BREAKING NEWS: SUPREME COURT TO REVIEW EPA CLIMATE RULES

The Supreme Court has today granted cert to review the EPA’s greenhouse gas rules.  This is highly significant.  The  high court clearly botched the last global warming case, Massachusetts v. EPA, back in 2007.  Maybe they’ll correct themselves.

My rabbi in these legal tangles, Jonathan Adler of Case Western University law school and the Volokh Conspiracy, comments:

This is quite significant. Although the grant is limited, it focuses on one of the most important legal questions raised by this litigation, and puts some of the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources in play.

Harvard’s Richard Lazarus comments:

The Court’s jurisdictional ruling is significant in terms of both what the Court granted and did not grant. The regulations the Court has agreed to review represent the Obama Administration’s first major rulemaking to address the emissions of greenhouse gases from major stationary sources across the country. At the same time, the Court declined to review EPA’s determination that greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles endanger public health and welfare and therefore has left intact the government’s current regulation of motor vehicles emissions to address climate change.

I largely agree, but would go farther in certain respects. . . the question presented will force the Court to confront the consequences the Mass decision. In particular, this case will force the Court to reconsider the assumption made by Justice Stevens in Mass v. EPA that application of the Clean Air Act to GHGs would not produce absurd results. As we’ve since learned, applying the CAA to GHGs does produce such results.

Via: Powerline

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Unions may win Obamacare fix in budget deal

Divisions among conservative Republicans may leave the GOP unable to block Democrats from including an Obamacare fix that labor unions have demanded in a deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling.

Labor groups want to delay a reinsurance fee they say would raisehealth care costs for their members.

Republicans are generally opposed to a carve-out for unions, who are among Obama’s staunchest supporters and helped push through Obamacare. But because many conservatives also see the reinsurance fee as a tax, Republicans are in a difficult position. Many suggest they’ll accept the concession to unions, but want other changes in the health care law.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Senate conservatives would find it difficult to swallow any budget deal this week that includes a specific tweak to Obamacare benefitting unions without also delaying the requirement on all individuals to purchase insurance or face a fine.

“That would be a real overreach on the part of Democrats,” Grassley told the Washington Examiner Monday afternoon.

Grassley was quick to say that he is not part of the small group of Senate Republicans consulting with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, in his negotiations with Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

But based on conversations he's had with like-minded conservative Republicans, Grassley predicted any deal that created another Obamacare carve-out without lifting the individual mandate could spark a revolt from the right.

He said that “a senator that has holds on every Obama administration official” could try to filibuster a bill allowing the concession to unions.

Grassley’s colleagues said they believed he was referring to either Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, or Mike Lee, R-Utah, who have led the charge to delay or defund Obamacare in a government funding bill.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Ann Coulter Talks to Mediaite About Issuing a ‘Fatwa’ for Conservatives, and Why She Mostly Watches MSNBC

Ann Coulter is back with her latest book, Never Trust a Liberal Over Three — Especially a Republican , and this time she’s taking aim not just at the usual suspects on the left, but also the Republican Party and the forces within that have consistently lost many recent elections. Unlike previous Coulter works, the book concedes that Democrats do something better than their GOP counterpart: They know how to win elections, she writes. In a recent interview, Coulter talked to Mediaite about the book, her outlook for the GOP, and why she actually watches MSNBC more than any other cable news outlet. Read below, in two pages:

This book seems to take a more defeatist tone than your others. At one point, you write: “Even when we win, we can’t win.” Have you given up?

I speak for a lot of Americans when I say that. After Nov. 6, 2012, I was out. I was done with politics. I was actually considering starting to write columns on Gossip Girls,Revenge, the cultural stuff I enjoy. But then I got reinvigorated by the gun debate. And so I tried to lure people back into conservative politics by writing a fun book.

Your basic case seems to be that Republicans need to learn how to win elections…

I’m like the conservative ayatollah. Okay, I’m issuing a fatwa: We have to win elections! After Mitt Romney’s loss, it was a natural human tendency to lurch towards a silver-bullet solution. Some people blamed the tea party, others blamed the “establishment.” In some cases, sure, but the main thing is that with the right, it’s about self-expression. For example: In 2008, I supported Rep. Duncan Hunter during the GOP primaries. It was stupid of me to support him, even though he’s good on every single issue. Why? Because my next door neighbor is good on every issue. But we need someone who can win. We need to see how sneaky, manipulative, and single-minded Dems are about winning elections.

