Shut Up, They Explained

The default Dem debating dodge - everybody who disagrees with me is a bigot - is meant to end arguments, not win them.

Of course, having our 'leaders' tell us we are bigots might make us think we really are bigots.  Or it might make us think we need new leaders.  We'll find out in November.

Comments

[sbw]

Say it louder, please. And more often.

Harvard studies show that advertising messages need to be repeated eight or nine times to get through thick American skulls.

Well, the study didn't phrase the last part quite that way. ;-)

[Neo]

The Palin encounter with the (alleged) "teacher" reminds me that while Palin has encountered the "Great Unwashed" on almost a daily basis, our idiot President hasn't had an encounter with an unscreened average American since that unfortunate episode with "Joe the Plumber".

[narciso]

You have that right, Neo, specially the 'teacher' part in the LUN

[Janet]

Got Soylent's address today! So we are good to go on sending packages. I'm gonna mail one today from JOM. Jane & Hit have the official participation list so they'll probably send out something official soon.

[Janet]

LUN is an interesting little local news bit from the WaPo.

from the article -
"According to several of McKelway's colleagues, the newsman's reporting may have lapsed into partisan territory when he commented live on the air about the oil industry's influence in Washington, particularly its contributions to Democratic politicians and legislators."

Bold is mine. We can't have any reporters be partisan IF they are negative to Dems.!

[BumperStickerist]

How are right-wing bigots like convicted felons, the dead, and illegal aliens?

They vote.

[Jane]

Janet,

I posted a snippet of Soylent's latest in the last thread, and forwarded you the address you already have.

He is in fine form it seems.Thanks so much for all you do.

I'll be answering his email today if anyone wants to say anything.

[daddy the wanna' be heretic]

Tacitus tells us that the first guy to employ a speechwriter was Nero.

[narciso]

It did not end well for Seneca, as I recall daddy

[anduril]

Is leaving Islam a form of bigotry? Is Islam Really the Second-Fastest Growing Religion?

[Rob Crawford]

OT, and possibly already discussed:

Are the people clutching their pearls and shrieking over Palin "rolling her eyes" ever going to bring up Obama's oh-so-subtle use of the digitus impudicus during debates?

And, from the "I really need to change my clock radio's default station" file, when the local host brought up Democrat control of Congress since 2006 and the connection to the economy, the ABC/Democrat mouthpiece, er, "reporter", gave a half-whine, half-groan noise as if that's the last thing she wanted to admit.

[Rick Ballard]

"Harvard studies show that advertising messages need to be repeated eight or nine times to get through thick American skulls."

SBW,

The Dems message of tolerance for metastasizing societal cancer combined with indoctrination aimed at eradicating the ability to discriminate between good and evil has been repeated somewhat more than eight or nine times. It would seem that being on the side of reality might count more than mere repetition.

We'll get a chance to test the proposition again in November.

[PD]

Ras -19 today. That's more like it.

[narciso]

This is just awkward, reminds of that line in Serenity, 'but I don't want to explode, in the LUN

[boris]

From Maguire's link:

we have had many secular sermons on the need to recognize that the vast majority of Muslims should not be confused with the terrorists. No argument there. But how much more fruitful our own debates might be if the Judge Walkers, Mayor Bloombergs and Speaker Pelosis could extend that same presumption of decency to the American people

Pretty sure it is pointless to point out they don't grant us the respect they accuse us of not having for others. Joke really.

My guess why: you rightwingers are the enemies of respect ... thus disrespecting you advances the repect agenda ... you can have respect when and only when you demonstrate unconditional respect for others!

If accurate that must mean rightwingers are not "others" entitled to unconditional respect. Again my guess is rightwingers are considered morally defective culture-family members deserving only of scolding.

The other point is ... shouldn't rightwingers have the same option ... I mean ... apparently deserving this "unconditional respect" seems to be conditional on granting unconditional respect to yet others ... etc

For example: rightwingers might say "we will grant this unconditional respect to Muslims when and only when they demonstrate unconditional respect for Israel".

