In the news…

1.  Mark Berndt, a teacher, charged with 23 counts of lewd conduct in his classroom successfully thwarted attempts by the Los Angeles Unified School District to fire him. In the process, the teacher, who is accused of spoon-feeding his semen to blindfolded children, managed to retain lifetime health-benefits provided by the nation’s second-largest school system after he hired the attorneys of the liberal United Teachers Los Angeles union. He will also automatically receive nearly $4,000 a month in pension from the California State Teachers’ Retirement System.

2.  There’s bribery, corruption, and a cover-up at the Obama Justice Department and no, we aren’t talking about Fast and Furious.  At least two DOJ prosecutors accepted cash bribes from allegedly corrupt finance executives who were indicted under court seal within the past 13 months, but never arrested or prosecuted.  Additionally, the sitting governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, his attorney general and an unspecified number of Virgin Islands legislators also accepted bribes.  A DOJ official adds that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is aware prosecutors and elected officials were bribed and otherwise compromised, but has not held anyone accountable.

According to an attorney with knowledge of the investigation the bribed officials remain on the taxpayers’ payroll at the Justice Department without any accountability. The DOJ offical said Holder does not want to admit public officials accepted bribes while under his leadership.

With Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s entry into the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, it’s worth taking a look at his views on health care, which remains one of the most critical domestic policy challenges facing the nation, and one where the next president will have a game-changing impact on the nation’s future.

Perry’s actions have made his position clear. He has consistently opposed President Barack Obama’s health care law, has joined the state lawsuit against the individual mandate, declined to participate in the new federal high-risk pools, and made public his refusal to create a state-level health insurance exchange mandated by Obamacare.

Perry’s tort reform push has paid dividends for his state, with 21,000 new doctors and a 60 percent increase in applications since 2003, providing many rural Texas counties with OB/GYNs for the first time in generations. And Texas leads the nation in the creation of new health care jobs—and basically every other type of new job, for that matter.

Yet Perry’s personal experience with a recent back surgery also illustrates his perspective on health policy. His surgery involved the use of an adult stem cell therapy that is currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) only for bone marrow transplants. If Obama’s FDA has its way, doctors and others will be punished if they promote or advertise in any way the kind of therapy Perry received. Perry’s successful surgery shows the value of choice, the kind of choice the Obama administration opposes at every pass.

Throughout his career, Perry has advocated for the freedom of states and individuals to direct their own paths, while understanding this will result in some following the wrong route. He would rather policy decisions be made closer to the people who will experience their ramifications, instead of having self-styled elites legislate all aspects of our lives from Washington.

Unfortunately, those DC pols won’t give up their power easily. Medicaid is a perfect example. Texas has to struggle every year to find additional billions of dollars to fund this broken program. In an effort to gain the flexibility to prioritize care for those who need it most, Perry has had a waiver request in front of the federal government since the Bush administration. Forty months later, Texas still has received no response.

While the political left has criticized Perry for Texas’s high uninsured rate—driven almost entirely by the massive influx of immigration and the state’s unique demographics—it has refused to allow the state any freedom to innovate or adapt programs to meet its citizens’ needs.

Instead, the only “freedom” available is for states to remove what little power consumers have left. Vermont, for example, is using Obama’s health care law to implement a single-payer system. No similar opportunity exists for states to pursue the opposite course, freeing themselves from bureaucratic limits and applying successful pro-consumer Medicaid reform models, such as those in Rhode Island.

With roughly one of every three Americans on Medicare or Medicaid or both, and our health care future governed by waivers granted at the whim of the Obama administration, the federal government can block any attempts at real innovative reforms. And the Obama administration consistently has done exactly that.

Perry’s decision this year to sign on to a health care compact, along with Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, and other states, signals the approach he would take to health care policy. Perry wants each state to have the right to go its own way. If states such as Vermont decide to impose bad policies and drive their economies into the ditch, that’s their choice—but other states should have the freedom to create a consumer-directed system and open marketplace offering the care people deserve at a cost lowered by competition.

That kind of freedom would allow people to see and judge for themselves which states end up with lower premiums, better coverage, and a thriving economy.

This is the essence of Perry’s policy approach, and not just on health care. His firm embrace of innovation and competition may not find approval among Washington elites, but it has at least one thing going for it—his solutions work, while Washington’s fail.

Courtesy: TheHill.com

_______

You lie!” Republican Rep. Joe Wilson famously shouted at President Obama during a 2009 televised presidential address to a joint session of Congress.

