CNS News did some investigating, and Ed Morrissey came up with this analysis:

At least ostensibly, this is an unfunded mandate on the states, which run the exchanges. What happens when no insurer in the state offers abortion coverage? At the moment, 87% of all abortions are purchased outside of third-party payers, so this is not an academic question. Do the feds intend to shut down an exchange that doesn’t offer an abortion plan? Or do they expect the states then to cover abortions instead?

… Once Congress stops re-enabling the Hyde Amendment, the mandates in Reid’s Section 1303 will force the federal government to supply the coverage for abortion where state exchanges have none. It will give the federal government an entree into broader health-insurance offerings, and that will have one ironic effect: it will crowd out those few private insurance plans that offer elective abortion coverage. Where Stupak’s opponents insisted that his language would create a “price signal” that would encourage private insurers to abandon abortion coverage, this would all but guarantee the same result, as private insurers would get undercut by the federal plan that would come into play.

This is nothing more than a mandate for federally-funded abortions. How long would it take a court to make that same determination? I suspect that Planned Parenthood and NARAL already have their legal counsel preparing for it.

It’s not exactly a surprise that the health care bill would include funding for abortion. Feminists have been howling about the Stupak amendment, the abortion lobby has been furious. Liberals were bound to cave in to their demands, and they were bound to try to hide it from the federal public. It is typical of liberals. And it’s infuriating to anyone with any kind of morals or respect for the sanctity of life. It’s bad enough that abortion is celebrated as some kind of right in this country, like it’s glorious for a woman to be able to go and kill her baby. Feminists in particular revel in it, like it’s some kind of sacred cow. Apparently, you have to be a member of the “I <3 Abortion" club in order to be a feminist in today's world. There are currently about 1.3 million abortions performed a year, and this isn't good enough for feminists. They not only want abortion to be free and legal, they want it to be paid for by Americans whether they like it or not. It has to be taxpayer-funded.

It's important that we all understand this. It's not good enough for feminists just to have abortion be legal and freely accessible. Any woman who wants to can get an abortion. And there is already $300 million a year in taxpayer subsidies for Planned Parenthood. There's plenty of federal funding for abortion, but feminists always want more. It isn't enough for abortion to be legal, it isn't enough for it to be federally subsidized. How much do they want? Does every single abortion performed need to be taxpayer funded so that any woman who wants one never has to pay for it out of her own pocket? It's a disgusting state of affairs. Half the country is morally opposed to abortion. But liberals are a special group of people. If they believe in something, then everyone must be for it and it must be federally mandated and subsidized. If they don't believe in something, then no one should believe in it and it must be totally banned. And so, thanks to this mental outlook and the carping of the feminist/abortion lobby, we are now looking at forcing half of the people in this country to fund something to which they are virulently opposed.

Burn up that switchboard today. You can find contact information for your senators here.

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary, or follow her on Twitter!

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Some points according to the CBO and the Senate Republican Policy Committee:

• Spending: The cost of the bill is $2.5 trillion over 10 years of full implementation (2014-2023).
• Taxes Increases: Taxes will go up $493.6 billion — nearly half a trillion dollars.
• Medicare Cuts: Medicare will be cut $464.6 billion — another half a trillion dollars.
• Government Plan: The bill includes a government run plan and provides states with the possibility of opting out of participating in that plan. According to CBO, the government run plan “would typically have premiums that were somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plans in the exchanges.”
• Employer Mandate: The bill will impose $28 billion in new taxes on employers that do not provide government approved health plans.

Additional CBO Background:

• The bill would bend the federal cost-curve up.
• 24 million people would be left without insurance.
• States will have to spend an additional $25 billion in Medicaid expenditures
• Taxes on uninsured individuals will total $8 billion.
• Taxes on employers from the “free-rider” penalty would total $28 billion.
• 5 million Americans would lose their employer coverage.
• Only 19 million people will get a subsidy to help them buy health insurance. None of the 162 million people with employer-based care will even be eligible for a subsidy.
• The costs of the subsidies in the exchange would grow at 8 percent a year.
• The tax on high value plans will quickly be applied to almost all plans. CBO expects the revenues from the Cadillac plan tax to grow at 10-15 percent per year outside the budget window.

