stopped clocks being such occasionally; we really did have to pass the bill to find out what was in it.
Thoughts? Opinions? I'd love to hear them.
(H/T JeffG. Pablo in the PW comments, and Drudge)
Egypt Updates, Energy Issues, ObamaCare
From a writer at Time who seems to believe his job is to report the news, why the US isn't in a particularly good position to predict what's going to happen in Egypt. [via Wombat-Socho at TOM]
[via Barcepundit]
Stacy's got a round-up of round-ups, but more importantly . . .
In energy news, the Chinese commit to use American research and technology to ensure their energy needs, by building Thorium reactors, while Obama pursues his Splatnik projects. As Chris Matthews might appreciate, it's important to develop such technologies, especially since the Panama Canal has been relocated to Suez. After all, how are we going to get those awesome battery powered cars charged up?
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday called the US role in Egypt's political crisis "shameful," Reuters reported.
"It makes you kind of sick to see the meddling of the US, wanting to take control," Chavez said after being briefed on the situation in Egypt by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Syria's President Bashar Assad.
"See how the United States, after using such-and-such a president for years, as soon as he hits a crisis, they abandon him. That's how the devil pays," Chavez said.
Yeah, Mubarak was used to the tune of tens of billions of dollars in aid. It's interesting, though, to hear Chavez come down on the side of the status quo in the Middle East, since he's got such strong ties with the Iranian mullahocracy, who are backing El-Baradei--whose prominence comprises as strong a commentary on the UN's orientations as one could wish.
As a member of OPEC and a dictator himself, there's only so far he can go in backing a potentially democratic movement, I suppose. At any rate, kudos for choosing a side.
Backroom deals and cover-ups may be business as usual for Washington, but understanding why the Obama administration protects its friends from Obamacare offers special insight into what the purveyors of the mandate themselves think about their own law. This is key: The waivers aren’t meant to protect victims from unintended consequences of Obamacare; they are meant to exempt them from the very intentional increased costs of health insurance that the law causes. Under Section 2711 of the Public Health Service Act, Obamacare increases the annual cap of insurance benefits, which sounds great - as does everything else in big government - until the bill comes due, in this case, in the form of higher insurance premiums.
In short, the administration has decided that you will face increased health insurance premiums, but special friends in the unions will not. Look closely, and you’ll see not only the White House‘s duplicity but also what the Obama administration really thinks of its crown jewel, Obamacare. White House words say that the annual insurance benefit cap is a feature of the program, but its actions say that it’s a bug.
The question remains: If Obamacare is such a great law, why does the White House keep protecting its best friends from it?
Obama insists that he won't "re-fight" HCR, but it's not really up to Obama. Apart from the purse power of the House, now in Republican control, there are numerous state challenges to the purchasing mandate, which the administration has argued either is not or is a tax, depending on the needs of the moment.
The issue of Obama's re-election just got stickier, too, with Arizona's adoption of a law requiring documentary proof of eligibility, and other states marshaling a combined 107 electoral votes set to do the same. Hawaii's legislature is considering making a long form birth certificate available to anyone ponying up $100 to have it, but it appears that it's going to be passed along in an envelope to Dan Rather's producers, with an autographed copy of the Donation of Constantine available for only $50 more.
Yesterday, we got hits from 1) Stacy McCain, 2) Maetenloch at AoSHQ, and 3) Instapundit. This is apparently a cosmic commentary on my whining yesterday that we don't get any links from the big sites.
A couple of months ago, I wrote a fanboy post on Chase Masterson, talking about how great she looked for a woman her age, only to discover that I had miscalculated it, adding 10 years. Oops. It gets worse. Before I found that out, I discovered that she was on Twitter, and sent her the link. I think I'm forgiven, though, since she responded to me when I tweeted that she would have made a better Catwoman than Anne Hathaway.
Well, she's not mousy, and thank goodness it's not Megan Fox, but she's not exactly a seductress.
Would I have preferred that I got Instalanched on a different post? Maybe, but there's a reason Glenn is King of the Links. I'm not complaining.
Christina Hendricks’ Ethical Body
Plastic surgeons say the [upward] trend [in breast enhancement surgery] is due in part to the popularity of the television series Mad Men – and of Christina Hendricks, its voluptuous star.
Statistics to be released by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) on Monday are expected to show that the number of women having breast augmentations jumped by more than 10 per cent last year after stalling in 2009.
A BAAPS source suggested that Hendricks was influential in the increase, which means that for the first time more than 9,000 women a year in Britain are having surgery to boost their cleavage.
The source said: "You could argue that. Christina Hendricks is gorgeous, and the hourglass figure is definitely back in fashion. Let's just say that heroin chic isn't the big thing at the moment."
Breast augmentation has always been Britain's most popular plastic surgery procedure, but the growth in uptake suggests that hundreds of women are defying the economic downturn and instead cheering themselves up with enhancements.
Let's consider this from a feminist perspective.
* It's good that women aren't emulating "heroin chic"
* It's bad that women are undergoing breast enhancement, because that implies that they have an issue with their bodies
* It's not Christina Hendricks' fault
* It's a function of the "male gaze"
* I wish men thought I was hot
* The bastards!
