text:
Good riddance to the worst Attorney General in living history. In fact, I came to consider his department the “Department of Just Us” in which “justice” was a political tool to be wielded selectively and only when it helped those constituencies that comprised the “us”. And, of course, that included selective enforcement of the laws. Or said another way “rule of man” vs. “rule of law”.
The scandals such as Fast and Furious, were simply something to be expected from such a department. How could it be otherwise? They weren’t of the law, they considered themselves above the law. I have nothing nice to say about Eric Holder except I’m glad this day has finally come.
The Justice Department has been horribly harmed by that man’s tenure at the helm. Like America’s reputation in the world under Barack Obama, DOJ has a long climb back to respectability.
Meanwhile the “us” faction has immediately gone into action:
The Rev. Al Sharpton said his civil rights organization, the National Action Network, is “engaged in immediate conversations” with the White House as they work to name a successor to Attorney General Eric Holder, who is set to announce his resignation Thursday afternoon.
“We are engaged in immediate conversations with the White House on deliberations over a successor whom we hope will continue in the general direction of Attorney General Holder,” Sharpton said in a statement.
Walter Russell Meade does a great job of summing up the impact of yesterday’s “March of the Usual Lefty Organizations” in the name of taxing us into poverty with a carbon tax:
Street marches today are to real politics what street mime is to Shakespeare. This was an ersatz event: no laws will change, no political balance will tip, no UN delegate will have a change of heart. The world will roll on as if this march had never happened. And the marchers would have emitted less carbon and done more good for the world if they had all stayed home and studied books on economics, politics, science, religion and law. Marches like this create an illusion of politics and an illusion of meaningful activity to fill the void of postmodern life; the tribal ritual matters more than the political result.
And he’s precisely right. Besides being the usual collection of leftist professional protesters sprinkled with clueless pols and celebrities, nothing of note is going to change at the UN Climate Summit. Nothing. The outcome of that is, as they say, “already written in the books”.
The world’s largest emitters are declining to show up, even for appearances. The Chinese economy has been the No. 1 global producer of carbon dioxide since 2008, but President Xi Jinping won’t be gracing the U.N. with his presence. India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi (No. 3) will be in New York but is skipping the climate parley. Russian President Vladimir Putin (No. 4) has other priorities, while Japan (No. 5) is uncooperative after the Fukushima disaster that has damaged support for nuclear power. Saudi Arabia is dispatching its petroleum minister.
China, however, has found a wonderful new way to forever avoid any responsibility for reducing its output. It has become the “champion” for the poor and underdeveloped countries of the world and is helping put forward their demands:
China led calls by emerging economies on Friday for the rich to raise financial aid to the poor as a precondition for a United Nations deal to combat global warming. “When the financing is resolved, this will set a very good foundation to negotiate a good agreement,” China’s chief negotiator Xie Zhenhua told delegates from about 170 nations. Xie said developed nations, which have promised to raise aid to $100 billion a year by 2020, should have legally binding obligations to provide finance and technology to emerging economies, along with legally binding cuts in emissions.
Well of course the “rich nations” should … because that would have them pay China and India – two of the biggest carbon producers around. So China has, in effect, made an offer they must refuse, because leaving out the two largest carbon producers is sort of self-defeating, isn’t it? And anyway, we should pay for our “rich nation privilege”, shouldn’t we?
Meanwhile, Dr. Steven Koonin makes the point of saying what is clearly the truth in an op-ed in the WSJ – the science of climate change is not settled science. In fact, it’s not even close. Dr. Koonin, by the way, was the undersecretary for science in the Energy Department during Obama’s first term. So this isn’t some right-wing ideologue spouting off, but a serious scientist. Interestingly, he makes hash of the reliability of the climate models:
The models differ in their descriptions of the past century’s global average surface temperature by more than three times the entire warming recorded during that time. Such mismatches are also present in many other basic climate factors, including rainfall, which is fundamental to the atmosphere’s energy balance. As a result, the models give widely varying descriptions of the climate’s inner workings. Since they disagree so markedly, no more than one of them can be right.
And we’re still looking for that one model that is right … but remember, it is on the basis of those models that this entire “scare” or alarmism finds its roots. Make it a point to read the entire Koonin piece.
But never fear as our fearless leader will be in NY to address the UN summit (most likely a rushed speech between fund raisers and golf). Not that it will have any effect or make any difference. But in his mind, it will be “action”. In reality, it’ll be another example of him again being outplayed on the world stage.
