Challenging all morons to kick in $51 dollars for 51 seats today.
Donate $5 to each candidate below, and a buck to whomever you like in the Wisconsin or Missouri races. If there is any possible chance of undoing ObamaTax, you need more than just President Romney. You need a Republican Senate (and with seats to spare, IYKWIM,VCD).

MA-SENATE (Current hold, leans R, most vulnerable seat for us) DONATE
NV-SENATE (Current hold, leans R, 2nd most vulnerable)DONATE
VA-SENATE DONATE
OH-SENATE DONATE
FL-SENATE DONATE
ND-SENATE DONATE
MT-SENATE DONATE
NM-SENATE DONATE
MI-SENATE DONATE
PA-SENATE DONATE

MO, WI go to whomever you wish. Kick your $1 to 'em.
Holding the first two and flipping 4 of the next ten gets us 51 (Nebraska is ours), anything more is gravy.

Posted by: CAC at 12:28 PM | Comments (120)
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This is that red-banner headline Drudge has -- but the site is overloaded and can't be reached.

But JohnE. reached it earlier, and sent it by email.

This is from Roll Call. Update: Link now appears to be working.

Darrell Issa Puts Details of Secret Wiretap Applications in Congressional Record

By Jonathan Strong
Roll Call Staff
June 29, 2012, 12:06 p.m.

...

The wiretap applications are under court seal, and releasing such information to the public would ordinarily be illegal. But Issa appears to be protected by the Speech or Debate Clause in the Constitution, which offers immunity for Congressional speech, especially on a chamberÂ’s floor.

According to the letter, the wiretap applications contained a startling amount of detail about the operation, which would have tipped off anyone who read them closely about what tactics were being used.

Holder and Cummings have both maintained that the wiretap applications did not contain such details and that the applications were reviewed narrowly for probable cause, not for whether any investigatory tactics contained followed Justice Department policy.

The wiretap applications were signed by senior DOJ officials in the departmentÂ’s criminal division, including Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco and another official who is now deceased.

...

The tactic, which was intended to allow agents to track criminal networks by finding the guns at crime scenes [???], was condemned after two guns that were part of the operation were found at U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian TerryÂ’s murder scene.

What? That's the first I've seen it reported, as a fact, that the intent was actually murder -- that they'd track the guns via their appearance at murders (and other crime scenes).

Is that now established?

How do you track guns without tracking them? A: Apparently you just wait until they're used to kill people, then you know where they ended up.

I can't quote it all; even though their site is currently unreachable, I'm still constrained by Fair Use. But check the link at Drudge periodically.

Posted by: Ace at 10:08 AM | Comments (472)
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Via @gaypatriot, consumer spending is the weakest in six months.

Consumer spending stalled in May as stagnant wages and slackening employment held back the biggest part of the U.S. economy.

Purchases were little changed after a 0.1 percent rise the prior month that was smaller than initially reported, according to Commerce Department figures issued today in Washington. Another report showed household sentiment dropped this month to the lowest level of the year.

In some possibly good news, Europe says it's had a "breakthrough" on its finance crisis.

Before quoting it, I'll just mention the old truism that diplomats only announce success, because a diplomat defines "success" as "an agreement." They're not in the business of solutions, they're in the business of agreement.

And yes, this is a negotiation among sovereigns, so it is a diplomatic effort.

And they've struck an agreement.

But I don't see how any agreement changes the basic math: Most of Europe is spending more than it is willing to pay, backstopped by German wealth, and the Germans, for obvious reasons, don't want to continue subsidizing the rest of Europe.

But they have an "agreement."

Under the deal, European leaders agreed to create a single supervisory body to oversee the eurozone's banks which could use the single currency area's rescue funds, the European Financial Stability Facility or European Stability Mechanism, to aid banks directly without adding to governments' debt.

Without reading the details: This would mean Germany is funding an emergency stabilization fund, which is then used to recapitalized the failing, near-bankrupt banks of the PIIGs.

