If You Love Liberty, The Dept. Of Homeland Security Thinks You're A Threat

Hey, thanks! The feeling's mutual: The State is our enemy.

Read the latest January 2012 DHS assessment of patriots as homegrown terrorists for yourself, here:

Extreme Right-Wing: groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent (for some the threat is from a specific ethnic, racial, or religious group), and believe in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism. Groups may also be fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), anti-global, suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty, and believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty.

Conservative Supremes Insist It's An Unconstitutional Penalty, Not A Tax, But Romney Gets Attacked For Saying The Same Thing

So-called conservatives are upset with Mitt Romney's team for calling the ObamaCare mandate an unconstitutional penalty, not a tax, which is what the dissenting Supremes have called it.

Here's a question for y'all: Do you have the courage of your convictions and the brains to express them, or are you going to retreat into political expediency?

We already have the answer to that. They want Mitt Romney's man Fehrnstrom to go into hibernation in the summertime.

Here's another question: Are the dissenting Supremes conservative, or not? If they are not, then tell us why. Ignoring their arguments isn't going to make them go away. Real conservatives respect what they have to say. Anyone who's telling us to accept the tax argument as framed by Roberts for the liberal wing of the Supremes is doing it for political reasons and is a fake conservative. Prominent among these are Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham.

If Romney's camp keeps this up he might actually get accused of being a conservative by real ones. I'm suddenly feeling less alarmed by Mitt Romney.

Well, that's the spin from the Financial Times anyway, here, whose idea of a conservative is a Jack Welch or a Rupert Murdoch. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Pure agitprop.

You Think This Is Hot. It's Hotter Where We're Goin' . . . In A Hand Basket

The first use recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary of the phrase, to hell in a hand basket, was in The Great North-Western Conspiracy in All Its Startling Details, an account by I. Windslow Ayer of events surrounding the Camp Douglas Conspiracy. Ayer alleges that, at an August meeting of the Order of the Sons of Liberty, the Judge Morris noted above said: "Thousands of our best men were prisoners in Camp Douglas, and if once at liberty would ‘send abolitionists to hell in a hand basket.'"

(source)

Our emancipators are and were always slaves.

Rep. Waxman Botches Unemployment Facts, Claims We're In A Depression

Leave it to Democrat politicians to botch the facts about the economy, as Rep. Waxman here.

Unemployment surged to over 10 percent under Obama, not when he took office as Waxman says. When Obama took office in late January 2009 unemployment was 7.6 percent. It climbed to 10.2 percent for the first time in October 2009, nine months after Obama took office.

As for economic depression, Democrats have been saying all along that Obama's policies prevented a depression from occurring. But they didn't prevent one. Plausibly they ended one!

A depression occurred in fact in 2008 and 2009 when GDP declined two years in a row. For a Democrat to say we're in a depression now is insane, given the fact that GDP stills prints positive and has been doing so since 2010, when the depression ended. The growth is pathetic, but it's still growth.

If Democrats had been smart, they'd have admitted it was a depression right away after the 2008 election and really played that up. It could plausibly have been laid at the feet of President George W. Bush. The Keynesian-like stimulus passed in 2009 under Obama could also have been plausibly credited with ending the depression, since GDP rebounded in 2010.

How come Democrats are so stupid?

Bile: The Autonomic Fake Conservative Detector

"I'll make it simpler for you than Rush [Limbaugh] does . . . : if bile doesn't rise in your throat at the very notion of an Obama presidency, then you are NOT a conservative."

-- Kathy Shaidle, 25 October 2008

The Stupid Statement of the Day, From Traitor Douglas Kmiec, a Republican Who Voted For BO

Here:

“I think [Roberts] knows in his heart that he’s reached a good decision for the well-being of the court and I don’t think he’s earned any long-term enmity of the conservatives,” Kmiec said. “If anything, this will give him more bargaining ability for years to come on both sides.”

Any Republican who is not angry with Roberts henceforth is by definition not a conservative, just as Kmiec is not now, nor has he ever been, a conservative.

ObamaCare Taxes Are In Fact New Income Taxes

The Wall Street Journal here agrees that the ObamaCare ruling has simply and incorrectly shifted government's drive for unlimited power over the people under a different part of the constitution, the taxing power, than the court had heretofore been accustomed to use, namely the commerce clause:

[Roberts'] gambit substitutes one unconstitutional expansion of government power for another and rearranges the constitutional architecture of the U.S. political system. ...