(H/T John Goodman)

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An excerpt of the 1924 Republican Party Platform:

The prosperity of the American nation rests on the vigor of private initiative which has bred a spirit of independence and self-reliance. The republican party stands now, as always, against all attempts to put the government into business.

American industry should not be compelled to struggle against government competition. The right of the government to regulate, supervise and control public utilities and public interests, we believe, should be strengthened, but we are firmly opposed to the nationalization or government ownership of public utilities.

In 1924 the GOP ran Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge for president. And he won on this platform.

Even then Democrats were trying to turn this country into a less powerful version of Europe by emulating its socialist systems. A proud Republican Party repudiated these socialist tendencies and reiterated its pride in the American way. These principles appealed to the true American spirit and also won elections.

Unfortunately, the very next president, himself a Republican, turned toward socialist, collectivist concepts and set the stage for what later became Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal destruction of the American economic system that compounded a market correction and turned it into “The Great Depression.” And save for a brief time under Ronald Reagan, it appears that the GOP has never recovered its principles as espoused in its 1924 platform.

Where are these strong principles today? Does the GOP stand for free markets, individual responsibility, self-reliance, and the right of the citizen to be left alone by a rapacious federal government under Democrats? It is getting harder and harder to think that the GOP does want to uphold these long-held American principles, those that made this country great.

So, let’s recall the words of the 1924 GOP Party platform and let us strive to return to these first principles.

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The Obama administration will insist on measures to give legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants as it pushes early next year for legislation to overhaul the immigration system, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Friday.

Good deal. We would be adding 12-20 million illegal aliens on the the federal health care roles if the Democrats health system legislation passes. 12-20 million who will be on the welfare role, who will want free money, who will demand free services, overload our schools and medical systems, etc and so on. By about February, we should start hearing the stories out of our southwestern states about massive numbers of people illegally crossing the borders and people overstaying their visas.

In an address at the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington, Ms. Napolitano sought to dispel any notion that the administration — with health care, energy and other major issues crowding its agenda — might postpone the most contentious piece of an immigration overhaul until after midterm elections next November.

Liberal policy group? They are a massively far left group, about as far left as one can get. To put it plainly, this would be like a Bush appointee speaking to the neo-Nazi group Stormfront.

You really can’t call these folks in the White House liberals. That is insulting to liberals. They are completely tone deaf to the American People, and are basically telling you, the American People, to STFU and GFYS with all their policies.

I wonder how many Islamic terrorists will be provided blanket amnesty as they sneak into our country, just in time for KSM’s trial?

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove

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Judge Andrew Napolitano announced on the Glenn Beck Show this week that he is planning to do a Constitutional Law seminar on Fox News. I see this as the next avenue of Tea Parties: We begin to talk about the U.S. Constitution, and what liberty really consists of, in detail, and we keep talking about it.

Thomas Jefferson said:

“… God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed.

The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive.

If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty…. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 (C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950)

That is an awesome quotation – an awesome thought.

Napolitano is the author of a wonderfully informative book, Constitutional Chaos. I’m looking forward to the lecture or lectures as a way to get the conversation started.

Not everyone is anxious to hear the Judge’s ideas, however. It would be naive to think Liberals would be interested in the U.S. Constitution. I found one Liberal site admitting they are “more than a little queasy” at some of the issues Napolitano addressed yesterday:

Freedom of choice and control over your own body will be lost.

More of your hard earned dollars will be at the disposal and tender mercies of federal bureaucrats. It was not intended to be this way.

We can vote the bums out of their cushy federal office

…we can persuade the state governments to defy the Feds in areas like health care where the Constitution gives the federal government zero authority.