Or, the “strategy” to “manage” ISIS, if you prefer. The Washington Post today, calls whatever the administration is trying to put together to confront ISIS “underpowered”. I think they’re being kind about it because they still want access to their administration sources. If what they report is true, it’s a failure before it is even attempted.
In Paris on Monday, two dozen governments pledged to help fight the extremists “by any means necessary, including military assistance.” But only a handful — not yet including Britain — have so far agreed to participate in air combat missions in Iraq, and none has yet signed on to support prospective U.S. air strikes in Syria. Nor is any sending combat troops.
The attenuated support reflects in part the complicated politics of the fight against the Islamic State, which controls a New England-size swath of territory across Iraq and Syria and commands tens of thousands of militants. Neighbors such as Turkey and Jordan are reluctant to openly join the fight, for fear of becoming targets of the terrorists. Sunni rulers are loath to fight on the same side as the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad or Iran — which, for its part, loudly declared Monday that it had rejected a U.S. cooperation proposal.
Note the emerging strategy – air combat missions. War from 20,000 feet. Pin-pricks whose effectiveness depends on good intel and timely intervention. And this administration is going to coordinate that? The administration that couldn’t even build a website? Note also that the missions are only agreed too for Iraq. None of these erstwhile allies has agreed to any in Syria. Result? ISIS has a safehaven. Yeah, we’ve never, ever seen that before have we?
So why are they reluctant? Lack of leadership by the US, plain and simple:
In large part, however, the restraint has been fostered by President Obama himself. As The Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran reported, Mr. Obama rejected the recommendation of his top military commanders that U.S. Special Operations forces be deployed to assist Iraqi army units in fighting the rebels, and Secretary of State John F. Kerry said the administration has turned aside troop offers by other nations. “There are some who have offered to do so, but we are not looking for that, at this moment anyway,”he told CBS News’s Bob Schieffer.
ISIS has to only guard against airstrikes? A group who butchers people on a daily basis would never consider human shields or setting up in schools or hospitals would they? And in Syria … they don’t even have to worry about it, do they? ISIS has cowed the Iraqi armed forces, the Kurds are playing defense, they’re free to roam Syria and we don’t need any troops on the ground at all? Yeah, because, you know, all we need are airstrikes.
But this is what most amazed me about the “strategy”:
Mr. Kerry said Monday that defeating the Islamic State will depend in part on non-combat initiatives such as discrediting its ideology, stopping the flow of jihadist volunteers and providing political and material support to the new Iraq government.
Non-combat initiatives like discrediting their ideology? Really? Again, we’ve been so successful doing that in the past 20 years, haven’t we? That’s why they’re such a small and declining group (wait, we were told that Al Qaida was kaput a while back weren’t we?). Oh, and the rich part? An administration that can’t even control its own southern border is going to stop the flow of jihadist volunteers … in the Middle East? What a freakin’ laugh riot that talking point is. Meanwhile, in a country that is under armed attack by a vicious army of murderers, Obama and the guys are going to provide “political and material support” to the new Iraqi government … but none that really helps stem the tide of the threatening jihadists controlling a large portion of their country … except of pinprick airstrikes to which ISIS will adapt (mark my words on that one).
This is going to end up being another of those half-assed attempts driven by polls (aka wag the dog) which, on its face, is simply a failure waiting to happen. This administration has no idea of what is required to face down and destroy ISIS (or any enemy for that matter). And it isn’t really going to attempt it. If anything it is going to attempt to talk ISIS to death. But as a real-time strategy, if what above is any indication of the administration’s intent, it’s a bust.
But then, what would one expect from an administration that is going to send 3,000 troops to Africa to “battle ebola”, but won’t send any to battle a real, honest-to-goodness enemy in Iraq?
Found on Facebook (Clare Spark), I think this nicely describes Obama’s speech last night:
I am not the first to point out that Obama is a postmodern president. Tonight he proved that label by his “not-so-fast” speech on foreign policy vis a vis ISIS. It was what the pomos call ” a performative act”–the last word in magical thinking.
Indeed. Platitudes, chest thumping, equivocation – and absolutely nothing new. He’s given a speech … the act is complete. The “ususal”. Talk equals action.