The outburst, prompted by Obama pledging his health care reform bill would not benefit illegal immigrants, provoked outrage from liberals, not to mention a steely death-glare from then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

But now Wilson says time has proved him right.

In an appearance on Fox News’ America Live on Wednesday, Wilson said a recent award of $28 million to community health care centers around the country will no doubt benefit illegal immigrants, despite Obama’s pledge.

Department of Health and Human Services spokesmen have confirmed $8.5 million of the grant will go to centers serving migrant and seasonal farm workers, saying patients will not be asked about immigration status. The centers will offer primary care to all residents who come in.

“It is clearly providing money that should be going to American citizens to illegal immigrants,” Wilson said. “It’s even worse than I thought. They won’t even ask for status.” 

On his campaign website, Wilson wrote: “It is inevitable that they will serve illegal aliens. The president specifically promised the American people that ‘Obamacare’ would not cover those who are here illegally. He misled all of us.”

The Department of Health and Human Services shot back, saying the patients still must pay for care.

“By statute, health centers are required to provide primary health care to all residents of the health center’s service area without regard for ability to pay,” spokesman Chris Stenrud wrote in an email to Fox. “However, health centers do not provide free care. All health center patients are expected to contribute to the cost of their care.”

Supreme Court watchers are expecting a showdown over President Obama’s health care law in the wake of a court decision striking down a key portion of the law.

On Friday, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, ruled the individual mandate in the health care law is unconstitutional. The decision clashes with another circuit court ruling which upheld the law, setting up what is widely expected to be a significant Supreme Court case over Congress’ authority to regulate commerce.

“Now that there’s a split among the circuits, it just about ensures it’s going to the Supreme Court,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Irvine School of Law and a constitutional scholar.

Under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, Congress can “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.” Courts tended to narrowly interpret the Commerce Clause until the 20th century, when Congress’ regulatory powers were greatly expanded.

Chemerinsky, the White House and others argue the health care law fits well within those established powers.

“It’s very difficult under the constitutional principles we’ve followed since 1930 to argue that an $850 billion industry can’t be regulated as interstate commerce,” Chemerinsky said. 

However, the circuit ruled the individual mandate, which will require all those who can afford to do so to purchase some form of health insurance or face a fine, was a penalty, not a tax. Therefore, it fell outside of the Commerce Clause.

Conservative opponents of the law and more federalist-leaning law scholars have applauded the decision.

“It’s a very strong opinion on most issues,” said Ilya Somin, an associate professor of law at George Mason University. “It does a very good job of explaining why there’s no way to uphold this mandate without giving Congress the power to enforce a mandate of any kind.”

Somin said a key distinction in the case, which may give the Supreme Court pause, is the individual mandate regulates inactivity, rather than activity of businesses and consumers.

“By and large, the Supreme Court has taken an extremely expansive view of Commerce Clause powers,” Somin said. “But this case is different because the Court has never addressed the question of regulation of inactivity. There’s always been some kind of preexisting activity that Congress was regulating.”

The Supreme Court’s last major ruling on the Commerce Clause was Gonzales v. Raich in 2005. The Court ruled Congress can criminalize the production and use of homegrown marijuana, even in states with medical marijuana laws.

“I feel the Raich decision was wrong,” Somin said, “but even as expansive and dubious as it was, it was still regulating activity.”

But while constitutional scholars may disagree on the precedents and semantics of the case, they acknowledge it will have far-reaching impacts.

“There’s not been a law of this significance before the Supreme Court in decades in terms of Commerce Clause power,” Chemerinsky said. “The laws they considered before were so much less important than this one.”

The issue has also spurred a national discussion on federalism and the limits congressional power.

“I think reasonable people can disagree over whether the mandate is constitutional, but it’s clear now that this is not just some frivolous lawsuit by right-wing extremists,” Somin said. “Nobody can say that any longer.”

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that the health care reform law’s requirement that nearly all Americans buy insurance is unconstitutional, a striking blow to the legislation that increases the odds the Supreme Court will choose to review the law.

The suit was brought by 26 states — nearly all led by Republican governors and attorneys general — and the National Federation of Independent Business. The Department of Justice is expected to appeal.The 2-1 ruling marks the first time a judge appointed by a Democrat has voted to strike down the mandate. Judge Frank Hull, who was nominated by former President Bill Clinton, joined Chief Judge Joel Dubina, who was appointed by George H.W. Bush, to strike down the mandate.