You write a lot about how the Democrats are “better” at winning elections…

When it comes to electoral politics, the Democrats operate on brains. They win elections by looking at electorate and modeling their races; Republicans win on national waves. The GOP does nothing and just happens to get elected when Americans are frustrated.

I’m proud of Republicans for being the party of ideas. But when it comes to elections, we lose that. For instance, right now conservatives are tearing down [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell. But what did he do?! By attempting to primary him, they’re just mirroring their concern about getting back “respectable” Republicans. I don’t even know who the establishment candidate that Mitch was pushing that pissed everyone off. Did he run any differently than Rand Paul? No. Mitch didn’t support the amnesty plan. Rand was supporting that for a month. It’s this image thing that “We are the purists, we’re against the establishment.” But that’s how liberals are.

And think about this: In the last GOP primary, Romney was the only candidate — other than Michele Bachmann — who absolutely opposed amnesty. So whose side were the ones calling him a RINO on then? Huh? The average American hates amnesty; and who sold them out? Not Romney, but Marco Rubio.

We have to get away from shibboleths and focus on races.

Via: Mediaite.com

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Report: Washington political reporters flak for President Obama at meeting with Leon Panetta

When former Obama administration Defense Secretary Leon Panetta dared to criticize his old boss’ handling of the government shutdown, a group of Washington political reporters were there to leap to President Barack Obama’s defense.

“You have to engage in the process,” Panetta said, criticizing Obama at a Monday breakfast sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, according to an account by liberal Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus. “This is a town where it’s not enough to feel you have the right answers. You’ve got to roll up your sleeves and you’ve got to really engage in the process … that’s what governing is all about.”

This propelled some political reporters in the room to justify Obama’s lack of leadership, reports Marcus.

“To some extent, the reporters in the room seemed more forgiving of the circumstances in which the president finds himself,” she wrote. “Jackie Calmes of The New York Times noted that the Panetta-envisioned budget deal was illusory because Republicans refuse to consider new tax revenue. Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times observed that the White House would argue that its previous efforts at schmoozing and deal-making had fizzled.”

Panetta, who also served as CIA director under Obama, is an expert in budget negotiations from his experience serving as chief of staff and director of the Office of of Management and Budget under President Bill Clinton, and as chairman of the House Budget Committee when he served as a Democratic representative in Congress. According to Marcus, he pushed back against the reporters’ justifications for the president’s failure to come to a budget deal with Republicans.

“Just because you’ve engaged in some set of negotiations and they haven’t gone anywhere — for one reason or another there’s been a breakdown — is no reason to walk away from the table,” he reportedly said. “In this town, you’ve got to stay with it. You’ve got to stay at it.”

According to Marucs, Panetta dismissed the idea of creating “some razzle-dazzle supercommittee” to solve the budgetary impasse, arguing that the key players need to be locked in a room until they come to a solution.

“If the president, for whatever reason, feels he can’t do it because the Republicans don’t want to confront him, then he ought to be willing to delegate that responsibility to someone who can do it,” Panetta reportedly concluded.

Via: Daily Caller

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New center: Why our nation isn't as divided as we think

AP

Silhouettes of people's heads are seen in front of an 2012 electoral U.S. Map.

It's the most conventional wisdom in Washington, the unchallenged idea that America is a divided nation, a country ripped into red and blue factions in perpetual conflict. The government shutdown this fall would seem like only the latest evidence of this political civil war. But is the idea of two Americas even true? Not according to a new Esquire-NBC News survey.

At the center of national sentiment there's no longer a chasm but a common ground where a diverse and growing majority - 51% - is bound by a surprising set of shared ideas.

"Just because Washington is polarized doesn't mean America is," says Robert Blizzard, a partner at Public Opinion Strategies, the lead pollster for Mitt Romney in 2012. His firm co-created the survey with the Benenson Strategy Group, pollsters for President Obama, and the result is a nation in eight distinct segments: two on the far right ("The Righteous Right" and "The Talk Radio Heads"), two on the far left ("The Bleeding Hearts" and "The Gospel Left"), and four in the middle that represent nothing less than a new American center ("Minivan Moderates," "The MBA Middle," "The Pick-up Populists, and "The #WhateverMan.")

Play Video

Political theater takes center stage on Capitol Hill

Lawrence Lindsey, The Lindsey Group CEO, shares his thoughts on the looming government shutdown and why he would have a different kind of "transparency" at the Fed.

The people of the center are patriotic and proud, with a strong majority (66 percent) saying that America is still the greatest country in the world, and most (54 percent) calling it a model that other countries should emulate. But the center is also very nervous about the future, overwhelmingly saying that America can no longer afford to spend money on foreign aid (81 percent) when we need to build up our own country.