The rest of the column is a very useful and informative discussion of indirect vs. direct taxation, but it does not really make the proper equation demanded by the reasoning of the John Roberts' opinion. Since the tax penalty only arises when one fails to pay for health insurance, there is effectively no difference between the tax penalty which will have to be paid by those going without coverage and the premiums paid by those who have coverage.

Going forward under ObamaCare, if the refusal to buy health insurance results in a tax (which is in reality an unconstitutional police-power-type penalty, or fine), then the purchase of health insurance must be understood as a tax, too (penalty, fine). When the IRS comes calling, those who "gave at the office" are generally going to be treated as having already paid.

I don't think the editorial is correct to say this is somehow a new kind of tax which is really neither an income nor an excise. I think it's pretty clear that ObamaCare is a form of (increased) income taxation.

The tax penalty paid for not having insurance will be based on income. Government subsidy to purchase insurance will be based on income. Affordability of plans offered by employers will be scrutinized based on income paid to employees, and on and on. The IRS' new, main, and very intrusive interest will be in determining household income for purposes of ObamaCare compliance and participation. So it looks to me like it's all about income and comes under the income taxation umbrella, however tortured it may at first appear.

There is a longish discussion of this from the income angle by Liz MacDonald here which makes it pretty clear how everything in ObamaCare hangs on income, including this:


The percentage of income penalty rises at a lower rate than the fixed dollar amount, from 1% in 2014, to 2% in 2015, and to 2.5% in 2016 and after, and then is capped at the national average premium for what’s called “bronze” coverage, which provides the least amount of coverage under the new law, 60% before the patient must chip in for co-insurance, deductibles and co-payments.


Capping the penalty at the national average premium level for basic coverage means you're paying the basic premium. So the premium becomes a tax becomes a premium. It's all designed to fund the system, which is what taxes do. Penalties punish people for breaking the law. But lawbreakers under ObamaCare will be punished with Bronze Level Healthcare, which is why Roberts had to rewrite the law from the bench, construing the penalties as taxes, in order to save ObamaCare.

That was a political act, as The Wall Street Journal rightly goes on to say:


If this understanding is correct, then Chief Justice Roberts behaved like a politician, which is more corrosive to the rule of law and the Court's legitimacy than any abuse it would have taken from a ruling that President Obama disliked. The irony is that the Chief Justice's cheering section is praising his political skills, not his reasoning. Judges are not supposed to invent political compromises.

If anything good comes of this, maybe a new interest will develop out there to repeal the income tax once and for all as a way of getting rid of this new, very expensive and unconstitutional, monstrosity called ObamaCare.

George Bush's Legacy

not just this . . .

. . . but also this

Dissenting Justices' Opinion Lectures Roberts, Giving Up Debating Him

So Jan Crawford for CBS News, here:

The majority decisions were due on June 1, and the dissenters set about writing a response, due on June 15. The sources say they divided up parts of the opinion, with Kennedy and Scalia doing the bulk of the writing.

The two sources say suggestions that parts of the dissent were originally Roberts' actual majority decision for the Court are inaccurate, and that the dissent was a true joint effort.

The fact that the joint dissent doesn't mention Roberts' majority was not a sign of sloppiness, the sources said, but instead was a signal the conservatives no longer wished to engage in debate with him.

The language in the dissent was sweeping, arguing the Court was overreaching in the name of restraint and ignoring key structural protections in the Constitution.

From now on, we can legitimately expect to see Roberts making more alliances with the left than with the right. He is effectively unreachable.

ObamaCare Will Coerce Americans Into Health Insurance Contracts

ObamaCare coerces Americans into health insurance contracts on threat of a financial penalty, which Justice Roberts now speciously calls a tax in order to find some penumbra in the constitution other than the commerce clause to allow it.

Under contract law, coercion nullifies any contract when it nullifies the equality which must exist between the two parties making the contract.

Justice Roberts pretends that there is equality here. There isn't. I either buy a policy on my own, or pay a fine to the government. Either way, I'm out the money and have no choice about it.