As we’ve become familiar with the “non-apology apology” in today’s life, we have now been introduced to the “non-strategy strategy”. What he talked about wasn’t a strategy, it was pure justification for doing … not much (even though he made it clear he doesn’t need Congress’s approval to do … not much). Apparently he thinks that a few airstrikes and few advisors will stimulate “allies” to do much more than that and take the bit and run with it. Yeah, that’s always worked so well in the past. Leading from behind again.
Also unknown is how one is going to take an obviously dispirited and seemingly unwilling (incompetent) Iraqi army and turn it around any time soon, but if there is a plan in there, that seems to be it, sort of. Oh, that and a “National Guard” (new name for the “awakening’s” militias)? Say what? But what I mostly got from it was he, like many other mistaken arm-chair generals, believes that he can accomplish “degrading” ISIS by air. First, any significant degradation would require a sustained air campaign on the level of our Gulf War “shock and awe” campaign. Not going to happen. Secondly, finding and killing ISIS C4 nodes, like we did with Saddam, is an extraordinarily difficult task in comparison. While we may randomly accomplish knocking out some of those nodes, it will be mostly luck without good hard timely intelligence (and acted upon immediately) about an enemy which remains mostly mobile.
And how about him deciding ISIS isn’t “Islam” or “Islamic”? Since when does he get to decide? Certainly some parts of greater Islam are against ISIS, but then Sunnis have no use for Shiites either do they? Does that make one or the other not “Islam”. Who gets to decide? Such declarations do Obama’s poor credibility even more damage and feeds the conspiracy theorists. But, that said, one has to wonder why it was so important for him to include that in a national policy speech. It is a total non-sequitur in my opinion. But for whatever reason, he chose to include it.
I think James Joyner has a good take on the speech. His first reaction:
The first thing I’d note is how much it sounded like any number of foreign policy speeches given by his predecessor. He declared again and again that, “As Commander-in-Chief, my highest priority is the security of the American people” and proudly enumerated all the ways that “we have consistently taken the fight to terrorists who threaten our country.”
Our Peace Prize president sounding like Bush … got to love the irony. Of course what Obama didn’t expound upon is how his withdrawal of troops from Iraq helped enable the ISIS expansion. Reality (i.e. an objective military assessment of the status of the Iraqi army and its actual abilities) rarely, if every, conforms to an arbitrary political deadlines. I think it is clear to everyone the pullout at that time was a very bad idea. It takes time to build an effective fighting force. What is now left in Iraq is a shattered and dispirited force. Because of that, we’re put in the position to again try to salvage a situation there. With greater forethought and less ideology, we would have kept US forces still there to ensure the Iraqi military was actually ready to confront a threat like ISIS instead of pretending it was so to keep a political promise.
Joyner’s second thought:
The second observation is that it’s still not clear exactly what Obama’s strategy is. His stated political objective is to “degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy” but he offered no plan that could plausibly do more than the former.
Well, except for, you know, “air strikes”. Hand wave, promise, done. Polls suck? Hitting ISIS popular? Wag the dog. It’s all about politics and elections, folks. Not the security of the United States. If someone had told him that his poll numbers would rise by not playing golf … well, there are limits you know. If it was truly about the security of the United States, this administration would be working to secure our borders, not ignoring the immigration laws.
Frankly, this is simply the logical continuation of Obama’s existing ISIL non-strategy and, indeed, his general counter-terrorism strategy of blowing up the bad guys and hoping they get tired of it eventually. We could call it the Global War on Terror but, alas, that name’s been taken. That’s rather unsatisfying but it’s not at all obvious what more the United States can or should do to degrade ISIL. The threat to the homeland is too tangential at present to warrant the proverbial boots on the ground. So, it’s Whack-a-Mole with no end in sight.
And the moles will continue to be whacked as we hear glowing progress reports from the Eastasian front.
Because? Well, that’s how we roll now. Back to the future.
Oh you can try … but it never works. And with Obama, it has never worked for those of us who’ve actually been leaders and understand what leadership entails. This man has never had it and he’s not going to suddenly develop it. Even his sycophants, at least the semi-honest ones, realize this. Result – his leadership numbers continue to dive:
Barack Obama’s rating for strong leadership has dropped to a new low in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, hammered by criticism of his work on international crises and a stalled domestic agenda alike. With the midterm elections looming, Americans by a 10-point margin, 52-42 percent, see his presidency more as a failure than a success.
Just 38 percent now approve of Obama’s handling of international affairs, down 8 percentage points since July to a career low; 56 percent disapprove, a majority for the first time.