And that will tide them over... until the next time they need to borrow a few dozen billion on Germany's account.

Posted by: Ace at 08:48 AM | Comments (188)
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Devall Patrick, an Obama surrogate, re-stated on a conference call that the ObamaTax was not a tax, but a penalty.

“Don’t believe the hype that the other side is selling,” Patrick said on a conference call organized by President Obama’s campaign.

“I just want to respond to the frankly bizarre attack, which is the claim this act represents a big tax increase on the middle class,” Patrick said. “First, this is a penalty. It’s about dealing with the freeloaders -- the folks who now get their care without insurance in high-cost emergency room setting. And all the rest of us pay for it today."

Taxes are for the purpose of raising revenues, not for penalizing activities (or inactivities) the government doesn't favor. So on that score, he's right.

Okay, let's put this in writing. Let's pass a law that states, unambiguously, that neither Congress nor the President believe that this is a tax, and do not intend it to be a tax, and do not mean for it to have the legal classification of a tax. That it is and shall be American law that the mandate is not a tax for any purposes, including as parsed by the courts.

Let's pass that bill, and send it on over to the President for his signature. After all, he says it's not a tax.

Or Do It The Other Way... and propose that Democrats state it's officially a tax.

If they decline, bring suit again.

via @tsrbike.

Good Piece By Richard Epstein: He wrote in the NYT, but I'm linking American Thinker.

As a matter of constitutional text, legal history and logic, the power to regulate commerce and the power to tax should not be separated. It is not good for the court or the country that the chief justice's position in such an important case is confused at its core.

...

Through the early 20th century, the Supreme Court was cognizant of this tight relationship between the power to regulate an activity directly and to the power to tax it. The basic idea relies on a simple economic insight: taxation and regulation are close substitutes, so a limitation on one power matters little if the other power is still available. There is no practical difference between ordering an action, and taxing or fining people who don't do that same thing. If the Constitution limits direct federal powers, it must also limit Congress's indirect power of taxation.

...

Chief Justice Roberts has ignored this fundamental principle: If direct regulation is beyond the scope of the Commerce Clause (as he held), then taxation as an indirect route to the same regulation should be off limits as well (as he failed to hold).

Obama's lawyers urged to Roberts that the federal government's powers were unlimited, via the Commerce Clause.

Roberts sharply disagreed -- he ruled the federal government's powers were unlimited, via the taxing power.

Color me unpersuaded by the chorus of "Wow, we super-won the long-game!"

That last bit via Andy, @theh2.

Posted by: Ace at 09:24 AM | Comments (326)
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Not too shabby.

Meanwhile, via Politico (no link), Obama claims he raised even more than that...

"We've outraised the Romney campaign in that time period but that's not the point - our supporters are more committed than ever to ensuring that insurance companies can't drop coverage for people who get sick or discriminate against people with preexisting conditions by reelecting the President," campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said in an email.

...but won't say how much.

Greg Sergant demonstrates the unwavering nose for news he's known for:

Greg Sargent @ThePlumLineGS
Who cares which campaign raised more in the last 24 hours?

Posted by: Ace at 07:58 AM | Comments (272)
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And he does so to sell a t-shirt proclaiming the same thing.

Is it wise to bait 55% of the public? Tweet here, at Twitchy.

"This Job Is In The Hands of the People:" Jim DeMint rallies The Resistance.

More: Slublog baited Obama back with a series of photoshops mocking Obama's gloating.

Posted by: Ace at 07:25 AM | Comments (188)
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Some pre-emptive butthurt from liberals:

@timothypmurphy: Old enough to remember when reconciliation was an unconscionable abuse of power.

Right, because only you get to use reconciliation to pass a bill, but it would be hypocritical of us to take you at your word -- that the bill is subject to reconciliation -- to repeal it.

Kaus wonders why liberals believe this.

If a law can be passed via reconciliation, how on earth could someone argue with a straight face that it would be improper to modify it -- or repeal it -- via the same process?