We can ask our state legislatures to threaten to amend the Constitution to abolish the income tax, to return the selection of US senators to state legislatures and to nullify, to nullify! all the laws that Congress has written that are not based on the Constitution.

But there is one thing we can’t do. Just sit back and take it.”

Napolitano has been laying out our politically incorrect abuse of the US Constitution for a very long time. Here’s a snippet from the introduction to his book Constitutional Chaos:

What’s at Stake in America Today

I, myself, am a strong and fervent believer in Natural Law. The only valid laws are those grounded in a pursuit of goodness. Anything else – like taking property from Person A and giving it to Person B, like silencing an unpopular minority, like interfering with freedom of worship – is an unjust law, and, theoretically, need not be obeyed. St. Thomas Aquinas said only just laws impose an obligation of obedience, because unjust laws are not within the power of the government to enact; and only laws that seek goodness are just. This is the essence of Natural Law. No government may enact laws interfering with our freedoms no matter how popular the enactment.

The positivist would say since the government gives freedom, the government can take it away. The Natural Law says only God gives freedom and the government can only take it away as a punishment for violating the Natural Law, and then only through due process.

To a positivist, the government’s goal is to bring about the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people. Under the Natural Law, the only legitimate goal of government is to secure liberty, which is the freedom to obey one’s own free will and conscience, rather than the free wills or consciences of others.

The problem today in America – the greatest and gravest threat to personal freedom in this country – is that the positivists are carrying the day. Under their sway, the government violates the law while busily passing more legislation to abridge our liberties.

If we wish to survive the near future with our rights intact, we need to understand the size and scope of the threat. We must also understand its true identity: a government that breaks its own laws. ~  Constitutional Chaos, Judge Andrew Napolitan

About Natural Law, new President George Washington said:

The foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; …the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained…”

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Today, President Obama signed into law a bill that will dramatically expand the federal hate crimes law, enabling prosecutors to bring federal charges against people who were previously found innocent of hate crimes in state court. The hate-crimes provisions were added to a defense appropriations bill, which the President signed in a White House signing ceremony this afternoon at around 2:30 p.m.

The new law dramatically expands the reach of the existing federal hate-crimes law that was already on the books, by getting rid of the requirement that a hate crime affect federally-protected activities to be prosecuted in federal court. It also adds sexual orientation, gender, disability, and transgender characteristics to a law that was originally designed to protect racial minorities.

The hate-crimes bill was opposed by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for allowing the reprosecution in federal court of people found innocent in state court. The Commission called the new law a “menace to civil liberties” because it is an end-run around constitutional guarantees against double-jeopardy.

As explained earlier, the bill’s sponsors seek to use it to reprosecute people in federal court who have already been found innocent of hate crimes in state court, taking advantage of the “dual sovereignty” loophole in constitutional protections against double jeopardy. Civil libertarians like Nat Hentoff and Wendy Kaminer thus object to the bill on double-jeopardy grounds. Backers of the bill, like the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Commissioner Michael Yaki, supported the bill partly as a way of prosecuting all over again people who were either found not guilty, or who were convicted only of ordinary crimes, while being acquitted of hate-crimes (like the teenagers acquitted of hate crimes in the Shenandoah incident, and the California case of Joseph Silva and George Silva).

Such re-prosecutions can be an enormous waste of money, and grossly unfair to the people who are reprosecuted, driving them into bankruptcy to pay lawyers to represent them all over again when they have already been found innocent in state court after an expensive trial. When the government re-prosecutes someone, it gains an enormous tactical advantage over the defendant from using the prior prosecution as a test-run, even if the defendant is innocent — making a guilty verdict possible even if the defendant is in fact innocent.

The bill also raises serious constitutional federalism issues under the Supreme Court’s Morrison decision.

Passage of the bill was aided by lousy reporting, in which some journalists, like Reuters, depicted the bill as simply a harmless measure to add sexual orientation to the list of protected characteristics covered by the federal hate-crimes law, ignoring its many other, far more important (and dangerous) changes to federal hate-crimes law.