Please note the source for those apologists out there. This isn’t a Fox News poll. By 10 points, he is rated a failure as a President. A failure by a majority of those polled. And he’s certainly seen as a failure by international leaders.
At home, with Obama holding off his promised executive action on immigration reform, a new low of just 31 percent approve of his handling of immigration. Fifty-nine percent disapprove, up by a broad 18 points from spring 2013, when progress on the issue seemed imminent.
Dems are likely glad he’s decided to hold off until after the election, but I’m sure most Americans will figure out he’s only doing that because he plans to do something that the vast majority of Americans will disagree with. That’s not “leadership”, by the way. Unconstitutional unilateral action to fulfill an ideological agenda item outside the system isn’t anything but authoritarianism. A king instead of a president.
And the great healer? Yeah, not so much:
In general assessments, moreover, Americans by a 17-point margin say Obama has done more to divide than to unite the country, a rating worse than George W. Bush’s early in his poorly rated second term – and one that’s deteriorated among Obama’s supporters as well as among his critics.
You see, uniting the country would take … leadership. It would take a president who was committed to actually walking the walk, not just talking the talk. And as we’ve all learned, this man thinks him saying something is enough.
His performance in office has been pitiful. And that’s being kind.
History, on the other hand, will not be kind to this President. But it won’t be kind to the electorate that put him in office and then re-elected him either. They were the enablers of this drastic decline we’ve suffered for the past 6 years.
If we manage to survive his term in office, it is going to take a long time to again gain the respect of the world, not to mention put this country back on the track envisioned by the founders. We pointed out early on that he would be tested by our enemies. He has been, constantly. And he’s been found to be wanting in every single case. He’s weak, indecisive and reticent to take action when action is warranted. He’s as bad as we’ve ever had in the modern era. Jimmy Carter is smiling.
President Barack Obama will attend a United Nations summit on climate change in September.U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has invited heads of state and other leaders to the Sept. 23 summit in New York. The U.N. says the goal is to spur governments, industry and civil groups to make new commitments to addressing climate change.The summit comes one year before world leaders will gather in Paris for global climate talks aimed at securing a deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Obama has set a goal to cut U.S. emissions 17 percent by 2020, compared to 2005 levels.
The Obama administration will seek a non-binding international accord – rather than a treaty – at a United Nations climate summit in Paris next year on reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
It was a widely anticipated move, as President Barack Obama has repeatedly said he would act alone, bypassing Congress, if lawmakers declined to support his proposal.
So one would assume that the UN meeting would lay the groundwork for the Paris talks, no? Since it all under the auspices of the UN? And this apparently is very important to our president, no? He’s going to attend, he’s got a plan (one of the few plans his administration has ever managed to push out there) to make a commitment for the US while bypassing Congress. What could go wrong with this issue that is so important to Obama? And he’s certainly consulted with other world leaders to ensure their cooperation and backing, right?
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas-emitting nation, won’t join his U.S. and Chinese counterparts at a United Nations climate summit next month in New York. Modi’s absence is a bit of a blow to the summit.
Chinese counterparts? The Chinese are blowing it off too:
Chinese president Xi Jinping has decided to skip a meeting of world leaders on climate change in New York, according to climate insiders, casting doubt on the summit’s potential to make progress ahead of next year’s major UN climate summit in Paris.
You think? But, as the commercial says, “that’s not all”:
German daily TAZ reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel isn’t going to bother attending the Ban Ki-Moon initiated climate conference in New York this coming September. The TAZ adds this has been “confirmed by a government spokesman“. Merkel’s decision to snub the event is likely another sign that efforts to forge a climate agreement are already dead in water. The TAZ writes: “Ultimately only Europe and very few other countries remain on board. Canada for example has opted out. Japan and Russia are also no longer taking part.”
Always the last to know. Kind of like his foreign policy, isn’t it? No India. No China. No Russia. No Canada, Germany or Japan.
So, if all of these major players in the world don’t see a reason to show up for Obama and Moon’s little show, how are those two going to sell this to world as an emergency situation that needs drastic action?
I know — call in John Kerry!
And the clown car continues to careen down the path to nowhere.
How else to describe this president when he makes remarks like this:
President Barack Obama claimed Monday night during a Democratic Party fundraising dinner that the United States is ‘stronger’ than it was when he assumed office in January 2009.
His statement, though, appears to be at odds with key economic indicators, America’s sliding reputation abroad, and the American public’s estimation of the direction the country has taken under the Obama administration.
