Change and Hope?

Let's agree to Change so that we can Hope!

Without Change there can be no Hope.

Obama, Turning the Rule of Law Upside Down

The Obama administration has a real affinity for Alice in Wonderland interpretations of the law. According to both Mr. Obama and Humpty Dumpty,  the law means what they say it means, the writings be damned.

We've seen this with their defense of Obamacare. Seeking a constitutional grounding for taking over the medical payments industry, Obama's lawyers are claiming authority under a power to regulate interstate commerce. Fair enough, but it stretches language to its limits, and turns it completely upside down to define my decision not to participate in the program, perhaps instead napping in the afternoon, doing nothing at all, as commerce.

Under this theory, Mr. Obama can order a seemingly endless number of improvements to our lives. A decision not to buy a car this year can be reversed by regulation. Presumably the Department of Commerce could decide that auto sales are a national priority and that we must purchase a car to support the country. Further, since the Obama administration retains a multi-billion dollar investment in General Motors, a person could be specifically ordered to buy a Chevy or a GMC. We could be required to buy broccoli and asparagus weekly, and be ordered to prove we actually ate them. Think the observation is extreme, not so. Obamacare would require of each of us similar actions in an area that has never before been subject to federal oversight. Under Mr. Obama's vision, there's no corner of our lives that would be immune from federal oversight.

Now comes news that according to the Obama mandarins running the National Labor Relations Board, to move a company from a heavily unionized state to a right to work state is illegal. In an amazing display of arrogance, Lafe Solomon, the NLRB's chief lawyer, has adopted the position pushed by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers that Boeing should be required to abandon its efforts to build its new 787 in North Carolina and instead manufacture the plane in Washington State. Boeing has already hired 2,500 North Carolinians to build the plane.

According to Mr. Solomon, a corporate decision to not manufacture in a location because of a history or work stoppages and delivery delays, high costs or unfriendly labor environment is against the law. Only if the purpose is political payback from Mr. Obama to his organized labor supporters, by far his largest contributors, can this decision be other than insane.

As unions have become ever more thuggish over the decades, employers and their employees have voted with their feet, fleeing the inhospitable for the welcoming. Here, with a h/t to Forbes, is a graphic illustration of the thousands of people who fled union-controlled Detroit for friendlier climates:

Each red line represents 200 residents leaving Detroit in 2008. In-migration, to the extent there is any, is shown by the black lines.

Notice the correlation with right-to-work states, as shown here:

The majority of population movement from the nation's most notorious union headquarters city outside of Washington, DC., is to states that offer a better labor environment.

Now, according to the Obama's NLRB, the employers of everyone of those migrants could face prosecution for actions that might be construed as "retaliation" against unions.

Last, but probably not the final example, Mr. Obama's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been actively arranging to supply illegally purchased firearms to Mexico's drug cartels. This effort, aptly codenamed Gunrunner, allowed thousands of illegally-purchased guns to walk across the southern border with the knowledge and specific approval of the federal agency charged with keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. Two of the rifles the BATFE arranged to deliver to the crime cartels were later used to kill a federal agent.

As Humpty Dumpty recognized long ago, "The questions is, 'Which is to be master, that's all.'"

That question is with us still.

To Obama, A Lie Is Now The "Linchpin"

During his single-minded drive last year to secure passage of his signature health insurance plan, President Obama repeatedly and intensely defended the costs as fees or premiums, anything but a tax. According to the administration, from top to bottom, and specifically including the president, there are no taxes contained in the thousands of pages of Obamacare.

Now, though nothing has changed except the bill has become law by the barest of majorities, the administration is forced to defend Obamacare against lawsuits by nearly half the states. In a court of law, fenced in by the rules of law, the administration terms the penalties mandating those payments that are paid to insurance companies and private insurance pools rather than to any government as federal taxes. It is the first time in history that federal rulers have ordered consumers to buy a specific product from specific companies.

According to President Obama, speaking to a national audience on ABC's This Week, Obamacare "is not a tax increase."

According to The New York Times' reporting, when George Stephanopolous said the penalty appeared to fit the dictionary definition of a tax, Mr. Obama replied, “I absolutely reject that notion.”

The power of the president to order consumers to purchase specific products or services is apparently unlimited.

When Solicitor General Kagan, the administration's top lawyer, was pressed during confirmation hearings into her nomination as a Justice to the Supreme Court to name any product that under Obama's theory of the law lies outside the power of the president to order consumers' purchases, she was unable to name even one.

Of course, any government that can tell Chrysler's creditors to take a hike, that can order a foreign oil company to cough up $20 billion of shareholders' funds without so much as a hearing, a trial, or a scrap of legal authority, will certainly feel free to tell it's citizens where to buy insurance.

Or their gasoline.

Or their pancakes.

UPDATE: Randy Barnett at The Volokh Conspiracy tears the administration a new linchpin hole, pointing out that this would be the first time in history for a tax on non-action or a non-event.
Do you suppose Rahm Emanuel spends a portion of his time manufacturing crises?

Where Are Pelosi's 400,000 Immediate New Jobs?

At the health care summit on February 25, Nancy Pelosi told her colleagues and the American people that Obamacare would create 4 million new jobs, 400,000 "almost immediately."

She said

So this bill is not only about the health security of America, it's about jobs. In it's life, it will create 4 million jobs - 400,000 jobs almost immediately. Jobs not only in the health care industry, but in the entrepreneurial world as well"

Perhaps someone in the MSM will ask her what her meaning of immediately is.




Or, what the meaning of is is.

Obamacare, "A Kidney Stone the Size of a Buick"

Coco Letterman, whom I'm certain is no relation to the TV-star pervert sharing the same last name, describes the current state of the health care effort over at QuincyNews.org

The bill that just won’t die just won’t pass, either. People have had easier times passing kidney stones the size of Buicks than democrats have had passing this bill.

That catches it alright. Democrats are straining, in horrible pain that they cannot relieve. Stopping doesn't help; pushing hurts even more but seems impossible to avoid.

This may be a case of a terminal stone, fatal foolishness.

Be a friend in need, send some lilies to a liberal while they're still conscious.

The Administration's Health Care Accelerator is Stuck Full Open

Watching the Obama administration's efforts to herd the congressional snakes into a loose formation on Obamacare makes me wonder whether the effort was engineered by Toyota.

In spite of all the warning signs at the side of the legislative highway, the three blowout elections, the retirements, the polls where two-thirds of voters say "Slow, rough road ahead," the President has pushed the pedal to the medal.

He is either going to spin his party off Deadman's Curve at 120mph or run them off the cliff that waits at the end of the road.

It's a wild ride, one more in keeping with an out of control compulsive or addictive personality than a rational leader.

President Obama, DUI.