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JUNE 29,  2012

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 10:37 P.M. ET:

I'M SHOCKED, SHOCKED – Brace yourselves.  Maybe you should sit down.  Following the House vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, the Justice Department, over which Holder presides, has announced that it will not prosecute him.  Boy, what a surprise.  I really thought the Boy Scouts over there were ready to go after their boss just to show that they were interested in justice.  No such luck.

NERVE, REAL NERVE – I guess you feel a bit confident when you don't have to worry about too much press scrutiny.  The White House says it is standing by its position that the individual mandate in Obamacare is not a tax, even though the Supreme Court has just ruled that it is, and that the provision can only be sustained if it's considered a tax.  The White House does not explain the massive contradiction in its position, and you may be sure that most of the kept men and women of the press will not inquire.  Don't ask, don't tell.

FLORIDA THUMBS DOWN ON COURT RULING – The first reported poll taken after the Court's decision on Obamacare has been reported.  Taken in Florida, whose residents have a particular interest in medical care, it shows 50% of respondents disapproving of the Court's action, with only 39% approving.  The poll showed 83% of respondents followed the debate.

SOME JUSTICE – Most of our readers have probably seen the YouTube video, which went viral, of the school-bus monitor who was horribly harassed and cursed at by students aboard her bus, in part because of her appearance.  The New York school district where the incident took place has now taken severe action against four students, suspending them for an entire year.  They will receive an alternative education and each will have to complete 50 hours of community service before they can apply for readmission.  Seems like just punishment to me.

June 29,  2012     Permalink 

IS EUROPE SAVED? – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  Members of the Eurozone have approached the cliff, and stepped back.  Bottom line, Germany, the strongest economic power in Europe, has caved in to the demands of weaker nations, averting a possible financial meltdown in Europe.  From London's Telegraph:

Germany has today caved into demands made by Italy and Spain for immediate eurozone aid to bring down their soaring borrowing costs, sending the euro and markets higher.

On Thursday night, Italy and Spain plunged an EU summit into disarray by threatening to block “everything” unless Germany and other eurozone countries backed their demands for help.

Mario Monti, the Italian Prime Minister, celebrated the agreement, reached in the early hours of Friday, as a “very important deal for the future of the EU and the eurozone”.

He could not resist reminding Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, that Italy had also won on the football pitch, by defeating Germany two goals to one for a place in the finals of the European Championship.

“It is a double satisfaction for Italy,” he said.

The euro spiked against the dollar after news of the deal and Asian stock markets rose sharply, with Japan's Nikkei up 1.4pc and Hong Kong's closing Hang Seng 2.2pc higher. When trading began in Europe, London's FTSE 100 climbed 1.74pc, Germany's DAX added 2.39pc and France's CAC gained 2.86pc. In Spain the IBEX jumped 4.05pc higher and Italy's FTSE MIB is up 3.07pc.

Under the deal, Spanish banks will be recapitalised directly by allowing a €100 billion EU bailout to transferred off Spain’s balance sheet after the European Central Bank takes over as the single currency’s banking supervisor at the end of the year.

The decision, taken by a meeting of eurozone leaders in the early hours of Friday morning, will be based on a move to put the ECB at the centre of a “effective single supervisory mechanism” for banks after an EU summit in December.

“We affirm that it is imperative to break the vicious circle between banks and sovereigns,” said a summit statement.

COMMENT:  Does this save Europe?  Only for about 10 minutes.  The problems of the Eurozone go much deeper, starting with the welfare-state mentality, which has forced governments to vastly overspend to provide "services."  When it comes time to paying the piper, the payers flee.  And the chickens start coming home to roost.

Besides, the European economy is weak, as is ours.  Without revenue from a robust economy, the problems will persist.

June 29, 2012       Permalink

HOW WILL REPUBLICANS DO IT? – AT 9:29 A.M. ET:  If Republicans are successful in November, how will they actually go about reversing Obamacare?  It's not that easy.  Some provisions have already gone into effect.

The Politico, while generally tilting left, has a good reporting piece on the devices the GOP will use: 

Republican hopes to repeal the health care law may come down to a bank shot: A GOP sweep in November and a simple Senate majority — along with some arcane budget procedures — could kill the individual mandate in 2013.

The House will hold a symbolic vote to repeal the law on July 11, but the real long-term strategy for rolling back the law is already under way. Republicans are stoking voter anger over the law until Election Day, which they hope will produce a Mitt Romney presidency and an all-Republican Congress. And it ends by employing budget rules that would allow a fast-track repeal with a 51-vote majority in the Senate, circumventing a Democratic minority and potential filibuster.