In the real world, choice means I get to choose not to purchase and keep my money. In the case of ObamaCare, I have no such choice.

And therefore health insurance will stop being a lawful contract.

Justice Roberts has just vitiated centuries of contract law. You can call that anything you want (tyranny comes to mind), but it certainly isn't conservatism or originalism.

Britain Hasn't Been Wetter Since 1860: Too Cold To Grow Strawberries

The UK Telegraph has the story here, with one commenter adding:

So much for all the hullabaloo about global warming!

10 years ago, we were told that we would be growing our own grapes, lemons and oranges. I cannot even grow bl--dy strawberries, it is so cold and wet and dismal!

Why Won't Obama Use This Super Tanker To Fight Colorado Fires?

Read the story, here, about why this Boeing 747 supertanker just sits on the ground in Arizona while Colorado goes up in smoke.

George Will Only Imagines Congress' Power Has Been Limited, But It Hasn't

Here:

If the mandate had been upheld under the Commerce Clause, the Supreme Court would have decisively construed this clause so permissively as to give Congress an essentially unlimited police power — the power to mandate, proscribe and regulate behavior for whatever Congress deems a public benefit. Instead, the court rejected the Obama administration’s Commerce Clause doctrine. The court remains clearly committed to this previous holding: “Under our written Constitution . . . the limitation of congressional authority is not solely a matter of legislative grace.”

The fact remains, however, that with the stroke of a pen the Court has changed the locus of unlimited power-seeking from the venue of commerce to the venue of taxation. Congress' power "to mandate, proscribe and regulate behavior" hasn't been diminished one bit, just shifted.

I can now be penalized (!) with a tax (!) for not buying whatever Congress' decides. This used to be a power reserved to the States, which can force you, say, to purchase a gun. Now the Court has given that power over you to the Congress, by-passing the States.

The issue was well-framed for us already, in the dead of winter, during the Republican primary debate about RomneyCare, here:

One difference between the health care bills is that Romneycare is constitutional and Obamacare is not. True, Obamacare's unconstitutional provisions are the least of its horrors, but the Constitution still matters to some Americans. ... As Rick Santorum has pointed out, states can enact all sorts of laws -- including laws banning contraception -- without violating the Constitution. That document places strict limits on what Congress can do, not what the states can do. Romney, incidentally, has always said his plan would be a bad idea nationally. The only reason the "individual mandate" has become a malediction is because the legal argument against Obamacare is that Congress has no constitutional authority to force citizens to buy a particular product. ... States have been forcing people to do things from the beginning of the republic: drilling for the militia, taking blood tests before marriage, paying for public schools, registering property titles and waiting in line for six hours at the Department of Motor Vehicles in order to drive. There's no obvious constitutional difference between a state forcing militia-age males to equip themselves with guns and a state forcing adults in today's world to equip themselves with health insurance.


But now the Congress has this power, under the taxing authority, at least until some enterprising citizens challenge healthcare premiums they actually pay as a form of unapportioned direct taxation, and win.

Until then, we have no place left to hide. The whole country has become Massachusetts.

"Congress Can Now Tax People For Not Buying Broccoli"

So Randy Barnett for The Washington Post, here:

"Congress can now essentially tax people for not buying broccoli."


The trouble is, that is a penalty, not a tax. 

Forward Comrades!

EU Deal Spikes Both Gold And Oil, Ratio Remains Near 19

Gold shot up on Friday to about $1,604 the ounce, as did oil to almost $85 the barrel, in doing which both proved that neither gold nor oil really believes in the concurrent and dramatic stock market gains, nor that Merkel's concessions to Italy and Spain are fundamentally positive.

The Shiller p/e ratio is elevated over 35 percent above the mean of 16, as the Standard and Poor's 500 itself lagged both gold and oil and was up only 2.5 percent. In other words, it's closer to its upper bound than is gold, which vaulted 3.5 percent, and oil, which spiked over 9 percent. In the only contest that counts, hard assets won again.

Spain and Italy need to borrow more cheaply than the bond market is allowing at the moment, and now we are told both countries are going to be allowed to borrow from the European Stability Mechanism, which doesn't yet exist, hasn't been approved by all members, has so far very little capital, and both Italy and Spain are themselves supposed to be contributors to it at the same time they need help from it.