Judge Stanley Marcus, in a dissenting opinion, said the mandate is constitutional. He was also appointed by Clinton.

The panel partially upheld a ruling issued in January by Judge Roger Vinson, who struck down the entire health reform law. However, the 11th Circuit said that the rest of the legislation can stand even if the mandate is unconstitutional.

The panel also said that the law’s expansion of Medicaid is constitutional, ruling against the states.

The Department of Justice won’t say yet whether it will appeal to the Supreme Court or ask the entire 11th Circuit to review the decision.

The majority of the panel said they couldn’t uphold the mandate because there would be no limit to Congress’s powers if they did. Opponents of the law have frequently argued that if Congress can require people to buy insurance, they can force people to do anything else, such as buy broccoli or a gym membership for their health benefits. Vinson cited this broccoli argument in his sweeping ruling striking down the entire law.

“We have not found any generally applicable, judicially enforceable limiting principle that would permit us to uphold the mandate without obliterating the boundaries inherent in the system of enumerated congressional powers,” Dubina and Hull wrote in an expansive, 200-page ruling. “‘Uniqueness’ is not a constitutional principle in any antecedent Supreme Court decision.”

The federal government argued that the law  regulates only how people obtain health care — something all Americans will need at some point in their lives. They say the uniqueness of the market makes health care different than broccoli or gym purchases.

“People are seeking this good already,” Neal Katyal, the acting solicitor general, said during oral arguments. “It’s about the failure to pay, not the failure to buy.”

During oral arguments in Atlanta in June, the panel spent a significant amount of time discussing whether the mandate is “severable” from the rest of the law. Hull in particular asked the federal government three times where the line should be.

Tuesday, The Blaze reported on President Barack Obama‘s alleged mischaracterization of his mother’s, Ann Dunham, arguments with her insurance company as she lay dying (Obama claimed the insurance company wanted to deny her coverage based on a pre-existing condition). Now, the White House is declining to challenge the charge that Obama fabricated the story in an effort to convince Americans to support his Democratic health care reform plan.

In his initial report on the story, The Blaze’s Christopher Santarelli wrote:

A new book by New York Times reporter Janny Scott sheds new light on the life of Barack Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, including her final years. Scott found while assembling information for “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,” that Dunham in fact did have health coverage for her ovarian cancer, based off Dunham’s own past correspondence.

If these allegations are true, Obama‘s statements about his mother’s care were based on outright lies, fabrications — or, at the least, incorrect memories regarding what had actually occurred. Throughout his 2008 presidential campaign and during the political battle over the contentious health care legislation, the president utilized his mother’s story to instill pathos in audiences. In 2010, he said:

“I do remember the last six months of her life, insurance companies threatening that they would not reimburse her for her costs.”

The New York Times explains that the president and the White House, at this juncture, are not refuting Scott’s conclusions:

The White House on Wednesday declined to challenge an account in a new book that suggests that President Obama, in his campaign to overhaul American health care, mischaracterized a central anecdote about his mother’s deathbed dispute with her insurance company.

The White House on Wednesday declined to challenge an account in a new book that suggests that President Obama, in his campaign to overhaul American health care, mischaracterized a central anecdote about his mother’s deathbed dispute with her insurance company.

On Wednesday, following the newspapers’ repeated attempts to illicit comments from the White House, the Times finally received a response. A spokesperson for the president neither debunked Scott‘s account nor admitted that Obama’s memory was incorrect. In his rebuttal to the Times, White House spokesman Nicholas Papas says:

“We have not reviewed the letters or other material on which the author bases her account. The president has told this story based on his recollection of events that took place more than 15 years ago.”

Then, after this dismissal, Papas claims that even if Scott is correct in her findings, the president’s previous comments do not constitute as a mischaracterization, because “…his mother needed her disability insurance payments to cover unreimbursed medical costs.”

The White House response goes on, using the opportunity to again drive home the need for limits on pre-existing conditions:

“As Ms. Scott’s account makes clear, the president’s mother incurred several hundred dollars in monthly uncovered medical expenses that she was relying on insurance to pay.

She first could not get a response from the insurance company, then was refused coverage. This personal history of the president’s speaks powerfully to the impact of pre-existing condition limits on insurance protection from health care costs.”