That process — known on Capitol Hill as budget reconciliation — would give Republicans a serious shot at repealing the individual mandate and the heart of the law before 2014 when much of it is scheduled to take effect.

So it’s not surprising that the word “reconciliation” was on the tip of virtually every Republican tongue Thursday, just hours after the landmark Supreme Court ruling upholding most of the health care law.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune, chairman of the Republican Conference, said budget reconciliation could be a “vehicle” for repeal, promising Republicans would make “every attempt” under a GOP Senate majority and Republican White House to do just that.

“I’ve already heard discussions that it can be done through 51 votes in the Senate, which is an easier threshold,” said Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a member of House GOP leadership and a key Romney adviser.

COMMENT:  So, the thinking caps are on.  However, I suspect Republican strategy will be influenced by a great deal of polling, even if they whip up the perfect storm of a GOP House, Senate and White House.  Republicans generally agree that the health-care system needs work.  I would hope they'd have some well-crafted proposals of their own, and not just be against something.

June 29, 2012       Permalink

SAY IT AIN'T SO, JOHNNY – AT 9:06 A.M. ET:  One of the great questions of the day:  Why did Chief Justice John Roberts do it? 

It had been expected that Anthony Kennedy would be the swing vote on the Court in the Obamacare case.  Instead, it was the Chief, siding, in practical effect, with the four liberal justices.  (That is not entirely true, by the way.  Roberts made it clear that he did not think the individual mandate could be upheld under the Commerce Clause, but only under Congress's taxing authority.  The libs would have gone with the Commerce Clause, as ultra-lib Ruth Ginsburg made clear.) 

In fact, a number of thoughtful commentators have pointed out that Roberts's stance actually fits in with philosophy he's expressed before. 

(Reuters) - In the end, it all came down to Chief Justice John Roberts, the sphinx in the center chair, who in a stunning decision wove together competing rationales to uphold President Barack Obama's healthcare plan.

Roberts' action instantly upended the conventional wisdom that he would vote with his four fellow conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court and undercut the agenda of a Democratic president, who as a senator in 2005 had opposed Roberts' appointment to the bench.

But Thursday's extraordinary conclusion to the bitterly fought healthcare battle was quite ordinary in some ways. Roberts hewed to a traditional Supreme Court principle that if the justices can find any constitutional grounds on which to uphold a law, they should do so. The 57-year-old chief justice also followed a stated principle of his own: narrowly deciding cases and trying to preserve the integrity of the judiciary in polarized Washington.

While he has voted consistently with the conservative bloc on social issues, such as abortion rights and racial policies, Roberts in his public remarks has suggested that he seeks, as chief, to transcend an ideological label. He routinely refers to the court's place in history and has bristled at polls and public commentary that suggest the high court acts in the same political realm as the two elected branches of government.

Indeed, in his comments during oral arguments in the healthcare case, Roberts hinted that he could be open to siding with the government. He expressed concern that the court over which he presides might be seen as ignoring more than 75 years of precedent and rolling back U.S. law to the New Deal era. The last time the Supreme Court struck down a major act of Congress was in 1936, when the court invalidated a federal law that limited work hours and prescribed minimum wages for coal workers.

"He is positioning the court as the one, competent, principled institution in Washington," said Pamela Karlan, a Stanford University law professor. "The chief justice's opinion is designed to appear thoughtful, measured. He is in this for the long haul."

COMMENT:  Okay, we respect the Chief's wish to render an honest, reasoned decision.  At the same time, he has, essentially, thrown the ball back in Congress's court.

It's unlikely that any effective congressional action will be taken until the new Congress takes charge in January.  We hope there will be a Republican president, House and Senate.  Then we can get the changes in Obamacare that we wish.

June 29, 2012       Permalink

THE MORNING AFTER – AT 8:20 A.M. ET:  I assume we'll start getting early polls today and tomorrow on the public's reaction to the Obamacare decision.   Other polls, the ones that track over three days, won't be available until early next week.

Take care to watch the way polling questions are phrased.  It wasn't only Obama who won a victory yesterday in the Supreme Court, it was the mainstream media, whose commitment to Obama is as great this year as in 2008.  As I noted last night, some of the behavior of TV "journalists" was disgraceful.  Some news organizations have their own polling operations (or contract for them), and the phrasing of the question is key to a poll.

With the Supreme Court decision, provisions of the Obamacare law will start to kick in.  The law was artfully written so the arrival of "benefits" precedes the increased costs.  And there's a rule of thumb in politics:  Once benefits are given, they're almost impossible to remove.  If you don't believe that, look at Europe, where countries that desperately need austerity programs are being resisted by populations that enjoy their benefits.