Many supporters of the hate crimes bill want to allow those found innocent to be reprosecuted in federal court. As one supporter put it, “the federal hate crimes bill serves as a vital safety valve in case a state hate-crimes prosecution fails.” The claim that the justice system has “failed” when a jury returns a not-guilty verdict is truly scary and contrary to the constitutional presumption of innocence and the right to trial by jury.
But it is a view widely shared among supporters of the hate-crimes bill. Syndicated columnist Jacob Sullum pointed out in 1998 that Janet Reno, Clinton’s Attorney General, backed the bill as a way of providing a federal “forum” for prosecution if prosecutors fail to obtain a conviction “in the state court.”

Supporters of the hate crimes bill also see it as a way to prosecute people even in cases where the evidence is so weak that state prosecutors have decided not to prosecute. Attorney General Eric Holder has pushed for the hate crimes bill as a way to prosecute people whom state prosecutors refuse to prosecute because of a lack of evidence. To justify broadening federal hate-crimes law, he cited three examples where state prosecutors refused to prosecute, citing a lack of evidence. In each, a federal jury acquitted the accused, finding them not guilty.

As law professor Gail Heriot notes, “Some have even called for federal prosecution of the Duke University lacrosse team members–despite strong evidence of their innocence.” Advocates of a broader federal hate-crimes law have pointed to the Duke lacrosse case as an example of where federal prosecutors should have stepped in and prosecuted the accused players — even though the state prosecution in that case was dropped because the defendants were actually innocent, as North Carolina’s attorney general conceded (and DNA evidence showed), and were falsely accused of rape by a woman with a history of violence (including trying to run over someone with her car) and making false accusations.

The Obama administration has long supported the hate-crimes bill, which it used as a wedge issue in the 2008 election.

As law professors like Jonathan Turley and Eugene Volokh have noted, the Obama administration recently urged restrictions on hate speech at the United Nations, joining in calls to treat such speech, protected by the First Amendment under Supreme Court rulings, as a human-rights violation in violation of international human-rights treaties. In the U.S., college hate-speech codes have been used to discipline students for criticizing affirmative action, discussing the racial implications of the death penalty, and calling homosexuality immoral. In Canada and Britain, hate speech laws have been used to punish religious criticism of Scientology and homosexuality.

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Verum Serum finds this problem for Dem’s isn’t new, it was a stumbling block for Hillary care back in the 90’s too.

A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government. Federal mandates that apply to individuals as members of society are extremely rare. One example is the requirement that draft-age men register with the Selective Service System. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is not aware of any others imposed by current federal law.

Ed Morrissey brings in the authority of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson:

Money cannot be applied to the General Welfare, otherwise than by an application of it to some particular measure conducive to the General Welfare. Whenever, therefore, money has been raised by the General Authority, and is to be applied to a particular measure, a question arises whether the particular measure be within the enumerated authorities vested in Congress. If it be, the money requisite for it may be applied to it; if it be not, no such application can be made. (James Madison, via Quoty)
[O]ur tenet ever was, and, indeed, it is almost the only landmark which now divides the federalists from the republicans, that Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money. (Thomas Jefferson, via Quoty)
If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions. (James Madison, Letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792 Madison 1865, I, page 546)

However, Democrats are trying to dodge this question.

Also see Ed Morrissey’s detailed and in depth discussion on this.

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Roll Call is reporting that the $250 billion extension to the Medicare physician payment program was defeated in the Senate today. Reid couldn’t even get a simple majority losing in a 47 to 53 vote.

Naturally, Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev) blames the Republicans. Reid complained that the loss was a result of “activities and actions by the Republican-dominated Washington.” Seriously. A “Republican dominated Washington”? Did Harry Reid miss the fact that the Democrats have majorities in both the House and the Senate as well as holding the White House? How could Washington be “Republican dominated” when the GOP has little capability to affect the debate through the power of majority control?