Huh? The individual mandate is a tax! The Supreme Court has now told us. Maybe the Senate parliamentarian calls it something else–but whatever you call it, it raises revenue and repealing it would have a budgetary effect, and hence be reconciliationable. Here’s Republican Congressional expert Keith Hennessey admitting that the mandate is subject to reconciliation (and this at a time when his interest was in blocking Obamacare, which meant having as few things subject to reconciliation as possible). Certainly the GOPs could cut the monetary penalty (ax-tay) for not having health insurance to, say, a dime. That would certainly have a budgetary effect and a C.B.O. score.

Maybe the exchanges themselves wouldnÂ’t be reconcilable, but if Romney could get rid of the mandate and the subsidies the exchanges would be stripped of their power as a vehicle to ensure universal coverage. Obamacare would effectively be repealed.

I have no idea why you'd think the exchanges couldn't be repealed by reconciliation -- I say again, they were enacted by reconciliation. If they were fit subjects for reconciliation then -- as part of a "comprehensive scheme" that included, but was not limited to, budgetary matters -- then they can be reconciled away via a "comprehensive scheme" of repeal.

Republican Senators say they're eyeing just this tactic. I wonder what on earth would stay their hand, though, except a desire to betray their voters.

Doing so would be a grievous mistake.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) seemed open to that approach during a speech at The Heritage Foundation shortly after the Supreme Court handed down its decision. The court’s ruling “does present some options for us” to pursue more unconventional options for repeal, DeMint said. He mentioned reconciliation as a potential avenue.

A senior Senate Republican aide involved in the repeal effort later confirmed to Scribe that the GOP will use the budget reconciliation process to repeal the full law, not just the portion requiring all Americans purchase health insurance.

We need 51 Senate seats. That makes it critical to win Democratic seats in Red States -- like Jon Tester's. Tester is popular in Montana, and will of course vote to keep ObamaTax. He'll almost certainly lie about this, but in the end he will vote as he did before -- for ObamaTax.

I don't know what on earth it will take to get Red State voters to finally wake up to this reality. But I know we need to try.

At the end of the say, insult them with an ad asking "Are you really this stupid?," if nothing else works. But they have to be disabused of this idea that just because a Democrat poses in ads with a shotgun that he'll do anything but vote liberal on the tough votes.

Posted by: Ace at 06:12 AM | Comments (329)
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Before that, let me agree with Legal Insurrection: This is a loss, and a bad one. It can be avenged, and it can be undone, but the cheerleaders claiming this is some kind of victory are addlepated.

Sure, we now are motivated for November. And maybe in the end we will get rid of Obamacare.

But that is then and this is now. And under any reasonable theory of conservative judicial restraint, the Chief Justice should have allowed Obamacare to fall of its own weight, of a weight born of a political process in which the mandate could not be called a tax because the nation would not have stood for it.

This is now, and today we should have been rid of this monstrosity.

We live to fight another day, but donÂ’t tell me we won because someday possibly in the future in some other case with some other set of Justices we maybe might achieve some doctrinal benefit from the Commerce Clause ruling.

So please donÂ’t delude yourselves. Today was a bitter loss because it was one we should have won.

But now, about that ObamaTax.

Now, Republicans can attack the law not only for being “big government” but for being a huge tax during in weak economy, adding burdens to middle class taxpayers and slowing economic growth. And the GOP doesn’t have to come up with a detailed plan to “replace” Obama’s health care plan.

“Since politics is the ultimate zero-sum game,” writes Quinnipiac’s Brown,” what’s good for Obama is bad for Romney.”

Well, maybe, but in this case there are two issues – the legal and the political.

The CourtÂ’s decision doesnÂ’t undercut RomneyÂ’s opposition to the law. Instead, it gives him more political ammunition: taxes.

So in the end, the CourtÂ’s ruling is something of a split decision: A big legal win for President Obama that enhances the RepublicansÂ’ political position heading to November.