Now let's consider it from the Stacy McCain perspective.
* Christina Hendrix is hot
* Natural boobs are better than surgical boobs
* Red heads!
I've nothing much more to add to that.
Public finance and pensions roundup 30 Jan 2011
INSTALANCHE! Howdy new readers - if you really want to get depressed, I've got a whole series on this subject.
BANKRUPT STATES
I'll lead off with John Bury's post adding to his argument that NJ is the most bankrupt. His prior post on NJ being number one. I think Illinois is in a worse situation, but I do agree with Bury that any business that jumps from Illinois to NJ is jumping from the frying pan straight into the fire. I don't care how much one likes Chris Christie.
In other news, the credit rating agency Moody's is warning the states that it will [FINALLY DAMMIT] be factoring in unfunded pension liabilities in the states' credit ratings.
Jeb Bush and Newt Gingrich sticking their oar in on a plan to make some sort of federal bankruptcy for states. Ace posting on that story. The states are not amused about any of this. LA Times editorial against the idea. Various quoting of pols.
The impact of state indebtedness on current services and infrastructure projects.
Three strategies for broke states - relates to government-run schooling.
Forget about education - a real low-hanging fruit of state expenditure is Medicaid.
NEW YORK
Bloomberg decides it's about time to get around to addressing NYC pensions. Given that he can't run for mayor again, and may be seeking a larger political stage. Banning trans fats and promoting bike lanes only gets you so far.
An "alternative view" on public pensions. I'll let you make your own rebuttals. For example, I'm sure the people of NJ are very happy that pension payments are contributing to communities in Florida. Small portion of the budget? Tell that to Salinas. I guess from one point of view, 14% is small. If it stayed there.
Double-dipping in New York ["retiring" and then getting rehired - so getting both salary and pension payments at same time.]
CALIFORNIA
Marcia Fritz of California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility talks about the need for pension reform in the Golden State.
The "new" governor Jerry Brown decides to give the pension issue a pass, and proposes other cuts...that doesn't even cut half the budget gap.
San Diego town council not covering public workers for prior sweet deal made improperly. To wit: the workers have got to eat it, to the tune of about $100MM collectively. Hey, the workers who got payments over what they should have should be happy they're not being asked to pay the excess back for benefits already received. Anyway, it will almost definitely go to court.
California pols really not happy about idea for state bankruptcy.
More from San Diego - the downside of getting new employees out of the defined benefit system. They don't pay into the fund. Now, given that defined benefit plans for state pensions are not supposed to be Ponzi, this shouldn't be a big deal. I don't see why new employees really should be plugging up the holes of overly generous benefits for prior ones.
ILLINOIS
Not exactly only about Illinois, but a Washington Examiner editorial notes the sweetheart deal Quinn cut with unions right before his election.... and the proposed transparency bill by Rep. Issa in the House that could derail such a deal. [Of course, there's no way this sucker is getting much past the House. But you've got to start somewhere.]
Illinois is getting a little extra scrutiny from the SEC on its recent pension accounting switcheroo. More on same. And more on same from the NYTimes. An editorial on the issue.
An editorial with one of my favorite proposals: no pensions for legislators. They already get to vote on their own salary.
Chicago proposal on pensions: increase employee contributions, make goal to reach 80% fundedness in 50 years [as opposed to 90% in 30... either way, I think there will be a cashflow problem long before the proposed horizons].
Illinois still not current on its bills.
Did Fox Do a Hit Job on Cutler?
Julius Peppers got flagged for smacking the crown of his helmet into Aaron Rodgers' face during the Packers-Bears NFC title game. Fifteen yards, a first down and a probable fine from the league. But did Fox put a hit on Jay Cutler?
After Cutler left the game early in the third quarter, having sustained a strained MCL toward the end of the first half, the sideline images we got were of a guy sitting alone on a bench with his leg up, not showing much emotion. Generally, Cutler doesn't show much emotion or much interest in what he gets asked by the sports media, so we probably should be much surprised by the latter. Word is, though, that he did spend time with his backup quarterbacks, Collins and Hanie, when they were prepping to get on the field, only those images didn't make it onto the telecast.
If so, Fox is guilty of feeding the narrative that Cutler was disinterested with what was going on on the field after he was taken out of the game, by exclusion of those images. I have it from Karl that this was the conclusion of some Chicago sports talkers in the wake of Cutler's Twittergate.
I'll admit, based on what I saw of the game coverage, I was one of the people who was saying that if Cutler could stand, he ought to be out there playing. On the other hand, the switch to Hanie worked for the Bears, and the Packers were fortunate to get the interception and touchdown runback from BJ Raji (the largest player ever to score an interception TD in NFL history, in case Jared Diamond is interested in "novelty").
Rick Telander, writing for the Sun-Times, earned my respect by defending Cutler from those accusing him of gold-bricking on Twitter and elsewhere in one article, only to piss it away in the next by saying, in effect, that the facts don't really matter in this instance, because the perception is now an albatross around his neck. By and large, those perceptions are shaped by people in positions like Telander's.
