Via Gabe from a couple of days ago but with this weird week you may have missed it. McConnell is emphatic that repealing ObamaCare is job 1 if the GOP has the House, Senate and White House.

Over the weekend, you and Chris Wallace of Fox News had an exchange about the uninsured, where you said that’s “not the issue.” What did you mean by that? And what is your preferred policy for covering more of the uninsured?

Our goal, number one, is to repeal and replace Obamacare. Number two, is to address the health care that the federal government has already got, which is in deep trouble, both Medicare and Medicaid. Earlier today I saw that 15 governors have now said that theyÂ’re going to opt out of the additional Medicaid mandate, now that the Supreme Court has made it clear that they have the option to do so. I think we will be looking at every angle to replace this, and what itÂ’s replaced with, of course, depends on what the market looks like at that time. For example, the private health-insurance market has already responded on the growing demand to leave 26-year-olds on policies, because itÂ’s turning out to be a good business decision for them. The issue of preexisting conditions has always been complex. Half of the states are addressing that with high-risk pools. IÂ’m not convinced that issue needs to be addressed at the federal level. We will see. But job one is to replace Obamacare in its entirety, clean up the health care weÂ’re already responsible for, and then weÂ’ll see where we go from there.

This is a really great point. The federal government has done a lousy job with the health insurance programs it runs so the idea that it is in a position to run the private market was always ludicrous.

As for the uninsured, Obama sold his plan as lowering costs for people and making the insurance they had better, the additional coverage was always a secondary point. If he'd been honest and said, "we're going to make your coverage worse and more expensive to cover people who don't have any (and coincidentally who mostly vote for Democrats)" it would have never passed. So no, covering 30 million or so more people isn't the issue, it's preserving it for the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have coverage.

As for people who doubt his and the GOP's commitment to repeal, McConnell has a message.

Boy, I don’t know how they could be suspicious on this issue. Every single Republican in the House and Senate voted against Obamacare. I must have made 125 speeches about it on the floor. If there is any area where I don’t think conservatives of any stripe should be concerned, it would be this one. We’ve been clear and unambiguous about Obamacare from the beginning to the end — all of it. And I led the fight in the Senate, so I know what I’m talking about.

I know that Romney is focused exclusively on a message of "Obama and the economy stink" but he really needs to start talking more about repealing ObamaCare.

First, it is an economic issue.

Second, people don't need to be told the economy is awful. Everyone knows that. ObamaCare made things worse, repeal will make it better.

Finally, even though ObamaCare is unpopular (not because Obama hasn't sold it well but because people understand how bad it is) repeal will still be tough. Don't think so? How long is the list of repealed massive government entitlement programs? Yeah. We need to lay the political ground work to do it. Mitt needs to be able to talk about more than one issue and ObamaCare needs to be talked about and most importantly...repealed.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:05 AM | Comments (151)
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The experts who constantly guess wrong thought we'd create 90,000 jobs in June. We created 80,000.

Unemployment rate holds at 8.2%. Jim Pethokoukis calculated that the headline rate would be 10.9% if the labor force participation rate from January 2009 (Obama's inauguration) had held constant. Also, the broader U-6 rate ticked up a little to 14.9%.

So as you can see, Recovery Summer III is well underway.

[Update] @politicalmath created this interesting heat map of employment by industry.

Posted by: andy at 04:38 AM | Comments (389)
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Happy Friday.

Sen. McConnell in the Washington Times: "ItÂ’s time for Democrats to stop defending the indefensible and to join us in repealing this colossal mistake." Also, a good interview with NRO.

Romney set a GOP fundraising record last month.

Aaron Worthing (Walker) won his appeal from the idiotic, obviously unconstitutional peace order.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:00 AM | Comments (168)
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Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:36 PM | Comments (399)
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Utah contends that the Bureau of Land Management is breaking the law when making decisions on land use.

The Red Rock Wilderness Bill never passed into law; yet it seems the BLM is going on ahead and managing the ten million acres addressed in Red Rock as if it did, anyway.

"The BLM denies gas drilling leases, or rights-of-way on roads, that should be granted by law. But because they conflict with the Red Rock Wilderness Act, which is not the law, Utah loses out."

Consistent with this administration's general theme of arrogant unaccountability, the enviro-potentates at the BLM have been refusing to disclose their reasoning on land use decisions to the locals.

But now a judge has ruled that the federal government must release the documents that show what rationale they are using to consistently deny lawful requests for land use.

Please go to the link to see the news video, which is short but good. The reporter takes the time to point out that Red Rock was sponsored by a NEW YORK CONGRESSMAN. You can imagine Utahns all spitting in unison when they heard that part of the broadcast, heh.

Is there a source one can turn to, to find out what states are suing the Federal government for similar overreaches of authority?

It's the same thing with these leftists, over and over again, isn't it?

They don't have the right to do something, but they go ahead and illegally do it anyway. If you don't like them creating an authority over you by decree (or apparent conspiracy), you must sue. Your choice is either to sue, or to submit to an illegal authority that doesn't really exist in the first place. That seems fair, eh?

Which is just another form of this administration's never-ending lawfare against the states.

Their illegal activities are causing your state to expend time and money to defend your rights and autonomy. Once again. And as a taxpayer, you get to pay the legal costs of both parties.

Thanks to longtime Utah Moron skinbad.

Posted by: LauraW at 01:14 PM | Comments (327)
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You guys remember former Politico Reporter Joe Williams. He got suspended from Politico(and was subsequently fired) for making these comments:

Well it turns out that aside from being a subpar reporter and race baiter, his other hobbies include fishing, cross-stitch, Sodoku and pummeling his ex-wife.

From John Nolte at Breitbart.

Betsy Rothstein at FishbowlDC is reporting that Joe Williams, the Politico White House Correspondent who parted ways with the left-wing outlet last week, is guilty of assaulting his ex-wife, author Amy Alexander. Just a few months ago, in May, Williams plead guilty to second degree assault, was fined $200, and given six months probation.

He blamed the "right wing noise" machine for his suspension from Politico. I wonder if he used that line in court when the judge gave him six months probation.

[Update] Politico isn't going to weigh in on this issue.

Follow me on Twitter.

Thanks to DrewM.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:23 AM | Comments (249)
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Today's zero content open thread is brought to you by the original zero himself: more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 08:38 AM | Comments (200)
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I'm posting some, but Congress is out, President Ladies Tee is on vacation again, and news will be slow. So kind of a half day for me.

Posted by: Ace at 07:19 AM | Comments (273)
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More and more land is going wild in the US every day. Unpleasant human encounters with wild animals are on the rise. It's important to be prepared, and above all, to REMAIN CALM if it looks like a human vs. animal interaction is imminent. more...

Posted by: LauraW at 06:37 AM | Comments (142)
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All fingers and toes present and accounted for. No bail bondsmen involved. Looks like another Independence Day celebration was executed to perfection.

Hope you all had a great one.

Posted by: andy at 02:37 AM | Comments (284)
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