The benefits here will kick in, and then the Dems will shift the focus to taxing certain groups more to pay for them.  So what if companies leave because of high taxation.  Hey, who needs those greedy capitalists.  Right?

And what of Mitt Romney?  He has now correctly pledged to get rid of Obamacare through legislative action once he's elected.  But he has a trap waiting for him, eagerly pointed out by liberal journalists.  From the Washington Post:

“The most effective argument for Romney is that this is a massive tax increase that will impact hardworking Americans,” said GOP strategist Ron Bonjean, who worked for a number of Republican leaders on Capitol Hill. “By adding the health-care tax to economic hardships people are feeling, it will quickly become a rallying cry to win over independents in battleground states.”

Romney’s history, however, may make it difficult for him to capi­tal­ize on that argument.

The health-care system that he put into place as Massachusetts governor — which was a model for the federal law — included a mandate with a similar penalty for noncompliance.

At the time, Romney also denied that it was a tax, preferring instead to refer to it as a “fee” or an “incentive.”

Nonetheless, the court’s ruling will encourage Republicans to rally around their presumed nominee, despite their misgivings about some of the more moderate aspects of his record, including the Massachusetts health-care law.

“Politically, this was not a bad result for Governor Romney,” said Steve Schmidt, who was a top strategist for 2008 GOP nominee John McCain (R-Ariz.). “There is no chance there will be a dissipation of intensity in the Republican base. It guarantees a united and intense Republican base.”

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) went so far as to predict on CNN: “This is going to elect Mitt Romney the 45th president of the United States.”

COMMENT:  Well, we'll see.  We certainly hope so.  But as Mr. Hardy used to say, it's a "fine mess" the Court has gotten us into.  Or maybe it was Mr. Laurel.  Some reader will know.

June 29,  2012     Permalink

JUNE 28,  2012

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 10:42 P.M. ET:

REPEAL VOTE COMING – House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has announced that the House will vote to repeal Obamacare on July 11th.  The vote, of course, is symbolic, as neither the Senate nor the president will go along.  But it will signal that the fight for reform of the measure is just beginning.  It is important, though, that Republicans not only oppose the law, but come up with a detailed substitute that will win the favor of the American people.

ON SECOND THOUGHT – The media, and that includes us, reported Wednesday morning that Charlie Rangel, who's served in the House since the world was created, won a narrow primary victory and will once more be going back to Washington, since triumph in the Democratic primary in his district is tantamount to being elected.  But not so fast.  The vote count is still continuing, and, with 94% of votes in, Rangel's lead has shrunk to about 1,032 votes over Adriano Espaillat, the second-place finisher, who actually conceded defeat Tuesday night, but is now silent.  There are calls for investigation over the slow count.  No official winner has been named.

AND ELSEWHERE – A crisis summit to save the Euro has broken up in confusion after Italy and Spain threatened to "block everything" unless they got the aid they requested.  We tend to forget that Europe is still going through a financial crisis that could affect us here in the months before the election.  There are major divisions among the Europeans, a rising tension, and rising anger.  Europe is not out of the woods, and this is one area where the United States cannot and will not be helpful.  Europeans actually know that desperate steps must be taken to rescue their countries from their welfare-state economies, but the courage to do so is lacking. 

June 28, 2012      Permalink 

SUPREME COURT UPDATE – AT 8:33 P.M. ET:  These are some of the things I've seen today in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare:

Most disgraceful journalism – some CNN commentators, plainly jubilant.  We single out anchor Brooke Baldwin for an utterly ridiculous question asked of Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri.  She asked whether Republicans were sore losers for continuing to oppose Obamacare even after the Supreme Court affirmed its constitutionality.  Politely, Blunt tried to explain that an affirmation of constitutionality does not mean a law is good or wise, or helpful.  I'm not sure Jackson understood, having asked a question on a junior-high-school level.

Most depressing prediction – a physician interviewed on Fox who suggested that we're now heading for a British-style health system.  Procedures you can now get immediately will take more time to schedule.  But the wealthy will simply opt out and go their own way, leaving the poor and middle class to pay for this monstrosity.

Most brilliant writing – The Supreme Court dissent, written by Justice Kennedy and joined by Scalia, Thomas and Alito, pointedly charging that the Court didn't interpret the law today, it rewrote it.  It was the conservatives at their best.

Most tasteless comments – Some out-of-control folks on our side who theorized that Chief Justice Roberts's illnesses, and medication, may have led to his siding with the liberals.  Let's get off that.  The chief justice wrote a reasoned opinion, with which I respectfully disagree, but which reflected issues he raised during the oral arguments. 