If Fox has footage of Cutler backing up his back up QBs, they ought to show it, and apologize for creating a false impression, whether it was deliberate or not.
Related: Most hated NFL players. Jared Diamond's dopey Packers-Steelers analysis.
Jerry Wilson’s Not Going to CPAC
I don't have any reason that I'm not going, apart from the economic one, but on that I agree with him wholeheartedly: it's too damned expensive. I get my strokes at home, from my wife and kids and kittehs, and from my readers' comments. Even if I had the scratch, it wouldn't be worth it to me at those rates.
I mean, I could probably attend the Super Bowl at those rates.
I have good feelings about Sean and Joy and Jimmie and the rest of the people who signed the open letter in support of CPAC's decision to include GOProud, and if asked, I would have signed the letter, too. Having said that, I can also understand how Jerry feels slighted after what happened to him last year. We could all be a little more inclusive, myself as well as anyone.
Every once in awhile we get linked up here from one of Ace's bloggers, or Stacy, or a couple of other high-profile blogs. As I've mentioned before, we get consistent traffic from Legal Insurrection and Yid with Lid, where our new posts are automatically displayed, and we do get the included at Memeorandum sometimes. We persist without links from HotAir or Michelle Malkin (for whom I have a lot of personal respect) or InstaPundit. Our links to Pajamas and Human Events aren't reciprocated, but we make them all the same, because it's more important, we think, to acknowledge what is good there than to worry about what they choose to do or not do, just like the guys at Six Meat Buffet or Cold Fury or Pirate's Cove or Coalition of the Swilling, or any of the other blogs that do good work and don't get the notice they deserve. It's just the way it is.
Would it be nice to receive occasional notice from some of the bigger blogs? Hell, yeah. But I can't worry about that. What I can do is suggest that you go take a look at Kill Truck's new digs, or Not A Drive-By Blog.
One of the reasons I left Protein Wisdom was to have the freedom not to get caught up in Jeff's feuds with Patterico and other online people. It's possible that even someone like David Frum might write something I agree with. I don't have to like Roethlisberger or Vick to admire the way they play. Hell, if Jane Hamsher said something reasonable, I'd probably link her for the novelty value.
I hope that the people who are going to CPAC have a good time. I'll visit vicariously through Stacy and the other folks I know who are going to be there. Wish I could go, but it's not on my priorities list, so I'm not much disappointed.
And one thing I think Jeff is absolutely right about: as far as the arbiters of civility, acceptability and appropriateness on the right concern me, they can go fuck themselves.
Saturday Morning Reading, 1-29-11
Thanks to KC Duffy for picking up on my post on Obama and competition, and to Tree Hugging Sister for properly mourning the (suspended?) suspension of Beefcake Friday. Oh, and thanks to the breathtakingly wry Spleenville for noting my incomprehensibility.
If the Packers do not trail the Steelers by more than a touchdown next Sunday at any point in the game, they will be the first team since 1962 to go through a season that way.
On the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, the people who know the most about it speculate that the crew were alive till the capsule hit the ocean.
Peter Schiff maintains that the Federal Crisis Inquiry Commission report was a $10 million ass-covering exercise, rigged to reach predetermined conclusions that let the government off the hook. But you knew that.
Doc Zero on the idiotic "Obama's SOTU was Reaganesque" meme. Time's sub-moronic cover of the Gipper with his arm around Obama ought to inspire a lot of photoshopped rebuttals. Hoping Serr8d and Carol will get on that. Oh, Carol's already on it.
Blazing Cat Fur on how Islamic law held back the development of the Middle East.
If you use Facebook, especially in public, you should change your settings.
The Right Scoop inspires a debate on civility and censorship between Megyn Kelly and Alan Colmes. Jeff Goldstein on OUTLAW circa 2009, and I on Civility NOW! same time frame.
Buzz Bissinger at the Daily Beast isn't rooting for the Steelers.
Harry's Place on the absurdity of the Human Rights Imperialism meme. Axelrod, in his last day in the White House, trots it out:
TAPPER: Is it difficult going from these problems being theoretical and all of sudden you’re in the chair, or the top advisor to the man in the chair, and it’s like, “We really actually — for the best interests of the American people– need this country to be our ally even if in so many ways they represent everything I hate”?
AXELROD: What’s obvious is that we have to deal in the world with many different countries and not all of them conform to our standard of human rights and what we need to do is be a persistent advocate for change and reform and that’s what we’ve done here. And obviously we’re monitoring this on an hourly basis in that context.
But you know, look, the president always says no easy problems come to his desk. If the problems are easy, uncomplicated, then they don’t require the attention of the president.
And the world is a complicated place, Egypt has been helpful in the region on some issues and there’s no question about that. Right now, we strongly, strongly believe that they need to restrain their security forces and police and set in motion a process to deal with the very legitimate grievances of people there.
Much of the world's gotten more fascistic since 1978, and I can understand Stacy's advocacy of realpolitik regarding Egypt, but realpolitik is what has brought us to this pass, where our hypocrisy is plain for all to see.
Upstate NY Dem pols arrested and charged in Working Families Party ballot box stuffing scheme.
Six Meat Buffet brings us up to date on what some are saying.
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