[narciso]

And this from Janet 'favorite Post columnist'
in the LUN

[Extraneus]

I think our betters do us a big favor when they talk down to us and call us bigots, unwashed goons, etc. Hopefully they'll keep it up right through October.

[centralcal]

Shut up they screamed . . . .

"A survey conducted by MobileTribune.com indicates that the Fox News Network, with it's wide reach over multiple media outlets dominated by television,radio, print and digital entities may have brainwashed as many as 30 million Americans over the past eight years.

[snip]

"Fox News has come under fire over the past several years, accused of slanting news towards a conservative political agenda. Although news networks designed or redesigned to surreptitiously slant news towards a certain political end is not new, the Fox approach is a first in the history of American news reporting. The effect of news brainwashing is a slow yet constant process that fools the victim using a variety of reporting tools and techniques that only the most skeptical of viewers would suspect and catch."

Frightened much?

LUN

[daddy the wanna' be heretic]

Morning narciso,

Got that about Tacitus from an interesting current read ">http://www.amazon.com/History-Histories-Chronicles-Inquiries-Thucydides/dp/0375727671/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281443572&sr=8-1"> A History of Histories.

Of other OT stuff that made me go 'hmmm' lately:

Last week did 2 deadheads from China outbound as a passenger on Chinese Passenger airlines. In the first, heading to Singapore, the music over the loudspeaker while doing the boarding and Stewardess announcements, was "Tubular Bells", that bizarre music used as the backdrop in "The Exorcist" back when Linda Blair's head spun a 360 with warts and vomit and started scaring the BeJesus out of everybody back in 1973.

The following flight a few days later was on Hainan Airlines, and the background theme song was muzac of John Lennon's "Imagine". (Wonder if JetBlue should have used that?)

Almost as odd, discovered a new AM (ADF) station the other week coming out of Petropavlovsk. Think it was 576. In the States our AM radio frequencies are always numbers like AM 810, 560, 650 etc, numbers that end in a zero. In Europe and Asia, they are all 9 digits away from some baseline number (probably starting at 540) but it's easier for me to start my search from 666 (Linda Blair again) I simply tune in ADF 666, see if the needle points a few seconds and listen for a station, If no, then I subtract 9, punch in 657 and do the search again. Anyhow abeam Petropavlovsk, got a good point to that Russian airfield and excellent tunes on ADF 576 (Jimmy Hendrix!) Who would a thunk it. Only had good reception for about 15 minutes but found that fun. Nice to know some of the antique radio technology still works which you could use if you had to to at least get you pointed in the right direction if all the hi-tech stuff suddenly went down. Reminds me of the time back about 82' when a momentary azimuth point and the faint strains of Elvis's "Jailhouse RocK' plucked me from infinity in the Indian Ocean. God bless the http://farm1.static.flickr.com/190/499623525_e24968bb05.jpg "> King.

[Pagar]

"We can't have any reporters be partisan IF they are negative to Dems.!"

The leftist press can lie about everything and no one calls them on it. There are thousands of untold stories about a guy who's claim to US citiznship seems to be based on a newspaper announcement that a child was born. A person born, not in the 1800's when records might not exist, but in the 1960 era. The LUN Janet posted show why not a single reporter is willing to do the digging the story requires. The editor has the power to end their careers. Conservatives have to find a way to change this.

[Ann Mongrel]

daddy:

MSNBC is reporting a plane went down in Alaska and former Senator Ted Stevens was on it. Have you heard anything?

[Clarice]

I'm really disappointed in you guys. For 2 days Drudge had posted a link to "pantless man caught with armless mannequin" and no one here has commented on this.
TSK

[Rob Crawford]

A survey conducted by MobileTribune.com...

So is "MobileTribune.com" one of those indymedia outlets?

Funniest quote: "a bold campaign that could have blueprints supported by documents, recordings and emails". Yeah, it "could" have blueprints. Or it could just be that they decided not to slant the news the same way the fascist majority in the press and on the left (I repeat myself) prefer.