So far, this is the only response to emerge from the White House. Judging from the way this has been handled thus far and the political sensitivity that accompanies presidential campaigns, the administration will likely tread carefully in further addressing the matter further.

Courtesy: The Blaze

____________

A top Obama administration lawyer defending last year’s healthcare law ran into skeptical questions Wednesday from three federal judges in Atlanta, who suggested they may be ready to declare all or part of the law unconstitutional.

In an ominous sign for the administration, the judges opened the arguments by saying they knew of no case in American history where the courts had upheld the government’s power to force someone to buy a product.

Chief Judge Joel Dubina, who was tapped by Republican President George H.W. Bush, struck early by asking the government’s attorney “if we uphold the individual mandate in this case, are there any limits on Congressional power?” Circuit Judges Frank Hull and Stanley Marcus, who were tapped by Democratic President Bill Clinton, echoed his concerns later in the hearing.

Judge Stanley Marcus echoed Dubina. “I can’t find any case” in the past where the courts upheld “telling a private person they are compelled to purchase a product in the open market…. Is there anything that suggests Congress can do this?”

Judge Frank Hull, the third member of the panel, repeatedly asked the lawyers about the possible effect of the court striking down the mandate, while upholding the rest of the law.

The Atlanta court is reviewing a decision of Judge Roger Vinson in Pensacola, Fla. In January, he struck down the entire 2,700-page law as unconstitutional.

Dubina, from Alabama, was first appointed to the bench by President Reagan and was elevated to the appeals court by President George H.W. Bush. Hull, from Georgia, was appointed by President Clinton. The third member of the panel, Marcus, from Florida, was first appointed as a district judge by Reagan, but Clinton appointed him to the appeals court.

Already, appeals courts in Richmond, Va., and Cincinnati have heard legal challenges to the healthcare law, and a fourth hearing is set for September in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

____________

I just had to post this article from the esteemed Washington Examiner.  One needs to peruse the entire article to appreciate the absurdity of Obama’s solicitor general’s  argument as to why ObamaCare doesn’t violate one’s Constitutional Rights.

President Obama’s solicitor general, defending the national health care law on Wednesday, told a federal appeals court that Americans who didn’t like the individual mandate could always avoid it by choosing to earn less money.

Here’s the article:

Neal Kumar Katyal, the acting solicitor general, made the argument under questioning before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, which was considering an appeal by the Thomas More Law Center. (Listen to oral arguments here.)  The three-judge panel, which was comprised of two Republican-appointed judges and a Democratic-appointed judge, expressed more skepticism about the government’s defense of the health care law than the Fourth Circuit panel that heard the Virginia-based Obamacare challenge last month in Richmond. The Fourth Circuit panel was made up entirely of Democrats, and two of the judges were appointed by Obama himself.

During the Sixth Circuit arguments, Judge Jeffrey Sutton, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, asked Kaytal if he could name one Supreme Court case which considered the same question as the one posed by the mandate, in which Congress used the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution as a tool to compel action.

Kaytal conceded that the Supreme Court had “never been confronted directly” with the question, but cited the Heart of Atlanta Motel case as a relevant example. In that landmark 1964 civil rights case, the Court ruled that Congress could use its Commerce Clause power to bar discrimination by private businesses such as hotels and restaurants.

“They’re in the business,” Sutton pushed back. “They’re told if you’re going to be in the business, this is what you have to do. In response to that law, they could have said, ‘We now exit the business.’ Individuals don’t have that option.”

Kaytal responded by noting that the there’s a provision in the health care law that allows people to avoid the mandate.

“If we’re going to play that game, I think that game can be played here as well, because after all, the minimum coverage provision only kicks in after people have earned a minimum amount of income,” Kaytal said. “So it’s a penalty on earning a certain amount of income and self insuring. It’s not just on self insuring on its own. So I guess one could say, just as the restaurant owner could depart the market in Heart of Atlanta Hotel, someone doesn’t need to earn that much income. I think both are kind of fanciful and I think get at…”

Sutton interjected, “That wasn’t in a single speech given in Congress about this…the idea that the solution if you don’t like it is make a little less money.”

The so-called “hardship exemption” in the health care law is limited, and only applies to people who cannot obtain insurance for less than 8 percent of their income. So earning less isn’t necessarily a solution, because it could then qualify the person for government-subsidized insurance.

Throughout the oral arguments, Kaytal struggled to respond to the panel’s concerns about what the limits of Congressional power would be if the courts ruled that they have the ability under the Commerce Clause to force individuals to purchase something.

