Then again, it's PPP, and it's one poll. I'd like to see someone else confirm this hard-to-believe finding, that Obama wins Texas (yeah) over Texas' governor.

Posted by: Ace at 12:23 PM | Comments (135)
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Let's look at the dissent first. Remember, dissent. This position lost.

As it obviously should have. It's so poorly grounded!

If the exercise of power is allowed and the mandate upheld, it is difficult to see what the limits on Congress’s Commerce Clause authority would be. What aspect of human activity would escape federal power? The ultimate issue in this case is this: Does the notion of federalism still have vitality? To approve the exercise of power would arm Congress with the authority to force individuals to do whatever it sees fit (within boundaries like the First Amendment and Due Process Clause), as long as the regulation concerns an activity or decision that, when aggregated, can be said to have some loose, but-for type of economic connection, which nearly all human activity does. See Lopez, 514 U.S. at 565 (“[D]epending on the level of generality, any activity can be looked upon as commercial.”). Such a power feels very much like the general police power that the Tenth Amendment reserves to the States and the people. A structural shift of that magnitude can be accomplished legitimately only through constitutional amendment.

Poppycock and crazytalk, obviously.

Let's look at the holding of the court, excerpted at Hot Air.

Congress had a rational basis for concluding that, in the aggregate, the practice of self-insuring for the cost of health care substantially affects interstate commerce. Furthermore, Congress had a rational basis for concluding that the minimum coverage provision is essential to the Affordable Care ActÂ’s larger reforms to the national markets in health care delivery and health insurance. Finally, the provision regulates active
participation in the health care market, and in any case, the Constitution imposes no categorical bar on regulating inactivity. Thus, the minimum coverage provision is a valid exercise of CongressÂ’s authority under the Commerce Clause, and the decision of the district court is AFFIRMED.

There's more there. That's just the actual conclusion.

Before the 11th Circuit, a lawyer representing the states suing to rubbish ObamaCare made a good point.

Obama and, it seems, many courts, would like to pretend that while the Constitution generally speaks of enumerated and limited powers -- all other powers, such a the police power, reserved for the people and the states -- that the Commerce Clause generally is a "Take-Back" clause that essentially calls bullshit on everything else in the Constitution.

That is, everything else in the Constitution is about establishing particular powers of the federal government, and, expressly, reserving those not named (or "necessary and proper" to undertake a named power) to the states.

But this new claim is that really there is only one clause that matters in the Constitution, and that is the Commerce Clause, and this one brief clause renders all 4400 other words in the Constitution null and void, because the Commerce Clause says, it is contended, that the federal government may do anything so long as, in the aggregate, it "affects interstate commerce," which, as is often pointed out, applies to everything.

Having sex with your wife? This affects interstate commerce, as you might wind up creating the ultimate economic effect -- a child; a future one-man army of economic activity, labor, investment, and consumption -- and even if you don't, your choice to have sex is a choice not to sample the fruits of interstate commerce, which is affected, then, by your choice to not enter the stream of paid entertainments.

Can we mandate that people have more children? Seems to me we could fix some of the demographic problems with SS and MediCare if only people had more children.

Oh, it's probably much too late for that; but could we have mandated this 20 years ago? Probably, this new ruling says.

At any rate, the anti-ObamaCare lawyer had a simple question:

If the framers of the Constitution meant for this one clause to have such omnipotent power, trumping everything else, establishing well-nigh plenary power of the federal government over every aspect of human existence --

Why did no one seem to think it necessary to add even the most gentle limitation on such a far-reaching power?

In other words, if this Clause means what it is, apparently straight-faced, contended to mean, and therefore is the only real clause in the Constitution at all -- why did no one think to elaborate upon it?

Why all that wasted time on Amendments and specific powers of Congress, the President, and the Courts, when the only real grant of power in the Constitution is the Commerce Clause?

Answers? Take your choice:

1. Because the Founders wanted to disguise an unlimited grant of power to the federal government in a six or seven word clause and so hid Supreme Unchecked Federal Power amid a 4400 word smoke-and-mirrors deception.

2. Um, they never intended it to mean anything like this, but only what it was taken to mean for 150 years, that is, as federal rules-making regarding tariffs and other state-created impediments to unfettered trade of goods across state boundaries.

Your choice.

You know what the Brain Trust at Time Magazine thinks.

Posted by: Ace at 11:24 AM | Comments (211)
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Closet conservative and Reagan fan?

John Lennon was a closet Republican, who felt a little embarrassed by his former radicalism, at the time of his death - according to the tragic Beatles star's last personal assistant.

Fred Seaman worked alongside the music legend from 1979 to Lennon's death at the end of 1980 and he reveals the star was a Ronald Reagan fan who enjoyed arguing with left-wing radicals who reminded him of his former self.

In new documentary Beatles Stories, Seaman tells filmmaker Seth Swirsky Lennon wasn't the peace-loving militant fans thought he was while he was his assistant.

Interesting. As much as I've heard and read about Lennon's life, I don't recall anything from the late 70's. I was just a kid, but it seemed like he was out of the high-profile, professional radical business by then. On the other hand, being a Republican at that time would have been the radical thing, especially in his social circle.
more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 09:35 AM | Comments (238)
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I've been wondering about this, but before I write a post postulating "This is what I think is going on," I thought I'd ask for input.

Because it doesn't matter to Andrew Breitbart what I say, after all. He skips to the comments.