Pluralities believe that the political system is broken (49 percent), and the economy is bad (50 percent) and likely to stay that way a while (41 percent). Majorities fear another 9/11 or Boston-style bombing is likely (70 percent), and that their children's lives will be more difficult than their own (62 percent), which are either stuck in place or getting worse (84 percent) — while the rich keep getting richer at the expense of everyone else (70 percent).

Via: CNBC

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Obama Admin Completely Unprepared for Individual Mandate Exemptions Process; Politico Calls It 'Another Big Hurdle'

The Obama administration and HHS secretary Kathleen Sibelius have had 3-1/2 years to get ready for Obamacare's rollout. Though we have yet to learn all of the gory details, America already knows what an unmitigated disaster HealthCare.gov has been thus far. But at least one could argue (not successfully, in my opinion, but work with me on this) that "programmming is hard."

That's not the case with another aspect of Obamacare implementation, namely the handling of exemptions from the individual mandate. The forms involved, the generation of which should have been a relative breeze and which obviously should have been ready eons ago, are at least a month away. Instead of describing this situation as yet another miserable failure, Kyle Cheney at the Politico, perhaps signaling to other establishment press outlets that they shouldn't consider this a big deal (though it clearly is), merely characterized it as "another big hurdle," and kept "individual mandate" out of his headline. Excerpts follow the jump (HT to a frequent emailer; bolds are mine):

Exemptions pose another big hurdle for Obamacare

Think you’re exempt from Obamacare’s individual mandate? Good luck proving it.

The health law’s least popular component — the requirement to obtain insurance or face a tax penalty — also features a lengthy list of exceptions for people facing certain hardships like foreclosure, domestic violence or homelessness. Members of certain religious sects or Native American tribes also are exempt.

But if the online system for getting into Obamacare coverage is rickety, the system for getting out of the mandate doesn’t even exist yet. HHS says it will take another month at least for the administration to finalize the forms.

That would make it mid-November. Being generous to a fault with government work, that really means "after Thanksgiving," i.e., December 2 or late

Via: Newsbusters

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[VIDEO] Banned from Handing Out Constitutions on Constitution Day

On Constitution Day this year, Robert Van Tuinen, an Army veteran and a student at Modesto Junior College (MJC) in California, was trying to pass out copies of the United States Constitution and drum up support for his proposed Young Americans for Liberty chapter on campus. School administrators at MJC didn’t like this and decided to shut him down in spite of the fact that MJC is a public university that must comply with the First Amendment.

Luckily, Van Tuinen caught the entire episode on tape.

In the video, school officials make a variety of vague justifications for shutting down his protected speech, including this gem:

School security: Who you are representing today is The Heritage Foundation.

Van Tuinen: I’m not representing The Heritage Foundation. They simply made the [pocket] Constitutions, which [are] the highest law of the land, that I am passing out.

Van Tuinen filed suit yesterday in federal court, alleging violations of his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Van Tuinen has some First Amendment heavyweights in his corner,including the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and the case appears to be a slam dunk. It is well-settled law that students don’t give up their First Amendment rights as soon as they enroll. Other, similar “free speech zones” have been struck down by federal courtsbefore.

Via: The Foundry

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DOCTOR SPEAKS OUT AGAINST JERRY BROWN'S NEW ABORTION LAW

ABC 10: SAN DIEGO - We sat down with San Diego Assemblymember Toni Atkins after her controversial abortion bill, which was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last week. While Atkins argues that AB154 is all about access to abortion for women, a San Diego doctor says its more about profits for groups like Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry. AB154 was authored by Atkins, who represents the 78th district. Brown signed the controversial legislation as soon as it crossed his desk, giving California women more access to abortion. “AB154 allows nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives and physicians assistants to do the abortion procedure in the first trimester up to 12 weeks,” said Atkins. At 12 weeks, the baby's brain starts to make hormones and hair and nails begin to grow. Six weeks before that, the baby's heart first begins to beat. Atkins said the landmark legislation that has also been enacted in New Hampshire, Vermont, Oregon and Montana is all about access for women. “There are fewer and fewer and fewer providers who doing the procedure every year and it really impacts women's ability to get a legal abortion," said Atkins. "The medical society supports it, nurses groups support it, the medical establishment supports it because they know that this is good legislation." But Dr. George Delgado, who practices family medicine here San Diego is against AB154 because he said it will put women at serious risk. “Our California women deserve better," said Delgado. "We will have inadequately trained non physicians performing surgical abortions and they don't have the depth of training necessary to handle the complications such as bleeding, damage to the uterus and severe infection. The study underlying this law show that the non-physicians had twice the number of complications compared to the physicians and this was in a very highly controlled environment,." The bill's supporters included the California Medical Association, the California Women's Health Alliance and the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Project of Los Angeles County. The bill’s opponents include the California Catholic Conference and the Traditional Values Coalition. Brian Johnston, executive director of the California Pro-Life Council, said his group and others are considering a referendum or other legal challenge to the measure. The coalition said the governor "has put profits of the abortion industry above the health and well-being of women and children." Forty-seven nurse practitioners and other non-doctors have already been trained to provide abortions when the new law takes effect January 1, 2014.