[scott]

Ted Stevens down for the 2nd time?

[Danube of Thought]

And minus 5.7 at RCP average, a new low.

[anduril]

Pretty good article, Hawks for Peace, about the fairly recent phenomenon of conservatives like Ann Coulter coming to the defense of Michael Steele against Neocons attacks.

The author cites some other conservatives like Diana West:

Many prominent conservative hawks are saying no. One naysayer is Washington Times columnist Diana West who has claimed, among other things: no, we are not winning in Iraq; no, the surge did not work; no, a comparable surge will not work any better in Afghanistan. She’s even willing to criticize Gen. David Petraeus, something that can get you in trouble with Republican writers of nonbinding congressional resolutions.

“Judging by the 99-0 Senate vote that confirmed Petraeus as Afghanistan commander last week, another Iraq is precisely what America wants,” West wrote, “as though Iraq were an American ‘victory’ worth the cost, human and monetary, of repeating.” West is not alone. No less a hawk than National Review Online’s Andrew McCarthy complained, “We went [to Iraq] to topple Saddam; we stayed to build an Islamic ‘democracy,’ and the result is an Iranian satellite.”

“Nation-building is the most prominent — and most important — part of the neocon doctrine,” wrote Jed Babbin in the American Spectator. “And the decision to pursue it is the principal reason that we are losing in Afghanistan, Iraq is falling apart, and the real enemy — the terror-sponsoring nations — have grown stronger.”

He then goes on to offer three points that should guide our foreign policy:

First: the United States is seldom going to pursue regime change without at least some form of nation-building. If you oppose the latter, you must be extremely reluctant to engage in the former.

Second: just as Islam cannot be reformed from the outside, the ancient religion of a billion people cannot be “rolled back” in the same sense as Soviet Communism — and rollback was not the main strategy employed in winning the Cold War. Militant Islam must be contained. A viable containment strategy cannot be sustained through prolonged occupations of Muslim lands.

Third: while U.S. support of dissidents in Muslim countries is to the good, we must proceed cautiously. We do not have the same level of knowledge about the internal politics of the Middle East as we did about Eastern Europe during the Cold War. We do not always know who our friends and allies are. There will also be cases where we discredit reformers by being associated with them.

A related point: we do not aid reformers by rallying people to the existing regimes. Just as bombing Poland would not have aided Solidarity, bombing Iran could actually set back the kind of political reforms we would like to see in Tehran. The idea that military action is the best way to liberalize other countries is daft.

[narciso]

Well what more is there to say about that, Clarice, it's kind of self explanatory.

A survey of 20 people, that's just slightly larger than that of the dentists who chew gum

[narciso]

That's not funny, Scott, btw

[Captain Hate]

I have a question regarding the murdering con and the smelly whore who helped spring him from the joke of a federal facility where he was incarcerated; they are reportedly trying to get to Canada. Wouldn't the Canucks just turn them back over to the US when apprehended? Oh and any "white supremacist" hives that may have helped these murdering scum out should be nuked from orbit.

I've also had it with felons being allowed to receive visits from deranged skeezers who get moist from dealing with "bad boys". I hope the bitch catches a hollow-point in her equally hollow head.

[anduril]

From AT:

Lessons from a Turkish Wedding
By John F. Di Leo
In the world news, we read of a moment of horror at a wedding in Gaziantep, in southeastern Turkey. During the celebration of his own wedding, as is all too common in the Middle East, Tevfik Altun, the groom, fired his AK-47 into the air, immediately lost control of it, and in an instant had killed his own father and two of his aunts, besides injuring eight others.

[PD]

Lessons from a Turkish Wedding

What were the lessons?

[daddy the wanna' be heretic]

No Ann,

Am away from home and hadn't heard that, but ">http://www.adn.com/2010/08/09/1402798/plane-with-8-on-board-crashes.html"> this breaking ADN link says you may be correct.