Sutton said it would it be “hard to see this limit” in Congressional power if the mandate is upheld, and he honed in on the word “regulate” in the Commerce clause, explaining that the word implies you’re in a market. “You don’t put them in the market to regulate them,” he said.

In arguments before the Fourth Circuit last month, Kaytal also struggled with a judge’s question about what to do with the word “regulate,” to the point where the judge asked him to sit down to come up with an answer. (More on that exchange here). Kaytal has fallen back on the Necessary and Proper clause, insisting that it gives broader leeway to Congress.

Judge James Graham, a Reagan district court appointee who is temporarily hearing cases on the appeals court, said, “I hear your arguments about the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause, and I’m having difficulty seeing how there is any limit to the power as you’re defining it.”

Kaytal responded by referencing the United States v. Morrison, in which the Supreme Court struck down parts of the Violence Against Women Act, and United States v. Lopez, which struck down gun free school zones. In those cases, Kaytal responded, the Supreme Court set the limit that the Commerce Clause had to regulate economic activities.

The health care market is unique, Kaytal responded, because everybody will eventually participate. With the mandate, Kaytal said, “What Congress is regulating is not the failure to buy something. But
failure to secure financing for something everyone is going to buy.”

Graham acknowledged Kaytal’s arguments, yet reiterated that he was “having trouble seeing the limits.”

The problem with the “health care is unique” argument – and this is me talking – is that it just creates an opening for future Congresses to regulate all sorts of things by either a) arguing that a particular market is also special or b) finding a way to tie a given regulation to health care.

For instance, the example that’s come up often is the idea of a law in which government forces individuals to eat broccoli.

During the Sixth Circuit argument, Kaytal said that such an example doesn’t apply, because if you show up at a grocery store, nobody has to give you broccoli, whereas that is the case with health care and hospital emergency rooms.

Yet that argument assumes that Congress passes such a law as a regulation of the food market. What if the law was made as part of a regulation of the health care market? It isn’t difficult to see where that argument can go.

The broccoli example is really a proxy for a broader argument about whether the government can compel individuals to engage in healthy behavior – it could just as well be eating salad, or exercising. There’s no doubt that a huge driver of our nation’s health care costs are illnesses linked to bad behavior. People who are overweight and out of shape cost more because they have increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, and so on. Those increased costs get passed on to all of us, because government pays for nearly half of the nation’s health care expenses, a number that’s set to grow under the new health care law. Is it really unrealistic to believe that future Congresses, looking for ways to control health care costs, could compel healthy behavior in some way? More pertinently, is there any reason why that would be unconstiutional under the precedent that would be set if the individual mandate is upheld?

With most experts expecting the case to go before the Supreme Court, it seems the biggest obstacle for the Obama administration is figuring out where power would be limited if the mandate were upheld. Those challenging the law have made a clear and understandable limit by drawing a distinction between regulating activity and regulating inactivity (i.e. the decision not to purchase insurance). But simply saying the health care market is unique doesn’t actually create a very clear or understandable limit to Congressional power.

The 11th Circuit hears the case next week brought by 26 states led by Florida.

____________

Michael Barone writes a powerful column in today Examiner that accuses the Obama Administration of cronyism and illegality.  He backs up his claim with data.  It’s a must read article for those who believe in the fairness and rule of American law.

Question: What do the following have in common? Eckert Cold Storage Co., Kerly Homes of Yuma, Classic Party Rentals, West Coast Turf Inc., Ellenbecker Investment Group Inc., Only in San Francisco, Hotel Nikko, International Pacific Halibut Commission, City of Puyallup, Local 485 Health and Welfare Fund, Chicago Plastering Institute Health & Welfare Fund, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, Teamsters Local 522 Fund Welfare Fund Roofers Division, StayWell Saipan Basic Plan, CIGNA, Caribbean Workers’ Voluntary Employees’ Beneficiary Health and Welfare Plan.
Answer: They are all among the 1,372 businesses, state and local governments, labor unions and insurers, covering 3,095,593 individuals or families, that have been granted a waiver from Obamacare by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

All of which raises another question: If Obamacare is so great, why do so many people want to get out from under it?

More specifically, why are more than half of those 3,095,593 in plans run by labor unions, which were among Obamacare’s biggest political supporters? Union members are only 12 percent of all employees but have gotten 50.3 percent of Obamacare waivers.

