MORE ON THE SEBELIUS THREAT: OBAMACARE AND THE RULE OF LAW. “Never before in the history of our republican form of government has an administration threatened to extinguish individual firms for merely communicating with their customers. But such are the dictatorial powers Obamacare grants to Secretary Sebelius. . . . Secretary Sebelius’ Hugo Chavezesque threats against the health insurance industry demonstrate why the fight to repeal Obamacare is also the fight for the soul of our country.”
Archive for 2010
September 14, 2010
JULIAN SANCHEZ: Is the Fourth Amendment Really About ‘Privacy’?
QUINNIPIAC POLL: Blumenthal’s Lead Shrinking In Connecticut. Given the whole lying about Vietnam thing, it’s amazing he’s got a lead at all. Then again, lying about Vietnam service didn’t stop Tom Harkin.
Here’s more on Blumenthal’s Vietnam-service lies from Will Saletan.
A ROUNDUP OF kid-lit news.
CHANGE: More Banks Missing Tarp Dividend Payments. “The latest report from the agency shows that more than 120 institutions – nearly all of them small banks – have missed their scheduled quarterly dividend payments, which is more than a sixth of the banks that received federal aid during the financial crisis. In addition, five banks that received capital injections from the controversial $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program have failed altogether, making it highly unlikely that taxpayers will recover the nearly $3 billion poured into those institutions.”
CHANGE: THE RETURN OF NO-MONEY-DOWN: “Having negative equity is very, very dangerous. And that’s what a no-money-down borrower has in this market, because prices aren’t rising much, and they need to find thousands of dollars to pay broker commissions and closing costs if they want to sell. What truly boggles the mind is that the government still thinks that it’s somehow a good idea to help push people with basically no savings into homeownership. Do they want to make sure that a whole new class of financially marginal people can enjoy the benefits of foreclosure?”
CAROLINE MAY: When Environmentalists Are Anti-Immigration: “Immigrants to the United States have more children than native born Americans and produce about four times more carbon than they would in their country of origin.”
JAMES TARANTO: Only Nixon Could Go to China: How Obama can help ease “Islamophobia.” “The reason President Bush did a better job at managing Americans’ mistrust of Muslims is not, as Obama seems to suggest, that the Bush economy was so much better than the Obama one. It is, rather, that Americans, on this matter, trusted Bush. There’s an old Vulcan proverb: Only Nixon could go to China. Bush commanded trust when he spoke up for peaceful Muslims, because Americans understood he was on our side against the terrorists.”
PETER WOOD: The Bubble: Higher Education’s Precarious Hold on Consumer Confidence.
The outlines are simple. The price of attaining a college degree has skyrocketed while the rewards of attaining a college degree have slumped. Sooner or later, people will notice that they are being asked to spend a great deal of money for a meager result. If enough people notice this and consequently decide not to spend at comparable levels and to seek lower priced alternatives—daisies instead of tulips—the bubble will burst.
Defenders of the current system point to reasons why this won’t happen. My own view is that we are indeed facing a bubble, but before turning to that prognosis, it helps to start with the counter-arguments.
Read the whole thing.
WALL STREET JOURNAL: Sebelius Has a List: Political thuggery from HHS. “Zero tolerance for expressing an opinion, or offering an explanation to policyholders? They’re more subtle than this in Caracas.”
GUNS FOR SELF-PROTECTION IN THE CAYMAN ISLANDS:
An interesting and strident thread throughout was the recognition by many people that heightened self-protection is a necessity in the face of increased incidents of violent crimes. Of course, this view has been driven by the recent incident in which a George Town homeowner, the holder of a licensed firearm, shot a burglar to death. It did not help that the intruder was someone who was supposed to be under official monitoring and supervision.
It seems that what many persons in the community have taken away from this incident is that in the face of certain failures from the police, they may as well take unto themselves their own personal security.
They’re not the first to feel this way.
A TENNESSEE GUN UPDATE: Since the law removing restrictions of handguns in parks, an amazing thing happened. Nothing. “Whenever prohibitions on carry are loosened, there’s always calls that there will be blood in the streets and violence at kids’ soccer games. But it keeps not happening.”
TRAINING FOR WMD “Red Flags” In Ukraine.
WELL, DUH: Democrats love the GOP fight on the right in Delaware. Disagreement is fine, guys, but avoid fratricide. And you know the difference: If you’re saying things you wouldn’t say about a leftie blogger, you’ve gotten carried away.
PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: “The IRS wants to get us academic types coming and going. They want us to report our writing royalties on C but deny us deductions in connection therewith. Unfair and uncool.”
WASHINGTON SUPREME COURT: Anti-Traffic Camera Vote Will Happen. “The Washington state Supreme Court on Friday rejected the motion filed on behalf of a traffic camera company to block a public vote on the use of automated ticketing machines. In a two-sentence order, the court refused to intervene in the scheduled November 2 election in the city of Mukilteo where residents had signed a petition forcing a red light camera and speed camera ban onto the ballot.”
IT’S REALLY SAD, to see The Fonz hawking reverse mortgages on late-night TV. I’m just sayin’ . . . .
AN OBAMA VOTER WRITES: “Eh. Sorry, I don’t believe you, Barack. The moment is over.”