[narciso]

I think load it with blanks, would be a good
rule of thumb

[PD]

US stocks plunged in early trade on Tuesday as investors and markets wait for the Federal Open Market Committee meeting results after disappointing nonfarm productivity data.

Clearly we need more happy talk from VP Biden about the Summer of Recovery. Reality seems not to be bending appropriately.

[boris]

"What were the lessons?"

heh

The AK47 is less likely to jam in a firefight than the M16.

[Danube of Thought]

"pantless man caught with armless mannequin"

Just tryin' to find love in a topsy-turvy world.

[scott]

My intent was not to be funny, narciso I hope he and everyone else on the plane are ok. One of the few things I could tell you about him was he was a plane crash survivor. I guess I make mental notes of these things having survived a near death experience myself. To go down twice I think puts him in pretty elite territory and I ascribe neither good nor bad to that observation.

[Clarice]

My husband says he heard some friends of our may have died in that crash with Stevens. In fact, one of his partners was originally cheduled to be on tht trip. Really sad.

****

Very goood, DoT.
Later.

[bunkerbuster]

I love how identity conservatives give their game away by parading their ludicrously inflamed sense of aggrievement. McGurn, whose been earning a fine living putting words in conservatives mouths for decades, confesses that he perceives Mayor Bloomberg's opposition to those who would make Islamic faith a thought-crime as "preening."
You'll rarely or never hear a liberal say it is ``preening'' to argue that it's immoral for the government to take from the rich and give to the poor. Nor do you hear liberals whining about their "betters" insisting that sex between men is immoral. Rather, liberals consider homophobes to be beneath them on the moral scale and, therefore, feel no reason to worry that conservative homophobes consider themselves to be the morally superior ones or "look down on them.''
Yet the most common meme in the wingnutosphere is how awful conservatives feel because liberals look down on them.
It's obvious to me that McGurn knows, but would never acknowledge, that the identity conservative positions on the mosque and, for example, gay sex are morally inferior. And most conservatives realize it as well. They know that their positions are based on what they see as political pragmatism, or to be generous: survival in a tough world. And it drives them insane when liberals bust them for that.
No matter how closely I look at the Bloomberg's carefully worded statements on the mosque, I see no exaggerations or emotional flourishes. Rather, his statements are straightforward and factual. Preening? Where would McGurn come up with that?
McGurn writes:
``In New York City we have a mayor who preens how an Islamic Center built close to Ground Zero is exclusively a test of religious liberty.''
Religious liberty is undeniably at issue here. There is nothing whatsoever to suggest that concern for religious liberty is "preening." No one who disagrees with the Tea Party's claim to support Constitutional government would call the teabag position "preening." It would only be "preening" if you actually agree that it's a morally superior position to argue, as the Tea Party absurdly does, that Medicare doesn't violate the Constitution, but Obamacare does.
Indeed, identity conservatives NEVER preen. They cower, flee, bluff, and whine, whine, whine in narcissistic self-pity...

[Rob Crawford]

And here comes Bubu to repeat the "shut up" message.

[centralcal]

Oh, golly, Clarice! There are supposedly some survivors being cared for by good samaritans, according to last news report.

Calling Janet - have you seen this????

LAW PREVENTS MAILING CIGARETTES TO TROOPS.

LUN

[Danube of Thought]

Greg Gutfeld to open a gay bar next to the Ground Zero mosque, open 24 hours a day and catering especially to gay men who happen to be of the Islamic faith.

[Sue]

WBAP is reporting Stevens was on the plane that went down in AK. No information on survivors.

[Danube of Thought]

Medicare doesn't violate the Constitution

No mandate.

[Jane]

Scott,

I got what you were saying. This is Steven's second plane crash. Wouldn't it be simply amazing if he also survived this one?

[Pagar]

"may have brainwashed"

Maxine Green, William Ayers and their coharts have brainwsashed entire generations of American children if they attended public Schools.