Via: Breitbart

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Obama was looking for company with single-payer expertise

Was President Barack Obama aiming for a tech company well-versed in designing websites for a single-payer health system when he awarded the now glitch-riddled healthcare.gov contract to Canadian CGI?

Behind all the glitches, and at the heart of the utterly stalled healthcare.gov, that’s exactly what CGI is: the Canadian tech firm—Canada’s largest—that has provided to Canada’s single-payer health system.

Is that the dirty little secret hidden behind the public embarrassment that even after spending $93.7 million—a figure expected to double to correct—the Obama administration can’t get healthcare.gov up and running?

“CGI Federal Inc., a subsidiary based in Fairfax, Va., was awarded a US$93.7-million contract over two years ago to help design and develop the federal insurance exchange.”

“The “CGI” in the parent company’s name stands for “Conseillers en Gestion et Informatique” in French, which roughly translates to “Information Systems and Management Consultants”.  However the firm offers another translation: “Consultants to Government and Industry”. (Washington Examiner, Oct. 4, 2013).

“The company is deeply embedded in Canada’s single-payer system.  CGI has provided IT services to the Canadian Ministries of Health in Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Saskatchewan, as well as the the national health provider, Health Canada.”

3

And that information has been available on CGI’s Canadian website all along.

Like ‘The Big Engine That Couldn’t’, healthcare.gov is wearing the ‘System Failure’ sign two weeks after its launch.

Those blankety-blank glitches that keep healthcare.gov in goof mode are not the fault of George W. Bush.  Now it’s Canada’s fault.  That’s the Obama administration’s story and they’re sticking to it.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Civility Deb

Debbie Wasserman Schultz is out, today, with her first book.  In his Politico Playbook, Mike Allen calls it a "D.C. Must-Read."  Which, if true, is the most depressing news to come out of the Imperial City so far this week. But, then, it is only Tuesday.

Anyway … the book is called For the Next Generation: A Wake-Up Call to Solving Our Nation's Problems.  

Just what the country needs, a wake-up call.  Why didn't someone think of that sooner?

Allen reports that Ms. Wasserman Schultz:

...started writing the book three years ago because she wanted to describe how being a young mom changed her outlook on what members of Congress should do to make good policy: “We tell our kids to work together and care about their community. We need to do the same.”  

And quotes from a chapter called “Discourse, Not Discord”:

“Differences of opinion are natural and healthy aspects of a democracy governed by two parties, and we must be able to express these differences with civility. But as anyone who has observed Washington knows, we are not always able to hold ourselves to these standards of conduct. The modern political climate is nastier than any in recent memory, marked by party members who tend to hector one another when they should be engaged in constructive debate.”

Outside of Washington that sort of stuff is laughable. 

"Civility," thanks to the Wasserman Schultz’s of the world, has become another word without meaning.  Only political utility.  

Via: Weekly Standard

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The Birthplace of American Liberty Defies Obama's Tyranny

I grew up in Concord, Massachusetts, and my elementary and high-school education was infused with the history that was all around us, so I was very curious to know just how the shutdown of the nation's parks had affected my most favorite part of Minute Man National Park -- the Old North Bridge.

Had the Park Service wrapped the iconic Minute Man sculpture by Daniel Chester French in burlap, so the tourists couldn't see it? I took a few minutes on a perfectly gorgeous Columbus Day to find out.

 

As I expected, the parking lots had been chained off, the bathrooms were locked, and the park headquarters (the old Stedman Buttrick Georgian-style mansion) was closed up. Monument Street (foreground in the picture) is actually a long residential street with parking allowed along most of it, and with parking prohibited only in the immediate vicinity of the Bridge. So some tourists had parked by the side of the road and walked a few hundred feet to the Bridge.

Via: American Thinker

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