‘In all sorts of ways,’ Obama told Democratic partisans who paid between $15,000 to $32,400 to hear him speak, ‘we are not just stronger than when we – where we were when I first came into office.’
‘It’s fair to say that America has the best cards when you look at other countries around the world. There’s no other country you’d rather be than the United States.’
‘Nobody can compete with us when we’re making the right decisions,’ he said.
The unspoken implication here is since we’re “stronger”, he’s made all the “right decisions”. Of course that absurd implication can be confronted factually at all sorts of levels.
Take the economy:
Grove City College economics professor Tracy Miller wrote Monday in an op-ed for The Daily Caller that ‘[o]ver the first five years of Obama’s presidency, the U.S. economy grew more slowly than during any five-year period since just after the end of World War II, averaging less than 1.3 percent per year.’
The percentage of working-age Americans who are part of the U.S. workforce has reached the lowest level since 1978, with one out of every three staying on the sidelines and not working.
And the federal government’s debts have ballooned by $7 trillion since Obama took office, a sum larger than the accumulated U.S. debts between 1776 and the end of the Clinton administration.
Consumer confidence is at -17. That’s right, minus seventeen according to Gallup’s recent Economic Confidence Index.
You don’t even have to cite the debacle his lack of foreign policy has wrought (or his lack of leadership on the illegal immigration flood) to make the point that he’s either lying through his teeth or he’s delusional. He seems be reading a script from spin doctors and seems to be nothing but a propaganda mouthpiece now. An empty suit. The “face.” He doesn’t seem to even care. Most of the recent optics (vacation after vacation while the world is in crisis) are simply not what anyone who cared would do if in a leadership position. But he seems to think he’s entitled and we peasants should just suck it up and cope. “Imperial presidency” doesn’t even begin to describe this crew.
Credibility? Not much:
By a 20-point margin, they believe the nation is weaker under Obama’s leadership, according to a Fox News poll released in June. Just 35 per cent told pollsters they agreed with what Obama said Monday night.
The “Monday night” refers to the bucket of slop above that he served up to those true believers paying 32K for dinner.
And that has led to this from a CNN poll:
The poll also indicates that the public’s trust in government is at an all-time low.
Frankly, you won’t find me lamenting this particularly, but it is an illustration as to how poorly this administration had done its job (Remember, one of Obama’s stated goals was to increase trust in government). Gallup piles on with this:
Many more Americans now mention a non-economic issue — such as dissatisfaction with government, immigration, or ethical and moral decline — than an economic one as the top problem.
This presidency has been a disaster. And it continues, without seeming end, to make all the wrong decisions almost without exception. The fact that the public seems to finally be waking up to it tells me a lot about how this presidency and administration have benefitted from a press reluctant to lay it all out as it happened. The problem the press faces now is it has become so bad that their credibility (such that it is) is at risk if they continue to ignore and/or attempt to explain away what has become obvious to almost everyone. That and the “Bush is to blame” blanket excuse has expired for all but the sycophants (although Obama again tried to deploy it this week when denying responsibility for the problems in Iraq).
This has been an awful era for this country. Almost everything this president promised has been found to be either nonsense, demonstrably false or a lie. Instead of the “most transparent” administration in history, it has become the most opaque. We see indications of criminal conduct by apparatchiks every day (really, 20 people under suspicion all had their emails destroyed? Really?). We see a “Justice” department that ignores the law and/or selectively enforces it depending on whether the group in question is a favored one or not (New Black Panthers and video of voter intimidation? Nah. Vote ID laws? You bet.). We see executive department bureaucrats assuming powers and making rules that are beyond their scope (just about everything the EPA has done). And, in fact, we see an administration that has mostly ignored the Constitution and the limits on power it imposes on the executive.
Now we’re engaged in redefining what “stronger” means. Apparently, in Obama Newspeak, stronger is really “weaker and poorer”. If that’s what he was striving to accomplish, then he can claim to have been remarkably successful in making us “stronger”.
I imagine there are those out there who will write this off as the usual political squabble, but there’s a larger point here, and if you look closely you’ll see it:
Top White House political adviser David Simas refused again Friday to honor a congressional subpoena, prompting Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to vote to rebuke the administration.
The Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted 19-14 to reject the White House’s claim that Simas has absolute immunity from a subpoena from Congress.
Republicans said they were standing up for the principle that no one is above the law, and Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa quoted a long list of Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, who have backed Congress’ right to subpoena top administration officials.