That said, we already could call it a tax, or tax-like; I don't think we get anything more from the Court's characterization of it as a tax.

But we ought to try, anyway. And the RNC is already trying:

I was annoyed that they didn't include audio of Obama's Solicitor General arguing it's a tax -- because that really makes the connection. To the public, he says it's not a tax; in court, he says it is.

The ad, as it stands, leaves open the possibility, in the minds of those who don't know, that the Supreme Court came up with this characterization themselves.

They didn't. Obama's lawyer argued it.

Oh: See the funny photoshop at the end of this post.

Posted by: Ace at 05:36 AM | Comments (177)
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OK Democrats, enough of this BS (White House Claims ObamaCare Fine A 'Penalty', Despite Court Calling It A Tax). Is Obamacare a tax or not? Answer the friggin' question. Own it.

Oh and Jay Carney, you might want to finally read the law.

Carney went on to say Friday that the "penalty" will affect only about 1 percent of Americans, those who refuse to get health insurance.

Posted by: CDR M at 05:40 PM | Comments (629)
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York says this drove the conservatives on the Court "nuts."

I know it drove me nuts.

I'm going to boldface a single word in this excerpt.

Before getting to the heart of the case, the justices first wanted to deal with what seemed to be a side issue: Was the penalty imposed by the individual mandate in Obamacare a tax? If it was, the case would run afoul of a 19th century-law known as the Anti-Injunction Act, which said a tax cannot be challenged in court until someone has actually been forced to pay it. Since the Obamacare mandate wouldn't go into effect until 2014, that would mean there could be no court case until then.

No one had challenged Obamacare on that basis; the challengers wanted the case to go forward now. The White House, having argued strenuously during the Obamacare debate that the penalty wasn't a tax, wanted to go ahead as well. So the court, on its own, tapped a Washington attorney to make the argument that the penalty was a tax and therefore the case should not go ahead.

...

After Long made his case, it fell to the administration's lawyer, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, to argue that no, the mandate was not a tax, and therefore the case was not subject to the Anti-Injunction Act.

At the same time, everyone knew that the next day, when Verrilli planned to argue that the mandate was justified under the Constitution's Commerce Clause, he had as a backup the argument that it was also justified by Congress' power to levy taxes -- in other words, that it was a tax.

Justice Samuel Alito saw the conflict right away.

"General Verrilli, today you are arguing that the penalty is not a tax," Alito said. "Tomorrow you are going to be back, and you will be arguing that the penalty is a tax. Has the court ever held that something that is a tax for the purposes of the taxing power under the Constitution is not a tax under the Anti-Injunction Act?"

"No," answered Verrilli.

Unprecedented.

It wasn't a tax for purposes of getting it passed politically, also wasn't a tax for purposes of delaying judgment based on the Anti-Injunction Act, but then magically became a tax in order to be upheld.

If the government now has the power under the taxing power to enforce its preferences regarding how citizens live their lives, Ed Morrissey proposes, modestly, a new tax on those who refuse to buy guns.

Allah considered a similar question yesterday: Whether the government could put a punitive tax on you for owning a gun. Gun ownership is a right, he thought, so the ObamaTax logic wouldn't fully apply. You can't burden a right.

Well, owning a gun is a right, but not owning a gun is not a right. Or at least it's no more of a right than not owning insurance.

We can pass a great many laws like this, enforcing our preferences in any area that isn't an explicit (or penumbra-ish) right under the Constitution.

Don't go to Church regularly? Why, we can tax that. And before you say it's your right not to go to church -- of course it is, but we can compel all Americans to spend at least two hours each week on philosophical contemplation, whether it be at church or in Quiet Home Study of non-religious philosophical texts.

If a temporary majority in Congress thinks it's a good idea -- tax away!

The Constitution apparently gives the government the right to dictate almost all of our personal choices, so long as it enforces these preferences via punitive taxes. So let's get started.

Posted by: Ace at 04:58 AM | Comments (179)
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