Most thought-provoking dissenting comment – from Charles Krauthammer, who raised the possibility that by calling the fine levied by Obamacare on those who refuse to buy health insurance a tax, the federal government can now punish any behavior it wishes.

Best political comment – by Mitt Romney, who asserted vigorously and unambiguously that the Supreme Court did not pass judgment on the value of Obamacare, but only on its legal status.  He promised to move to revoke the law on his first day in office and replace it with something much better.

Moment of utter revulsion – Obscene posts by employees of the Democratic National Committee, one of which referred to Republican women as "bitches."  They have now been taken down, but these employees need to be sent away.

COMMENT:  On balance, despite some very bad moments, the discussion today was reasonably civil.  Obamacare will remain part of the debate in the presidential campaign.  How much a part will depend on other events, and on how successful the Republicans will be in presenting it as a huge tax increase sold to the American people as something else.  We are at the beginning, not the end.

June 28, 2012       Permalink

HOLDER HELD IN CONTEMPT – AT 7:10 P.M. ET:  Eric Holder became the first sitting attorney general in the nation's history to be held in contempt of Congress today.  In two separate votes in the House, Holder was held in both criminal and civil contempt.

Some Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the contempt resolutions.  However, many Democrats stormed out of the House in protest, which I guess is the way the Democrats do things these days.  Politics, playpen style.  From Fox:

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 to 67. Seventeen Democrats joined the majority of Republicans in voting yes. GOP Rep. Dan Lipinski voted not present, and 65 Democrats left the floor before the vote.

The vote follows a roughly 16-month investigation by the chamber’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee into the failed gun-running sting known as Fast and Furious -- run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a division of the Justice Department led by Holder.

COMMENT:  This is a major news story, but it may be short-lived.  Not many people seriously expect that important action will be taken against Holder, at least not until after the election.  The votes are largely symbolic, reflecting Republican frustrating with Holder's stonewalling.

And there is, sadly, a racial component.  The Congressional Black Caucus has been especially out front in defending Holder, the country's first African American attorney general.  While the cry of racism is absurd on the facts, it will still influence and motivate some voters.

We'll just have to see if anything develops from today's votes, but don't change your schedule.

June 28, 2012       Permalink

WEAK ECONOMIC GROWTH – AT 11:03 A.M. ET:  With all the attention on the Supreme Court, the media tended to ignore a depressing new economic report.  From AP:

The U.S. economy expanded at a 1.9 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, a weak pace that few economists see changing much this year.

The Commerce Department on Thursday made no change in its third and final estimate for growth in the January-March quarter. Slower growth in consumer spending was offset by faster growth in businesses investment, leaving the overall pace the same.

A sluggish job market and diminished consumer and business confidence have kept the economy from accelerating in the April-June quarter. Most economists say growth has likely stayed roughly the same.

Growth of around 1.9 percent typically generates roughly 90,000 jobs a month. That's too weak to lower the unemployment rate, which was 8.2 percent last month.

COMMENT:  Pathetic.  We need 150,000 new jobs every month just to keep up with population growth.  We are in bad shape.

June 28, 2012       Permalink

BULLETIN – AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  The United States Supreme Court has ruled the individual mandate provision of the Obamacare act unconstitutional.

UPDATE TO BULLETIN – AT 10:19 A.M. ET:  The bulletin above is now being clarified and is inaccurate.  The Court said that the individual mandate cannot be sustained under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, but can be upheld as a tax under the taxing power.  This means, essentially, that Obamacare is entirely upheld by the Court, as long as the mandate becomes a tax.  This will have to be clarified as more is learned.  It's a long decision.

SECOND UPDATE TO BULLETIN – AT 10:33 A.M. ET:  Reporters are now trying to refine their discussion of the Court's confusing decision.  Essentially, most of them are now saying that the individual mandate becomes a tax.  But the mandate requires citizens to buy insurance from private companies.  How can a tax be paid to a private company unless it is passed on to a governmental agency? 

The deciding vote upholding the individual mandate, as a tax, was cast by Chief Justice John Roberts, which will stun conservatives, who thought he was a safe vote against the mandate.

Political implications:  Unknown.  At first pundits were saying that this is a huge win for the president.  But wait.  If the mandate now becomes a tax, it is one of the largest tax increases in American history, and Romney can argue that the tax must be eliminated.  Obama is on record as saying this isn't a tax increase.   How the White House explains it away is a key political question.