Democrats, led by ranking member Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, said they strongly disagree with the White House’s claim of absolute immunity but also strongly disagree with Issa’s push to press the issue, warning it could hurt the institution if they take a case to court.
The White House informed Issa at 7:30 a.m. Friday that Simas would not appear, Issa said. The absence was “not excused,” the California Republican added.
White House Counsel W. Neil Eggleston asked Issa to withdraw the subpoena to discuss his late Thursday offer for Simas to give a deposition instead of subpoenaed testimony.
Issa refused to do so.
“We have an absolute right and obligation” to investigate the new White House Office of Political Strategy and Outreach, he said.
It is about this presidency’s seeming desire to be unlawful. Screw Congress, screw the law, screw oversight, we (the Executive branch) get to decide what is or isn’t lawful. And we’ve decided that we have full immunity.
Nice. And this isn’t even some big agency or the like. It’s a 4 person office. It’s about the Constitution and the law:
“This was intended to be a short, and I hope it will be, oversight of a relatively small but in the past controversial office, consistent with our requirement to do oversight even without a predicate of wrongdoing,” he said.
Issa said oversight of the previously troubled political office will help American people be more comfortable and ensure taxpayer dollars are being used properly.
“This is not alleging a scandal at any level,” Issa said of the subpoena. But oversight is still legitimate, he said. ”We are accusing neither the president nor anyone in this four-person office of any wrongdoing.”
Nope … this is just their normal duties. Oversight. What a concept. Make sure that executive agency entities are following the law, spending (or not spending) taxpayer’s money as prescribed by law, etc.
And, as I mentioned yesterday, perception is going to be what? That they’ve got something to hide. The optics on this sort of thing are horrible – but they either don’t seem to understand or they don’t care.
There’s no good reason at work here for this president, there’s just arrogance and defiance. Even the Democrats won’t buy into the total immunity nonsense.
So we sit and watch as this administration continues to thumb its nose at the lawful functions of government and obeying the law.
But why should they? They haven’t in the past and nothing has happened. Why should they worry now?
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit delivered a huge blow to Obamacare this morning, ruling that the insurance subsidies granted through the federally run health exchange, which covered 36 states for the first open enrollment period, are not allowed by the law.
The highly anticipated opinion in the case of Jacqueline Halbig v. Sylvia Mathews Burwell reversed a lower court ruling finding that federally run exchanges did have the authority to disburse subsidies.
Today’s ruling vacates the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulation allowing the federal exchanges to give subsidies. The large majority of individuals, about 86 percent, in the federal exchange system received subsidies, and in those cases the subsidies covered about 76 percent of the premium on average.
The essence of the court’s ruling is that, according to the law, those subsidies are illegal. They were always illegal, and the administration never had the authority to offer them. (According to an administration official, however, the subsidies will continue to flow throughout the appeals process.)
Don’t get to excited about this yet. It was a 3 judge panel. And it will likely go to the Supreme Court. Finally, in a different Circuit (4th) a ruling says the subsidies are legal:
A different circuit court ruled today that subsidies offered through federally run exchanges are authorized on the law. This creates a circuit court split, which increases, but does not guarantee, the chances of an eventual hearing by the Supreme Court. It is also possible, and arguably even more likely, that the circuit split will be dealt with via en banc review.
Bottom line: a heavy shot across the bow of the sinking ship ObamaCare. If the DC Circuit finding survives the review and an appeal to the Supreme Court, then foundering ship will take the next shot below the water line. As for the law, it’s not going to get changed anytime soon with a Republican House.
As for the law, the DC Court said it was pretty clear to them:
“We conclude that appellants have the better of the argument: a federal Exchange is not an ‘Exchange established by the State,’ and [the relevant section of the law] does not authorize the IRS to provide tax credits for insurance purchased on federal Exchanges,” the decision says.
The law “plainly makes subsidies available only on Exchanges established by states,” the ruling says. “And in the absence of any contrary indications, that text is conclusive evidence of Congress’s intent. To hold otherwise would be to say that enacted legislation, on its own, does not command our respect—an utterly untenable proposition.”
Plain law, literally interpreted and applied. Certainly not what we’re used too. So let’s see how convoluted this gets moving up the line. My guess is it will be unrecognizable after the lawyers begin to redefine terms and words and make their arguments. By the end of it, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that “federal exchanges” now means whatever the IRS wants it to mean. But clearly, the way to kill this monstrosity is to starve it. And the way you starve it is to defund it … even if you have to do it bit by bit.
