ObamaCare: Flawed Policy, Flawed Law Even if it were to survive the high court’s judgment, the individual mandate would never work as the law’s drafters intended. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204190704577024322624284592.html?mod=opinion_newsreel The Supreme Court is expected to meet Thursday to discuss whether to hear challenges to last year’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—particularly concerning the constitutionality of the […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204190704577026041280212400.html
Why Gingrich Could Win
Herman Cain’s prospects were good until this week brought accusatory testimony from a woman who showed up in person, with detail.
Newt Gingrich’s rise in the polls—from near zero to the third slot in several polls—should come as no surprise to people who have been watching the Republican debates, now drawing television viewers as never before. The former speaker has stood out at these forums, the debater whose audiences seem to hang on his words and on a flow of thought rich in substance, a world apart from the usual that the political season brings.
“Substance” is too cold a word, perhaps, for the intense feeling that candidate Gingrich delivers so coolly in debates. Too cold too, no doubt, to describe the reactions of his listeners, visible on the faces of the crowds attending these forums—in their expressions, caught on C-SPAN’s cameras, in the speed with which their desultory politeness disappears once a Gingrich talk begins. Their disengagement—the tendency to look around the room, chat with their neighbors—vanishes. The room is on high alert.
The Gingrich effect showed dramatically at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition forum last month—an occasion for which most of the candidates had, not surprisingly, prepared addresses focused on the importance of religion in their lives. Michele Bachmann told how, after struggle and indecision, she had found her way to God. So did Rick Perry. Rick Santorum provided a lengthy narrative on his personal commitment to the battle against partial-birth abortion—a history evidently from which no detail had been omitted. Ron Paul offered quotes from the Old and New Testaments where, it seems, he located support for his views on the dollar.
http://www.jidaily.com/JIYnx
Another Effort to Destroy Israel Elliott Abrams
This weekend marks another milestone in the history of intellectual dishonesty, for the so-called “Russell Tribunal on Palestine” meets in Cape Town, South Africa on November 5th and 6th.
What is the Russell Tribunal? It is the heir to the “International War Crimes Tribunal” to which Bertrand Russell lent his name in 1966. The stated purpose then was “to investigate crimes committed in Vietnam,” or in other words to attack the United States. In those days, the doddering Russell was already in the hands of Ralph Schoenman, the anti-American activist with whom he finally broke in 1969 and who was the driving force behind the “Tribunal.”
The only difference today is that the guns have turned toward Israel. Well, perhaps “guns” is not the right term. What has been turned on Israel is the same torrent of clerical nonsense, virulent bias, and Hollywood-style self-aggrandizement that marked the “Tribunal” in the old days. The 1966 panel was financed in large part by the government of North Vietnam, which no doubt helped assure its carefully balanced neutrality. Back in 1966, the cast of characters included the Soviet fellow traveler Jean-Paul Sartre, Stokely Carmichael, the writers James Baldwin, Julio Cortázar, and of course Simone de Beauvoir, and other worthies. This weekend’s panel is even more impressive. Start with the stars: Israel’s violations of international law will be judged by a group including the eminent experts Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and the Spanish actor Alberto San Juan. Members of the Tribunal’s “Support Committee” include other experts and jurists such as the actress Julie Christie, the fashion designer Agnes B, the great poetess Alice Walker, Cindy Sheehan (the “Peace activist” who at last seems to have abandoned her tent near Crawford, Texas), the British actress Juliet Stevenson, Norman Finkelstein (whose writings on the Holocaust got him denied tenure at De Paul University)—and, of course, Noam Chomsky. Also listed are Harold Pinter, Howard Zinn, and Julio Saramago, whose active support will be harder to arrange as all three are dead. There are also on the list people who should know better and ought to be ashamed of themselves—but won’t.
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/613/instant_view_sarkozy_s_netanyahu_insult_shows_he_s_the_aspiring_clown_of_europe
Nicolas Sarkozy has said Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is a “liar” in conversation with a pliant Barak Obama. But both men are mediocrities with no room to criticise anyone.
If there’s one European leader who must be trembling in his boots at the thought that Silvio Berlusconi might soon be forced from office it is surely Nicolas Sarkozy.
For, if the Italian leader goes, the title “Clown of Europe” is Sarkozy’s for the taking.
Only last month he was caught telling British Prime Minister David Cameron that he had “missed a good opportunity to shut up” over the woes of the Eurozone.
His incompetence as president is rarely disputed even by his supporters, many of whom are so appalled by his performance they’re leaving in droves for the far-Right alternative offered by Marine Le Pen.
But this strutting mediocrity’s arrogance knows no bounds.
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_print_link.cfm/blog_id/38896#CurDomainURL#/blog.cfm The brand new—and deliberately unmarked– offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in the 20th arrondissement of Paris were destroyed by arson hours before a special issue, renamed Charia Hebdo, hit the newsstands on November 2nd. All 75,000 copies were sold out by noon (a rerun went on sale two days later, bringing total […]
Holder Plays Dumb, Dems Push Gun Control Posted By Bob Owens URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/blog/holder-plays-dumb-dems-push-gun-control/ Testifying before an intensely partisan Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder only deepened suspicions about the Department of Justice’s possible criminal involvement in a gunwalking operation known as Operation Fast and Furious. The scheme saw […]
http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2011/11/08/the-guitars-gently-weep/?singlepage=true
In 1968, Eric Clapton played a Gibson Les Paul guitar on the White Album’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” by the Beatles. Other guitar greats like B.B. King, Slash, Alex Lifeson, Jimmy Page, Pete Townsend and Keith Richards have all used Gibson Guitars. You would think the Department of Justice has higher priorities than investigating a guitar company, but you’d be wrong.