As others have pointed out, the ESM will fail because it will not provide an infinite pool from which to borrow. Once its limited reserves have been tapped, the bond market will come calling again.

It is noteworthy that this time the sovereign borrowing will not subordinate other borrowers. This is being viewed as a way to de-link the sovereigns and the banks and maintain the value of the bond pool and hence subdue rising yields, making it easier for the sovereigns to borrow. What it really represents is the further debasement of the sovereigns.

Also noteworthy is the fact that the borrowing will not be counted against EU fiscal requirements, and will be lawfully conducted off balance sheet. This amounts to a step toward less transparency, not more, and resembles nothing so much as the gigantic global banking operations who seek sovereign protections while carrying structured investment vehicles off the books.

All of which amounts to Germany giving its approval to cheating by Spain and Italy because they are too big to fail if the euro is to succeed. Portugal, Ireland and Greece were not similarly treated. So much for the rules.

"Europe" is still a fiction, except to the extent that this deal looks hastily cobbled together so that everyone can go enjoy their 6-week summer vacation.

Pretty shabby.

Obama Can Crawl Around In The Gutter With The Worst Of Them

Dissenting Supremes Affirm The Principle That Coercion Voids Contracts

Here:

When federal legislation gives the States a real choice whether to accept or decline a federal aid package, the federal-state relationship is in the nature of a contractual relationship. See Barnes v. Gorman, 536 U. S. 181, 186 (2002); Pennhurst, 451 U. S., at 17. And just as a contract is voidable if coerced, “[t]he legitimacy of Congress’ power to legislate under the spending power . . . rests on whether the State voluntarily and knowingly accepts the terms of the ‘contract.’” Ibid. (emphasis added). If a federal spending program coerces participation the States have not “exercise[d] their choice”—let alone made an “informed choice.” Id., at 17, 25.

However, nowhere in the opinion do I see a discussion of how ObamaCare is a coerced contract between the government and the individual, and thus no contract at all. The dissent instead focuses on how the States are being coerced into a contract with respect to the Medicaid expansion.

The reason for this is that the Court is deciding a case brought by the States which think they have been wronged in that respect. The Court is not responding to hypothetical individuals who believe they may be wronged in future, and who cannot bring suit until the provisions of ObamaCare have taken effect and they become actual individuals and victims of the law.

It may be surmised that the Court's dissenting opinions in this and other areas are intended to telegraph possible avenues for future challenges to which they may be sympathetic.

Dissenting Supremes Decry "Verbal Wizardry"

Here:

"That carries verbal wizardry too far, deep into the forbidden land of the sophists."

"Tax" is spelled with a "t", "penalty" with a "p".

As the country song says, "Look it up."

Dissenting Supremes Question Whether ObamaCare's "Tax" Is A Direct Tax Which Must Be Apportioned According To Population

I told you so.

Quite apart from the problem of the Court rewriting the legislation's penalty as a tax, which amounts to rewriting the dictionary, will every man, woman and child in the country pay the exact same insurance premium, and the exact same tax if they do not purchase?

HELL NO, in violation of the constitution's direct taxation provisions if the mandate is a tax and not a penalty as the Court now declares. What the Court's legerdemain on the penalty has done is transformed health insurance premiums themselves into unequal direct taxes, in violation of the constitution.

From the opinion, here:

Finally, we must observe that rewriting §5000A as a tax in order to sustain its constitutionality would force us to confront a difficult constitutional question: whether this is a direct tax that must be apportioned among the States according to their population. Art. I, §9, cl. 4. Perhaps it is not (we have no need to address the point); but the meaning of the Direct Tax Clause is famously unclear, and its application here is a question of first impression that deserves more thoughtful consideration than the lick-and-a-promise accorded by the Government and its supporters. The Government’s opening brief did not even address the question—perhaps because, until today, no federal court has accepted the implausible argument that §5000A is an exercise of the tax power. And once respondents raised the issue, the Government devoted a mere 21 lines of its reply brief to the issue. Petitioners’ Minimum Coverage Reply Brief 25. At oral argument, the most prolonged statement about the issue was just over 50 words. Tr. of Oral Arg. 79 (Mar. 27, 2012). One would expect this Court to demand more than fly-by-night briefing and argument before deciding a difficult constitutional question of first impression.