“Economic patriotism” is the new meme that Democrats are throwing around to demonize companies that try to avoid taxes here in the US, i.e. you’re not a patriotic company if you attempt to avoid taxes the Dems think you should be paying. Kevin Williamson covers it:
Jack Lew, late of Citigroup and currently of the Obama administration, has issued a call for “economic patriotism.” This phrase, which is without meaningful intellectual content, is popular in Democratic circles these days. Ted Strickland, the clownish xenophobe and nearly lifelong suckler upon all available taxpayer teats who once served as governor of Ohio, famously denounced Mitt Romney as a man lacking “economic patriotism” during the 2012 Democratic convention. President Barack Obama has used the phrase. It’s not that I do not appreciate lectures on “economic patriotism” from feckless former executives of dodgy Wall Street enterprises, guys who get rich monetizing their political celebrity, and second-rate ward-heelers from third-rate states; it’s just that nobody ever has been able to explain to me what the term is intended to mean.
The proximate cause of Mr. Lew’s distress is the fact that many U.S. firms either are up and leaving the country entirely or are acquiring foreign competitors in order to reorganize themselves as companies legally domiciled in friendly tax jurisdictions.
Now we’re not talking about 3rd world countries here … just countries that are much friendlier to business and have a lower tax rate. For instance:
U.S. pharmaceutical firms in particular have been in a rush to acquire partners in order to escape punitive U.S. corporate taxes for the relatively hospitable climates of Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. Walgreen’s, a venerable firm that, like the lamentable political career of Barack Obama, has its origins in Chicago, is considering abandoning its hometown of 113 years for Switzerland. Eaton, a Cleveland-based manufacturer of electronic components, moved to Ireland. The list goes on.
Note that in spite of the would-be class warriors’ “race to the bottom” rhetoric, these firms are not moving to relatively low-wage countries such as China or India. Switzerland is not a Third World hellhole — especially if your immediate point of comparison is murderlicious Chicago, which endures more homicides in a typical July than gun-loving Switzerland sees in a typical year. The Netherlands is not Haiti, and Ireland is not Bangladesh.
Got an ironic chuckle out of his point about Chicago. Maybe some might consider they’re moving out of a 3rd world country if they’re Chicago (or Detroit) based.
Anyway, all of these places have one thing in common – lower taxes, less regulation and a friendlier business climate than exists in the US. What they face here is the reason they’re becoming “unpatriotic”. It is more than just taxes:
Mr. Lew is correct in his assertion that relative tax rates are a main driver in the desire of firms to relocate, though it is not the only driver — arbitrary and unpredictable regulation, a lousy tort environment, and unstable public finances surely play a role as well. The United States has the highest statutory corporate-income-tax rate in the developed world, and though effective rates are typically lower than the nominal rate, that is more of a bug than a feature: Our corporate-income-tax regime is riddled with handouts and political favoritism. Crony capitalism is not an inspiring condition for firms looking to make long-term investments.
The point of Democrats and their use of “economic patriotism”, of course, is to demonize and attempt to shame companies that seek relief from the business crippling effects of this government. If the company doesn’t stay to be bled dry by the Dems to finance their utopian and big government schemes, well, they’re just “unpatriotic”.
“Economic patriotism” and its kissing cousin, economic nationalism, are ideas with a fairly stinky history, having been a mainstay of fascist rhetoric during the heyday of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s favorite “admirable Italian gentleman.” My colleague Jonah Goldberg has labored mightily in the task of illustrating the similarities between old-school fascist thinking and modern progressive thinking on matters political and social, but it is on economic questions that contemporary Democrats and vintage fascists are remarkably alike. In fact, their approaches are for all intents and purposes identical: As most economic historians agree, neither the Italian fascists nor the German national-socialists nor any similar movement of great significance had anything that could be described as a coherent economic philosophy. The Italian fascists put forward a number of different and incompatible economic theories during their reign, and the Third Reich, under the influence of Adolf Hitler’s heroic conception of history, mostly subordinated economic questions as such to purportedly grander concerns involving destiny and other abstractions.
