Patriotic Federalist

Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Doug Elmendorf testified before Congress Thursday that ObamaCare will cost 800,000 jobs. During the hearing, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) asked, “[I]t’s been argued … that the new health care law will create jobs and increase labor force participation. But if I recall from your analysis, it was quite the opposite. Is that not the case?” Elmendorf replied simply, “Yes.”

Rep. John Campbell (R-CA) followed up by asking, “[I]n your estimation, the health care law would reduce employment by 800,000 in [2020]-’21. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” Elmendorf replied again. “The way I would put it is that we do estimate, as you said, that … employment will be about 160 million by the end of the decade. Half a percent of that is 800,000.”

“[I]t’s about jobs,” insisted then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) just days before the final vote on the so-called Affordable Care Act. “In its life, [the bill] will create four million jobs — 400,000 jobs almost immediately.” Au contraire, says the CBO, and their estimate still includes static scoring, all the phony “savings” and so forth that the law’s authors inserted to make it look better. Somehow, “we told you so” doesn’t quite satisfy.

Alexander’s Essay – January 13, 2011

Tragedy to Triumph, Democrat Style

“Necessity, especially in politics, often occasions false hopes, false reasonings and a system of measures, correspondently erroneous.” –Alexander Hamilton

Do targets incite violence?

Federal Judge John Roll, a Republican recommended for the bench by Sen. John McCain and nominated by President George H. W. Bush, was among six citizens murdered by a psychopath in Tucson on Saturday. Democrat Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was among 14 wounded, and her recovery prospects are promising.

These deaths and injuries are an incalculable tragedy, and equally so are the deaths and injuries of thousands of other violent crime victims each year.

Rep. Giffords is a moderate Democrat and a self-described “strong supporter of the Second Amendment.” That notwithstanding, the Democrat Party has already undertaken to convert the Tucson crisis into political fodder for “gun control” and “hate speech” legislation, and a “national conversation” with the objective of silencing conservative political speech.

A gun did not commit the Tucson attack, as the Left would like you to believe; the perpetrator was a mentally deranged 22-year-old, Jared Lee Loughner, who chose to use a gun rather than some other method to orchestrate his mayhem.
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Coming from the left wing California courts as expected….

On Monday the Supreme Court of California whittled away some of the Fourth Amendment when they ruled that the police may search an arrestee’s cell phone without a warrant. The 5-2 majority, led by Justice Ming Chin, claimed that under precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1970s, defendants lose their right to privacy regarding objects in their possession at the time of arrest. Chin cited cases that, among other things, allowed law enforcement to seize and search a pack of cigarettes. But there’s a far cry between a pack of smokes (which could conceivably contain drugs or a razor blade) and a cell phone that, first, is clearly not a weapon, and second, contains a massive quantity of personal information.
The legal system has not yet caught up to our ever-changing technology, and there are some judges who are using the opportunity to erode our personal freedom. This is not the first time the issue has come up, either. In 2007 and 2009, courts in California and Ohio respectively found that the defendants’ rights were violated, leading experts to believe that the Supreme Court will eventually weigh in on warrantless cell phone searches.

Republicans Make Historic Gains in State Legislatures, Pick Up Hundreds of Seats!!

Republicans matched their historic victories in Congress with a sweep of state legislative chambers across the country Tuesday, a feat which will have considerable bearing on the next election.

The GOP picked up at least 19 chambers and hundreds of seats, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures — though the tally is not final and Republican recruitment arm GOPAC pegs the party’s chamber pickups at about 23. In several states, Republicans took control of both chambers and the governor’s seat.

Rest of story….

The Foundation

“[I]f the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted.” –Noah Webster

Liberty

“Most people whom we elect to Congress are either ignorant of, have contempt for or are just plain stupid about the United States Constitution. … Here, in part, is the oath of office that each congressman takes: ‘I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same….’ Here’s my question to you: If one takes an oath to uphold and defend, and bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution, at the minimum, shouldn’t he know what he’s supposed to uphold, defend and be faithful to? If congressmen, judges, the president and other government officials were merely ignorant of our Constitution, there’d be hope — ignorance is curable through education. These people in Washington see themselves as our betters and rulers. They have contempt for the limits our Constitution places on the federal government envisioned by James Madison, the father of our Constitution, who explained in the Federalist Paper 45: ‘The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. … The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.'” –economist Walter E. Williams

Government

“The progressive assault on America continues, and their favorite whipping boy remains Arizona. A three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned that state’s requirement that people show proof of citizenship to register to vote, calling it ‘inconsistent’ with the National Voter Registration Act. In other words, a United States court considers that proving one is an American citizen in order to vote in an American election an ‘undue burden.’ How in the world did we come to this? … What’s the best way to destroy our democratic republic? Getting enough Americans to question the integrity of our election process has to be high on the list. And since every case ever litigated in this country with regard to voter ID has had Democrats lined up on the side where less proof is required for voting — using the phony ‘disenfranchisement’ argument as an excuse — an unmistakable pattern is emerging. A pattern which can be reduced to one simple idea: The acquisition and/or maintenance of power by any means necessary. … Maintaining the integrity of our election process far outweighs any individual undue burdens, and the overwhelming majority of Americans know it. Those who are determined to fight such commonsense provisions aren’t fooling anyone, except perhaps their fellow travelers. There is absolutely no reasonable argument to offer against making sure that Americans, and only Americans, vote in American elections — none. One more compelling reason for decent Americans to get out and vote … Tuesday. Maybe the most important one of all.” –columnist Arnold Ahlert