"A little over 10 years ago, Ayers and Greene were able to get a series of books on education published. Ayers was editor and Green served on the editorial board (with Rashid Khalidi -- a supporter of the Palestinian cause, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. Khalidi also has ties with Barack Obama that have been widely reported when journalists cover Obama's extensive support for the Palestinians, most recently in the Los Angeles Times "Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama")."

[bunkerbuster]

Rob: au contraire, I say "speak up" to you. Speak more, not less! I get most of my material directly from blogs like this.

[Sue]

AP is reporting 5 are dead, but not sure who the 5 are.

[Ignatz]

Excellent synopsis from City Journal on the New Left, prog hell California has become. Especially interesting on who benefits in prog hell; the ultra rich and the public unions while the middle and working class are 'unexpectedly' squeezed out.

[bunkerbuster]

DoT asserts that Medicare has "no mandate." But if he paid attention, he'd notice that his monthly pay check includes a rather substantial mandate withdrawn without permission of any kind whatsoever. I have to buy Medicare coverage, and I can't even use it! But I happily pay. I'm well enough off that I couldn't bear the thought of not participating in Medicare, which has provided mostly first-rate medical care to millions of Americans for decades. Indeed that's something we can all be proud of. I'll be interested to see if the Tea Party comes out against Medicare, if they ever gin up enough integrity to even come up with a platform. At the moment, their only principle is: give me more ask from me less!!!!

[Porchlight]

This news about the crash really sucks.

[narciso]

No one cares what you think, spunkmeyer, I looked up Stevens wiki, to see about that previous plane crash, his record was quite impressive, and in retrospect, he was even
right about the point of using schools accessing Myspace, Facebook, et al

[Ranger]

And So Triangulation Begins:

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/113431-white-house-unloads-on-professional-left>White House unloads anger over criticism from 'professional left’

This isn't the full turn to triangulation, but it is a first step in that direction.

[Ranger]

Bubu,

It would be interesting to see if the left will ever be honest enough to come up with a way to pay for Medicare. Right now, it will be repealed not through law, but through simple lack of funding.

Take a look at this list and notice how many of the names on it are healthcare providers:

http://www.illinoisisbroke.com/vendors.aspx>These are the organizations that the State of Illinois owes $100,000 or more as of July 22, 2010, according to the Office of the Illinois Comptroller.

[glasater]

Irony alert-

I harvested the below tidbit while cruising through twitter this AM:

Beinart: Why Can’t Today’s Conservatives Be More Like Bush?: “If only today’s conservatives ... http://tinyurl.com/23a9e9b #news #politics

Very sad news about the plane crash in AK.

[Jack is Back!]

This makes 3 big plane crashes in the last 3 weeks in Alaska, right?

[Danube of Thought]

But if he paid attention, he'd notice that his monthly pay check includes a rather substantial mandate withdrawn without permission of any kind whatsoever.

I get no monthly paycheck. Try again.

[narciso]

The brain slug is affecting that last particle of self awareness for Beinart.

Very tragic news, from all indications

[Ranger]

The crash is doublly sad, as he never should have been on that plane. He should have still been in the Senate.

[Jane]

This makes 3 big plane crashes in the last 3 weeks in Alaska, right?

Hmmmmm - do I smell a conspiracy?

[Rob Crawford]

Hmmmmm - do I smell a conspiracy?

No, that's just the stank off of Bubu.

[daddy the wanna' be heretic]

Sad Clarice,

">http://alaskadispatch.com/dispatches/news/6314-five-die-in-plane-crash-ted-stevens-was-on-board-"> This story says the plane was a DC-3 Otter.

Off the top I believe that in just the last week or so up here we've lost the Airshow C-17, a 3 person Cargo Plane in Denali, a 5 person plane on Knik Glacier, a small plane on a valley sandbar, and now this.