Which is to say, what the economic nationalism of Benito Mussolini most has in common with the prattling and blockheaded talk of “economic patriotism” coming out of the mealy mouths of 21st-century Democrats is the habit of subordinating everything to immediate political concerns. In this context, “patriotism” doesn’t mean doing what’s best for your country — it means doing what is best for the Obama administration and its congressional allies.“Economic patriotism” and its kissing cousin, economic nationalism, are ideas with a fairly stinky history, having been a mainstay of fascist rhetoric during the heyday of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s favorite “admirable Italian gentleman.” My colleague Jonah Goldberg has labored mightily in the task of illustrating the similarities between old-school fascist thinking and modern progressive thinking on matters political and social, but it is on economic questions that contemporary Democrats and vintage fascists are remarkably alike. In fact, their approaches are for all intents and purposes identical: As most economic historians agree, neither the Italian fascists nor the German national-socialists nor any similar movement of great significance had anything that could be described as a coherent economic philosophy. The Italian fascists put forward a number of different and incompatible economic theories during their reign, and the Third Reich, under the influence of Adolf Hitler’s heroic conception of history, mostly subordinated economic questions as such to purportedly grander concerns involving destiny and other abstractions.
Which is to say, what the economic nationalism of Benito Mussolini most has in common with the prattling and blockheaded talk of “economic patriotism” coming out of the mealy mouths of 21st-century Democrats is the habit of subordinating everything to immediate political concerns. In this context, “patriotism” doesn’t mean doing what’s best for your country — it means doing what is best for the Obama administration and its congressional allies.
Another adventure in short-term political gain trumping a coherent economic policy that is pro-growth, pro-jobs, etc. Nothing new in that, but I think the summary helps focus it’s purpose. And it has nothing to do with “patriotism” or “economics”.

domain: politics


text:
“The Singapore Biennale 2011.” Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Singapore, the Southeast Asian trading hub, one of the world’s most modern, thriving, cosmopolitan cities, hosted its third biennale from March to May, featuring “63 artists from 30 countries presenting 161 works across four venues.” I was tentatively excited. I hoped for the best, but to my memory the Singaporean government had a history of not exactly “getting” creativity. Singapore has been trying to publicize itself as a center for the arts for the last decade, building the grand six-hectare Esplanade theatre building in 2002, and more recently, the Singapore FreePort and Christie’s auction house’s Fine Art Storage Service in 2010.
By the end of my tour, I wasn’t impressed, but I had to admit that I was surprised. Many A-list artists were represented (Omer Fast, Leopold Kessler, Ryan Trecartin, and Charlie White, to name a few), and although the quality of the artwork often varied, the overall picture proved interesting. While the main site of the biennale, Old Kallang Airport, was literally in shambles, the other sites on museum grounds were actually quite thoughtfully put together, and presented both work and curatorial skill that could, in fact, be taken seriously. The American multimedia and performance artist Jill Magid’s piece Evidence Locker (2004), on view at the National Museum, had a great effect on me as an exploration of intimacy and surveillance culture, while her politically-charged A Reasonable Man in a Box (2010) failed to come to its full potential because of the careless installation job at Kallang. All-in-all, however, the emphasis on video, sculpture, and installation work throughout gave the biennale the contemporary feel promised, and the plurality of artistic voices reinforced my belief in Singapore as a truly multi-cultural society from the ground up. 54% of the artwork was commissioned specifically for this event, and 43% was made by Asian artists, 9 of them Singaporeans.
It is important to put the burgeoning art scene in context within Singapore’s current state of political evolution. The day I attended the biennale was, funnily enough, voting day for Singaporeans, and for weeks earlier locals had been talking about their options, attending rallies, and for the first time seriously considering voting for an opposing party, instead of the People’s Action Party (PAP), which has been in control since Singapore’s independence from Britain in 1963. There were concerns over the secrecy of the ballotswhether walkovers would “pay” for their disloyalty. But by the end of the day there had been an historical upset in the Aljunied constituency, as the Workers’ Party representatives won by a 9.4% margin over the PAP.
Singapore has surprised the world by being a great capitalist nation, without necessarily being democratic. All television and radio stations, save for one frequency from BBC World Service, are owned by the Media Corporation of Singapore, or MediaCorp, the media arm of the government. Given the situation, what can we expect of young local contemporary artists and curators? What has to change for true creativity to flourish? The biennale felt shiftless, an event with such great content and potential, but without a comfortable home, or proper commitment given to it. Before Singapore truly becomes known for nurturing creative exploration, it needs to change the internal culture that has prevented it from matching the vibrancy and success it has achieved as a world leader in other areas.

domain: artistic