Re: The Left

“Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt. It’s the Democrats’ coping mechanism for midterm election voter fraud. Faced with multiple reports of early voting irregularities and election shenanigans across the country, left-wing groups are playing dumb, deaf and blind. Voter fraud? What voter fraud? More cunningly, these organizations are seeking to marginalize complaints about election integrity by casting citizen watchdog efforts as racist ‘scare tactics.’ Echoing President Obama’s message to the Democratic faithful on the campaign trail, they are accusing political opponents of suppressing the votes of minorities and the poor. On Tuesday, The New York Times quoted a liberal voting rights advocate, Wendy R. Weiser, wringing her hands over individual Americans taking clean elections seriously: ‘Private efforts to police the polls create a real risk of vote suppression, regardless of their intent,’ said Weiser, director of the Voting Rights and Elections Project at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. ‘People need to know that any form of discrimination, intimidation or challenge to voters without adequate basis is illegal or improper.’ … Funny. For the past two years, Democratic leaders have had nothing to say about the militant New Black Panther Party goons who took it upon themselves to police a Philadelphia voting booth in 2008 wielding billy clubs and shouting anti-white slurs to suppress votes. Now, they’re treating citizen election monitors as if they are the jack-booted thugs. … Silence dissent. Criminalize watchdogs. Whitewash fraud. Discourage grassroots engagement. Deny, deny, deny. These are the signature tactics of the left in the age of Obama. On November 2, Americans get their chance to say: Enough.” –columnist Michelle Malkin

Political Futures

“Based on the sheer volume of usage, President Obama’s teleprompter must love the phrase ‘our American values.’ The phrase comes in a close third after ‘Let me be clear’ and ‘I will call you out on that.’ Since he uses the phrase so often, we should try to understand what he is saying. … The untethered progressive values of hope, change, tolerance, peace, unity, etc. come to mind. Presumably, the ‘ideals’ and ‘values’ of the left somehow have the power to bind together a country of citizens. … When Obama touts ‘our American values,’ odds are that he is advancing their very opposites. When our American values call for self-preservation, Obama calls for terrorists’ rights. When our American values call for traditional morality, Obama appoints someone like Kevin Jennings as ‘safe school czar’ for children. When our American values call for border enforcement, Obama sees millions of potential Democrat voters. And so on. The ironies of the Obama administration are like a series of never-ending waves crashing upon us. … The sad reality is that a man was somehow elected who is effectively a foreigner to our real American values. Our quintessential American value, liberty, means being free from central control. Of course, that’s the very antithesis to the ideology of the man occupying the White House.” –columnist Monte Kuligowski

For the Record

“Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010 is not Election Day. It is Referendum Day. It may be commonplace for commentators to announce that every election is ‘the most important election in our lifetime’ or something analogous. But having never said that of a presidential election, let alone an off-year election, this commentator cannot be accused of crying wolf when I say that this off-year election is not simply the most important of my lifetime. It is the most important since the Civil War. The reason is that unlike all previous elections, this one is actually a referendum on the direction of the United States of America. … And what would constitute a Democrat victory next Tuesday? Anything other than a Republican landslide. Any other result will be interpreted by the media and by the Democrats as solely a result of the economic recession and as the normal losses of the dominant party in off-year elections. In other words, the only way to ensure that the electoral results are seen as a repudiation of the growth of the state and the other Democrat and leftist goals is through an enormous Republican victory. Only then will America understand that this election was not first about jobs. It was above all about America.” –radio talk-show host Dennis Prager

Culture

“The fate of [NPR’s Juan] Williams reminds us that Americans have developed two personas — one public and politically correct, the other private. Mix the two and big trouble ensues. Here are some reminders about what to shut up about. Don’t discuss the deficit. Instead, call borrowing ‘stimulus.’ Trillions are not much different from billions. Debt can be paid back with more borrowing and someone else’s higher taxes. Ignore the lessons of Greece and California. To appear noble, call for more unemployment benefits, free medical care and more entitlements. To sound cruel, talk about borrowing to pay for them. Keep silent about Social Security and Medicare. If the system is insolvent, it cannot be because we are living longer, retiring earlier, often taking out more than we paid into the pot, abusing disability provisions, or facing an aging and soon-to-be-shrinking population. Instead, rail at fat cats who need to pay more payroll taxes, and at wasteful programs like defense that can be cut to ensure more for the elderly and needy. The checks will always come in time, and ‘they’ will always pay for them. … The NAACP has accused the Tea Party of racist views. The anger over high taxes, debt and big government warrants more concern among the Beltway’s black leadership than exploring the causes of inordinately high incidence of crime, incarceration and one-parent homes, and low high school graduation rates. Whatever one’s private views, groupspeak requires that answers are found outside, not inside, the black community — and demand more programs and more federal money. … We do not quite know how Americans will vote [this] week, in part because citizens fear to talk openly about their concerns and instead employ groupspeak. We suspect that in the privacy of the voting booth, they may prove angrier and more frustrated than we think.” –historian Victor Davis Hanson