It's also worth remembering that the Government Enviro/EPA push
to forbid 100 Low Lead Aviation gas is ongoing. Since 100LL is the primary fuel for puddle jumpers like the DC-3 that service outlying Bush Communities, engines requiring 100LL will now run less efficiently, their costs will be more expensive, and the Bush communities will find they become more isolated and things will get more expensive in the long run.

[Appalled]

bunkerbuster:

Medicare is a tax for a service provided by the government, just like Social Security. It's pretty clearly constitutional as an income based tax.

The mandate for Obamacare is a requirement that every citizen, under penalty of law, go out and buy health insurance. There is a real question of law on whether Congress has, under its enumerated powers, the ability to enact something like this.

The irony for your side is that, whatever the defects of "Medicare for All" as a policy, it would not have run into this issue.

[Ranger]

Bubu's present efforts to redirect every thread to a discussion of repealing Medicare leads me to suspect it is another meme being test driven by the left for November's elections.

Anyone want to bet we start hearing this fearmongering on repealing over the next few weeks Medicare in a desperate effort to turn the over 60 voters against the GOP wave?

[Ignatz]

Sorry for the anduril-like length of this but, of course medicare is unconstitutional.

Federalist 41: James Madison

Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States," amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defence or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury; or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms "to raise money for the general welfare." But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied by signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.

Show me where in the following text is the power to form a universal health insurance program for the elderly:

Article 1, Section 8.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

There aint' any. Just because an arm of the Federal Government, SCOTUS, has created powers out of thin air doesn't mean something is consitutional, anymore than it meant Dredd Scott was someone's property. It means the SCOTUS has acted extra-legally.
Let's hope we don't need another civil war to fix the mess SCOTUS has again helped make of our country.

[Pagar]

The LUN posted by Ranger has some strange things on it.
For example:
AFTER SCHOOL MATTERS ($2,364,570.00)
What does a volunteer group that is supposed to be helping teens, etc. bill the state for?

I'd be willing to bet some of the smaller companies on that list are already out of business because the STATE of Illinois does not pay on time.

[Sue]

If Stevens is one of the reported 4 that survived the crash, he should really rethink taking another flight. Just sayin'...

[Danube of Thought]

From Virginia's brief in opposition to the government's motion to dismiss:

Second, the Individual Mandate penalty, speaking historically and in light of traditional norms, is simply not a tax. “A tax, in the general understanding of the term, and as used in the Constitution, signifies an exaction for the support of the Government.‟ [citation omitted] The purpose of the penalty is to alter conduct in hopes that the penalty will not be collected. The Constitution recognizes direct taxes, which must be apportioned, Art. I, § 9; income taxes, which need not be apportioned, Amend. XVI; and duties, imposts and excises, which must be uniform throughout the United States. Art. I, § 8. These “apparently embrace all forms of taxation contemplated by the Constitution.” [citation omitted] Historically, direct taxes were taxes on persons or things, while duties, imposts and excises have never meant a tax on a decision not to purchase or not to do something unrelated to a larger voluntary business or other undertaking. And while the Individual Mandate penalty was codified in the same act as actual excise taxes, excises historically are taxes “on the production, sale, or consumption of certain commodities” or are business license taxes. The American Heritage Dictionary at 457 (Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston 1981). Finally, even if the penalty were a tax, as long as it is being used for regulation, it must pass muster under some other enumerated power justifying the regulation; here, the Commerce Clause. [citations omitted]

[Melinda Romanoff]

Ranger-

Bait and Switch.

[daddy the wanna' be heretic]

These 2 links are decent primers for understanding the 100LL Av Gas topic I mentioned above, which has real potential to clobber our Alaskan Bush communities.

1) ">http://alaskadispatch.com/blogs/bush-pilot/5641-the-epa-wants-to-outlaw-aviation-fuel">
The EPA wants to outlaw aviation fuel

2) ">http://alaskadispatch.com/blogs/bush-pilot/6028-an-alaska-pilot-speaks-out-against-the-epa-avgas-ban"> An Alaska pilot speaks out against the EPA avgas ban

[Appalled]

bunkerbuster:

Just an observation -- there's no law or even saying someone has to be ideologically consistent to the point of stupidity. You can really want the repeal of Obamacare, and want to leave Medicare alone.