By now, nearly everyone knows that the Department of Justice raided Gibson Guitars regarding the use of certain wood that may have violated the Lacey Import Act. At issue is Gibson’s import of unfinished, as opposed to finished, rosewood and ebony. FBI raids effectively shut down the business and idled workers. Gibson has since reopened, but the federal action raises issues of over-criminalization of business behavior.
Not surprisingly, the legislation to criminalize the use of ebony and rosewood in the Gibson guitars came from the usual suspects on the Left. But it also had support among American forestry business interests seeking to erect barriers to competition from overseas wood.
http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-president-congress-and-menachem-zivotofsky%e2%80%99s-passport/?print=1
Can an American citizen born in Jerusalem list “Israel” as his nation of birth?
By the end of the oral argument [1] yesterday in Zivotofsky v. Clinton, it was not clear which way the Supreme Court would go. But it was clear that, in the course of considering the validity of the 2002 law giving Americans born in Jerusalem the right to have “Israel” on their passports as their place of birth, the Justices were grappling with some of the most basic questions involving judicial, congressional and presidential power under the Constitution.
Congress clearly has the power to legislate regarding passports, because it has repeatedly done so — including in 1994, when it passed a law giving Americans born in Taiwan the right to have “Taiwan” on their passports as their place of birth, notwithstanding official U.S. foreign policy as articulated by the Executive Branch — that there is only one China (the People’s Republic) and that Taiwan is not a separate country. President Clinton signed the law and implemented it, while making it clear it represented no change in the U.S. “One China” policy.
President Bush signed the 2002 law regarding Jerusalem, but refused to implement it on grounds it contradicted U.S. policy that sovereignty over Jerusalem is an issue to be decided in the future and the law “interfered with the president’s constitutional authority to conduct the nation’s foreign affairs” — a refusal continued by President Obama even though during the 2008 campaign he criticized Bush for his practice of signing but not implementing legislation.
What does Sarkozy mean by the term “liar”? Posted By David P. Goldman
http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2011/11/08/what-does-sarkozy-mean-by-the-term-liar/?print=1
One shudders to imagine what noxious vapors swirled through the skull of French President Nicholas Sarkozy as he told Barack Obama that Binyamin Netanyahu was a “liar.” No-one has told the truth more clearly than Netanyahu: as long as the Palestinians cannot bring themselves to pronounce the words “Jewish State,” there won’t be a peace agreement. Where, pray tell, is the lie? Were he less diplomatic, Netanyahu might have added that with Egypt plunging into chaos, and likely to repudiate its peace treaty with Israel, and Syria in civil war, and Iran and Turkey vying to support the overtly (as opposed to de facto) terrorist wing of the Palestinians, the problem of a peace agreement with the beleaguered and unpopular Palestine Authority is moot.
In fairness to Sarkozy, he used the word “liar” advisedly. What does it mean to be a “liar?” Tell the Emperor he has no clothes, and he will scream, “Liar!” Tell the Heaven’s Gate cult that space aliens are not coming to meet them up on the comet, and they will shout, “Liar!” Tell a schizophrenic that the CIA did not implant a radio transmitter in his brain, and he will shout, “Liar!” Tell a trusting wife that her husband is cheating on her, and she will shout, “Liar!” (Tell Hillary Clinton that Bill is not cheating on her, and she also will shout “Liar!”). And tell a European politician that the world has changed such that the European political class no longer has a reason to exist, and he will scream “Liar! Liar!” until his lungs collapse.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2011/11/08/occupiers-in-san-diego-show-gratitude-for-free-food-just-kidding-they-vandalize-the-carts-threaten-owners/
Occupiers in San Diego Show Gratitude for Free Food. Just Kidding—They Vandalize the Carts, Threaten Owners
The sense of entitlement is strong with San Diego’s occupiers. God bless ‘em.
The coffee and hot dog carts were located in Civic Center Plaza, the same location as the Occupy San Diego protesters.
That group first settled in to the plaza Oct. 7 and set up a tent city which has since twice been taken down by police.
Coffee cart owner Linda Jenson and hot dog cart operators Letty and Pete Soto said they initially provided free food and drink to demonstrators, but when they stopped, the protesters became violent.
And according to one city councilman, bodily fluids were used in the attacks.
“Both carts have had items stolen, have had their covers vandalized with markings and graffiti, as well as one of the carts had urine and blood splattered on it,” said Councilman Carl DeMaio.
The damages will likely require at least a complete cleaning if not a replacement of the cart covers, DeMaio said.
The lovely, peaceful and tolerant occupiers are also said to have hurled death threats at the food vendors. Elsewhere in the occupation, they had to set up a lice tent after an outbreak swept through the Oakland camp.
And in the original Wall Street occupation, life is so grand they have had to set up a rape shelter.