Here's the question, with a preamble. There is a lot of anger at the Establishment, and, as a first matter then, at the idea of credentialism.

I've attacked the idea of credentialism myself. But I think there are two different strains of anti-credentialism, which I'll term Weak Form and Strong Form.

The Weak Form of the anti-credentialist impulse says that just because you have relevant training or experience, or some degree, doesn't necessarily mean anything. Perhaps you know what you're talking about. Perhaps you don't. But the credentials you carry are but most weak circumstantial evidence that you know what you're talking about.

The Strong Form of the anti-credentialist impulse says that typical credentials are not only not necessarily evidence of competency, but in fact positive evidence against competency. That is, where the Weak Form would say a credential is at most weak evidence you're the right sort of person for a task, the Strong Form would call it evidence, but in the opposite direction, that your credential makes it less likely that you are qualified for the task.

I'm curious about this because things I've generally considered good credentials for high executive office -- such as experience in high executive office on the state level -- seem to not only be largely diminshed in terms of relevancy, but almost taken as relevant in the wrong sort of way, that is, as affirmative evidence of the taint of corruption and Establishmentitis and the rest of it.

Is this the current tension in the Republican Party? Between Weak Form anti-credentialists and Strong Form anti-credentialists?

Note this implicates an almost exactly parallel argument about "elitism," as credentialism and elitism are inextricably intertwined.

Posted by: Ace at 08:36 AM | Comments (648)
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Seems to be a Palin supporter, but that's the target audience, of course.

"The movie's not about me. It's about America's values."

Couple of quotes that leave her decision, as ever, up in the air:

"We're gonna go down fighting!"

Suggests a run.

But, on the other hand, she immediately says "You don't need a title, or a position, to make a difference."

Suggests continued agitation as a private citizen.

And not putting this up to bait, but just because it doesn't deserve it's own post-- Perry narrowly leads field of Romney, Bachmann, and Palin among Tea Partiers.

But I wonder what the numbers would be if Palin weren't included -- would most of her support go to Bachmann?

more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:05 AM | Comments (128)
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Topics that might be covered:

-Afghanistan

-How much Republicans want to kill old people

-Debt negotiation

-How much Republicans want to kick children out of schools and force them into working in mines

-Unemployment

-Bush and his responsibility for all that is wrong in America

-Repeated demands that people unnamed allow him to be clear for God's sake

Just guessing, that's all.

This was supposed to start at 11:30 EDT but it's now 11:37 and no sign of Obama.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:26 AM | Comments (440)
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Via Allah.

72% of all adults (not registered voters) and that includes 50% of self-identified Republicans.

That 72% number is for the entire plan but the second questions they ask, "What is your view of withdrawing 30,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan over the next 15 months -- do you think that number is too high, about right, or too low?"

The overall "about right" number was 43%, (57% for Democrats, 40% for Independents and only 35% for Republicans). 19% think it's too high and 29% say too low

(Update: As Allah pointed out to me on Twitter, the 29% want a faster pull out than the 20K next year so that gets you back to the 72% for question 1.)

Well, that 30,000 number is part of the overall number that 72% were pretty excited about in question 1.

Clearly Americans are looking for a way out of Afghanistan and are happy to see the process start but still seem unready to simply walk away (which, even with Obama's hyper accelerated drawdown plan, isn't on the table.).

The real question is, where will people be in a year when the drawdown is being highlighted by Obama as part of his reelection campaign? If I had to bet, I'd guess the 20k number will be more popular. Either the situation will be stable which will make people think it's ok to keep pulling out or it will be a mess and people will want to wash their hands of it. That's probably Obama's political calculation, either way his pullback is popular.

Meanwhile back in Kaubl, the attack on the Intercontinental Hotel killed at least 9 people.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:20 AM | Comments (133)
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Last week, the MBM went crazy with stories about how Jon Huntsman would be an ideal candidate to run against Obama. Could it be that the full-court press on Huntsman's behalf actually backfired among Republican voters? Looks like it:

Although former Utah Gov. and former Ambassador to China Huntsman received considerable news coverage last week with the formal announcement of his candidacy, his image among Republicans is getting worse, not better. . . . More significantly, Huntsman's Positive Intensity Score is down to 2 from 5 a week ago. Earlier this year it had been as high as 15.

It's almost as if Republicans aren't buying the shit the media is shoveling.

Gallup notes that, excepting Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain, the other declared candidates (Gingrich, Pawlenty, Paul, Johnson) have also seen drops in support since they got in the race. Their drops took much longer to accomplish, though, and did not include a week's worth of puff-pieces from the legacy media.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:23 AM | Comments (182)
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The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:51 AM | Comments (156)
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Hmm. I don't know what I'm doing. This looks so easy when Maet and CDMR CDR M [Smart Military Blog™ edit] do it.

So, I'm pimping Doctor Who lately. I hear this video a David Tenant parodying actors is pretty funny.

Old and Busted: Trashy iPhone Mirror Pictures
New Hotness: Trashy iPad Mirror Pictures

1, due to budget cut-backs, zoos are pressed for money.

2, people like to have sex, except they get bored of sex, and then need to have sex in odd places.

Conclusion: Zoos should allow sleepover guests so people can have sex next to the tigers.

Chick performs Cee-Lo's "F*** you" in sign language, with a cute little dance. more...

Posted by: Ace at 05:47 PM | Comments (789)
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