[Appalled]

Excuse me, that was incoherent. I meant to tell bb that neither Buckley, Goldwater, Reagan, Burke or Palin had decreed that Conservatives have to rigidly go to every logical extreme.

[Pagar]

" but through simple lack of funding. "
Or lack of doctors caused by lack of funding.

[DebinNC]

John Fund weighs in today about the growing Dem skuttlebutt re replacing Biden with Hillary in 2012. One suggestion is having them switch roles. I can't see either Hillary or Obama agreeing to that or how that gets them more votes, but the idea's supposedly gaining steam. Anyone know why?

[narciso]

Never quite figured the logic of 1) Medicare is hemorhaging cash 2) put more people in medicare 3)??? the underpants gnome business
model.

[Ranger]

Or lack of doctors caused by lack of funding.

Posted by: Pagar | August 10, 2010 at 11:42 AM

Yes, well they have a plan for that in Illinois. They are going to make it a requirement for getting or maintaining a medcial license that you agree to take medicare and medicaid patients.

[Manuel Transmission]

daddy, I flew on Hainan Airlines domestically (in China) awhile back and considered it for a direct flight (SEA-PEK) on one of my last trips until I discovered one of its key backers is our buddy, George Soros! Sheesh! Makes you wonder what other insider deals there are out there.

[Danube of Thought]

I was opposed to Medicare at the time it was enacted, on grounds that have been amply vindicated: that its costs would be many times greater than projected, and would grow so great as to be unsustainable and to threaten the nation's fiscal solvency.

But despite my opposition I was taxed to support it, taking from me money that I otherwise could have invested so as to provide for myself.

I have always understood it to be constitutional, in the sense that regardless of the meaning and original intent of that document, ample judicial precedent has made it so.

I know of no judicial precedent that would support the constitutionality of the Obamacare mandate. Neither the taxing power nor the commerce clause power has ever been extended this far.

[centralcal]

Quinn Hillyer has this really eerie piece about today's plane crash in Alaska . . .

Anyway, what IS it about politicos from Louisiana and Alaska on flights over the Alaskan panhandle? This is a horrible conicidence, sort of like a photographic negative of the flight that disappeared (and still never definitively found, unless I missed something) in 1972.

[Ranger]

AFTER SCHOOL MATTERS ($2,364,570.00)
What does a volunteer group that is supposed to be helping teens, etc. bill the state for?

Its part of the Democratic Party's system of completely co-opting civil society. Many of these organizations were charities at one time. To "help out" the state started giving grants to worthy groups. The grants were so generous, that the organizations grew much larger than their old contribution base could support, and the State started turning the grants into actual service contracts. This created a very strong pro-Democrat voting bloc in lots of communties.

Of coures, now that the state is broke, lots of these organizations will close up shop, since they no longer have any source of funding outside of the state government.

[daddy the wanna' be heretic]

Manny T,

Very interesting. Had no idea. We were assigned the trip by the company at the last minute due to flux's in our system and having to move us from A to B promptly. Hainan Airlines took us Guangzhou to Taipei direct, which we are not allowed to do in our birds, having to hit an intermediate country like the P.I. or Japan after leaving China, prior to entering The Republic of China Taipei.

Thanks for that very interesting bit of info. Will pass it on.

[Danube of Thought]

Dick Morris's latest crusade is for the congress to amend the bankruptcy statute so as to allow states to seek bankruptcy protection. I have a simpler solution: Is there any reason a state's legislature and governor can't simply enact a law appointing a receiver to reorganize the state's debts? Public employee pensions might get a nice, respectable haircut.

[BelarusBytes]

bunkerbuster wrote that the Tea Party's only principle is " give me more ask from me less!!!!" The only thing that I'm aware of the Tea Party asking for more of is freedom.

[Jane]

Anyone know why?