Bottom line:  We haven't seen anywhere near the last of the issue.  Congress will revisit it under its own tax-writing power.  I would imagine that the individual mandate tax will be struck down by the House, but upheld by the Democratic Senate.  This is the beginning of a huge new debate.

June 28, 2012       Permalink 

NEW POLLING – AT 9:22 A.M. ET:  New polling from NBC/Marist shows just how tight the president race is:

A new round of NBC News-Marist polls shows President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney running almost neck-and-neck in three key battleground states, with Obama holding a slight advantage in Michigan and North Carolina, and the two candidates tied in New Hampshire.

In Michigan, Obama is ahead by four percentage points among registered voters, including those who are undecided but are still leaning toward a candidate, 47 to 43 percent.

In North Carolina, the president gets 46 percent to Romney's 44 percent, which is within the survey's margin of error.  And in New Hampshire, the two men are tied at 45 percent each.

COMMENT:  Please note that these are registered voters.  Polls of likely voters generally show a slightly larger percentage for Romney. 

Also, other recent polls have shown Romney ahead in North Carolina and Obama ahead in New Hampshire, but by narrow margins.

The intriguing numbers, in this and other polls, come from Michigan, normally a very safe Democratic state, owing to the large African-American population in Detroit and the high percentage of union members.  Michigan this year may just be competitive, which should create at least a case of heartburn in the White House.

June 28, 2012       Permalink

SYRIA – AT 9:03 A.M. ET:  The tragedy in Syria continues, with the outside world doing very little to stop it.  The horror goes beyond the killings.  It turns out that the regime has arrested tens of thousands.  From The New York Times:

DAMASCUS, Syria — After Syrian secret police officers spotted Azam at a peaceful demonstration in the heart of this city, he said, they chased him down and dragged him off to prison, where he was tortured during his 40 days in confinement.

“They take people and forget them because there are so many others coming in,” said Azam, who asked to be identified by only his first name. He said he had been detained by air force security officers, members of one of more than a dozen secret police services in Syria.

While the world’s attention has been focused on the military escalation in Syria, the government has also waged an unrelenting campaign of arrests that has snared tens of thousands of people, according to lawyers and activists in Syria and human rights groups. They say the arrests have focused on two groups: secular activists, including those organizing humanitarian aid, and men and boys from the towns that the Syrian Army has besieged or has retaken from the armed opposition.

Those arrested, the lawyers and activists say, are dumped into a system devoid of meaningful judicial process or oversight, and are subject to torture.

“I’m so upset when I think of how many are inside,” said a university student who was detained in April for handing out carnations with tags reading “Stop the Killing.” “We couldn’t protect them.”

COMMENT:  Please note the great interest of "observers" in the United States and other Western countries, who got so worked up over a minor prison scandal involving U.S. forces in Iraq, or who are so exercised over the American detention center at Guantanamo, which is actually a model facility. 

There is now great tension between Syria and Turkey over the downing of a Turkish jet by Syrian forces.  Assad of Syria says his country is at war.  But thus far, no solution.

June 28, 2012       Permalink

THIS MORNING – AT 8:26 A.M. ET:  We are awaiting announcement of the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare.

In a way, it's very sad that it's come to this – a constitutional challenge over a law that affects every American.  But the challenge reflects the recklessness in the way the Obamacare law was written.  It was written largely behind closed doors, without major hearings, and is more than 2,000 pages long.  It was literally shoved down the throats of the American people with little public input.  It was a triumph of liberal ideology over common sense, and respect for people's beliefs, experience and feelings.

We have no idea how the Court will rule.  Predictions of Supreme Court rulings, even by knowledgeable law professors, have often turned out to be wildly wrong.  So we wait.

Speaking of law professors, we presumably have one in the White House.  Actually, he was an instructor in constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School, not a full professor.  But Barack Obama recently said something so outlandish that one wonders how he got any appointment at any law school.  He said it would be unprecedented for the Supreme Court to strike down a law duly passed by Congress.  Of course, that's ridiculous.  If George W. Bush had said it, the mainstream media would have been in an uproar.  It is common for the Court to strike down laws if a majority deems them unconstitutional.  It is an old cliché that the Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is.

Oh, some of the justices have a rather aloof view of the Constitution.  Associate Justice Ginsburg has said that she prefers the South African constitution.  I have no idea how Obamacare would fare under the South African charter, but, given the murder rate in South Africa, enhanced medical care might not have much practical effect.  Someone tell Ruth.

We'll know later this morning.  Then watch for the windbaggery to start.  No matter what the decision, Obamacare will be up for careful review by the Congress that will be elected this year.  And a new president will have a very different view of the law's provisions than does the current officeholder.

June 28,  2012     Permalink