Just in April, Sebelius granted 38 waivers to restaurants, nightclubs, spas and hotels in former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco congressional district. Pelosi’s office said she had nothing to do with it.

On its website HHS pledges that the waiver process will be transparent. But it doesn’t list those whose requests for waivers have been denied.

It does say that requests are “reviewed on a case by case basis by Department officials who look at a series of factors including” — and then lists two factors. And it refers you to another website that says that “several factors . . . may be considered” — and then lists six factors.

What other factors may be considered? Political contributions or connections? (Unions contributed $400 million to Democrats in the 2008 campaign cycle.) The websites don’t say.

In his new book “The Origins of Political Order,” Francis Fukuyama identifies the chief building blocks of liberal democracy as a strong central state, a society strong enough to hold the state accountable and — equally crucial — the rule of law.

One basic principle of the rule of law is that laws apply to everybody. If the sign says “No Parking,” you’re not supposed to park there even if you’re a pal of the alderman.

Another principle of the rule of law is that government can’t make up new rules to help its cronies and hurt its adversaries except through due process, such as getting a legislature to pass a new law.

The Obamacare waiver process appears to violate that first rule. Two other recent Obama administration actions appear to violate the second.

One example is the National Labor Relations Board general counsel’s action to prevent Boeing from building a $2 billion assembly plant for the 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina, which has a right-to-work law barring compulsory union membership. The NLRB says Boeing has to assemble the planes in non-right-to-work Washington state.

“I don’t agree,” says William Gould IV, NLRB chairman during the Clinton years. “The Boeing case is unprecedented.”

The other example is the Internal Revenue Service’s attempt to levy a gift tax on donors to certain 501(c)(4) organizations that just happen to have spent money to elect Republicans.

A gift tax is normally assessed on transfers to children and other heirs that are designed to avoid estate taxes. It has been applied to political donations “rarely, if ever,” according to New York Times reporter Stephanie Strom.

“The timing of the agency’s moves, as the 2012 election cycle gets under way,” continues Strom, “is prompting some tax law and campaign finance experts to question whether the IRS could be sending a signal in an effort to curtail big donations.”

In a Univision radio interview during the 2010 election cycle, Barack Obama urged Latinos not “to sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re going to punish our enemies and we’re going to reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.’ “

Punishing enemies and rewarding friends — politics Chicago style — seems to be the unifying principle that helps explain the Obamacare waivers, the NLRB action against Boeing and the IRS’ gift-tax assault on 501(c)(4) donors.

They look like examples of crony capitalism, bailout favoritism and gangster government.

One thing they don’t look like is the rule of law.

And just a little bit off topic, why would the Harvard “professor” be so dumb as to not know the date of his visit to Westminster Abbey?  You can clearly see in the picture above that Obama wrote 24 May 2008 under his signature.  Can you imagine if Sarah Palin or George Bush did such a thing?  And Obama’s fumbles didn’t stop there, the “smartest President EVAH” screwed up the toast to the Queen of England.  Embarrassing.

__________________

-Reports by AccuWeather claim that January will be the coldest in 25 years- This should be a moment of celebration for global warming activist Al Gore.  No doubt he will emerge from hiding to claim credit putting a halt to Earth warming and stopping an eco-disaster.

-Preliminary Census figures claim that 1 of 6 Americans are living in poverty.  That’s over 50 million Americans and a majority of those are 65 and older.

-Blue Cross & Blue Shield of California has said that they are increasing health-care premiums from 35-50% citing the health-care Bill.

-New numbers from Gallup show that just 31 percent of Americans identified themselves as Democrats in 2010 — a five-point decrease from a year ago and the lowest percentage measured by the polling firm in 22 years.

-Moderate Democratic senators up for re-election in 2012 fear getting swept out of office just like their colleagues did last year, Politico reports. Senate Democrats are now wanting to shift to the right. “I’m already running into it,” Reid’s top deputy, Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told Politico in late December. “People say, ‘I’m up in two years.’ And I understand it. It’s part of being a senator and a candidate yourself.”

-Liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne is calling for the media to hold the newly-sworn in Republican House majority accountable for their “expansive rhetoric” as well as “how their ideas translate into policies that affect actual human beings.”- Seriously? She wants to be a journalist now after a 2 year hiatus? Perhaps, E.J. can take the lead by holding Obama accountable for his “expansive rhetoric”. She’ll first have to pull her lips away from his ass.

_________________