Hillary is popular. Biden and Obama aren't.

[Porchlight]

Anyone know why?

Maybe they think Hill has a better chance at helping him win in 2012....because they think Palin will be his opponent and they want a woman candidate?

Or they want Hill in at VP in case Obama has to resign? Okay, wishful thinking on that one. Sort of.

At any rate if, heaven forbid, Obama wins a second term, they will definitely want Hill to be the presumptive candidate in 2016 over Joe.

[Danube of Thought]

Raz generic congressional ballot: GOP 46%, Dem 39%.

[Danube of Thought]

I think HRC as VP would give him a better chance in 2012.

[Neo]

Ads opposing a planned mosque near Ground Zero should soon be seen on city buses after the MTA signed off on their controversial design today.

A lawyer for the New Hampshire group behind the campaign called the decision "a victory not just for free speech but against political correctness and Mayor Bloomberg's bullying."

[Pofarmer]

If Stevens is one of the reported 4 that survived the crash, he should really rethink taking another flight. Just sayin'...

Hell man, go for it. If you survived two, the chances of a third would be?????????????????

[Captain Hate]

Religious liberty is undeniably at issue here.

This lunacy can't go unrefuted. Is the state arresting anybody for practicing a religion? No. Would Fred Phelps delusional crew of nutjobs be just as unwelcome at that site as the rock worshippers? Yes.

Responding to deliberate provocations is not depriving anybody of their rights. Anybody casting racial slurs that subsequently gets his ass kicked for doing so can whine all he wants about his rights to free speech being violated without having anybody sane take him seriously.

[Ignatz]

He may not have been too well known outside his niche but Jerry Flint auto writer for Forbes and Ward's Automotive passed away on Saturday.
Excellent writer and lovable curmudgeon. If the doofuses in Detroit had listened more closely to him we probably wouldn't own 2/3 of them.

[Chubby]

D0T: ((I think HRC as VP would give him a better chance in 2012.))

he w0uld win the pumas back, at least s0me 0f them, even th0ugh the pumas generally l0ve Sarah

(s0rry for my use 0f the zer0 key f0r the letter between i and p ... my keyb0ard is acting wierd, I think it's a virus)

[Jane]

This could hurt Hillary:">http://dailycaller.com/2010/08/10/state-department-taliban-is-not-a-terrorist-organization/#ixzz0wDmDLOr6">Hillary:

State Department: Taliban is not a terrorist organization

[Chubby]

f0r Hillary Taliban link I get err0r message

[Sue]

Radios in AK are reporting that Stevens is among the dead.

[matt]

after the murder of 10 medical missionaries, numerous marketplace bombings, suicide bombings on a daily basis, and stoning and beheading prisoners under Sharia law of course the Taliban isn't a terrorist. Minitrue told us so.

On a similar note, and more on topic, I just posted my latest; Dirty Deeds done Dirt Cheap; the Democrats strategery in the 2010 elections.LUN

[Chubby]

Rick: ((The Dems message of tolerance for metastasizing societal cancer combined with indoctrination aimed at eradicating the ability to discriminate between good and evil has been repeated somewhat more than eight or nine times. It would seem that being on the side of reality might count more than mere repetition.))

w0rds that c0nservatives can stand 0n like a r0ck, imh0

[Ignatz]

Here's an interesting bit of info from AmSpec detailing the facts behind the regime's specious claim that their administration deserves credit for all those alleged deportations of illegals.
Surprisingly the claim turns out to be a load of bull.

[Extraneus]

Perhaps Obamas people want to try to deal with her before he drops much further.

[cathyf]

Yes, well they have a plan for that in Illinois. They are going to make it a requirement for getting or maintaining a medcial license that you agree to take medicare and medicaid patients.

How typically Illinois. Everyone in the Chicago metropolitan area can drive to Wisconsin or Indiana if the politicos drive all of the doctors out of state. Fortunately Iowa is conveniently located to me!

Really sucks for the rest of ya'all, though...