Roll Call pinpoints the most salient question here, though. If Reid can’t even get this one through with a Democrat majority how is he going to get the rest of Obamacare passed? The GOP, for its part, was ecstatic.

“In the Senate’s first vote on health care spending this year, a bipartisan majority rejected the Democrat leadership’s attempt to add another quarter trillion dollars to the national credit card without any plan to pay for it,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said after the tally. “With a record deficit and a ballooning national debt, the American people are saying enough is enough. Today’s vote shows that this message is finally starting to get through to Congress. Hopefully it’s a sign of things to come in the health care debate ahead.”

I have to say, for all the talk of wishy washy Republicans crossing the aisle and thumbing noses at their constituents, the GOP has been startling resolute in the face of Obamacare. With but one exception in the Senate (the left-leaning Olympia Snowe of Maine) the GOP has voted consistently against Obamacare. And this bill even saw Snowe siding with her GOP brethren against Reid for a change.

In the end, 12 Democrats and one Independent joined all 40 Republicans in voting against the bill. Among those in the Democratic Conference voting no were: Sens. Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Robert Byrd (W.Va.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) Jon Tester (Mont.), Jim Webb (Va.), Mark Warner (Va.), Ron Wyden (Ore.), Herb Kohl (Wis.), Russ Feingold (Wis.) Bill Nelson (Fla.), Evan Bayh (Ind.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo.). The primary argument among opponents of the measure is that it should contain offsets.

If you are a Republican that is mad at your leadership — and you have a lot of reason to feel that way — this issue should warm your heart. The GOP has been stalwart in opposition to Obamacare thus far.

(Cross posted at HealthcareHorseRce.com.)

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The Justice Department’s ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their “candidates of choice” – identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.

The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters’ right to elect the candidates they want.

Several federal and local politicians would like the city to challenge the decision in court. They say voter apathy is the largest barrier to black voters’ election of candidates they prefer and that the Justice Department has gone too far in trying to influence election results here. Stephen LaRoque, a former Republican state lawmaker who led the drive to end partisan local elections, called the Justice Department’s decision “racial as well as partisan.” “On top of that, you have an unelected bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., overturning a valid election,” he said. “That is un-American.”

The decision, made by the same Justice official who ordered the dismissal of a voting rights case against members of the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, has irritated other locals as well. They bristle at federal interference in this city of nearly 23,000 people, two-thirds of whom are black.

In interviews in sleepy downtown Kinston – a place best known as a road sign on the way to the Carolina beaches – residents said partisan voting is largely unimportant because people are personally acquainted with their elected officials and are familiar with their views.

More here

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

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I suppose it makes it easier for Obama to claim that his healthcare policies are “revenue neutral” when the federal government just makes rules and expands healthcare services that it doesn’t fund then turns around and forces the states to pay for much of it out of groaning state budgets, but that seems like what is happening.

The Congressional Budget Office has reported that the costs of Obamacare’s mandates will fall heavily on the states . Obamacare will increase Medicaid coverage to one in five Americans, a growth from 50 million to 60 million Americans covered.

According to the CBO these unfunded mandates will cost the states an estimated $33 billion. Naturally, this estimate is likely low and costs to state budgets will be much higher in reality.

USA Today asked some pertinent questions about this unfunded increase in coverage mandated by Obamacare.

• Can states afford it? Medicaid already consumes about 22% of state budgets, and 13 million people are eligible but not enrolled, the National Governors Association says. The expansion also could tempt more of those currently eligible to sign up.
• Can states handle the expansion? Fourteen states, half of them in the South, only accept parents at less than 50% of the poverty level, so the expansion would be vast. Aging computer systems used to set eligibility may not be up to the task, says Ann Kohler, director of health policy at the American Public Human Services Association.
• Will there be enough doctors? Many parts of the country already face an acute shortage of general practitioners, 35% of whom did not accept new Medicaid patients last year, according to the Center for Studying Health System Change. House legislation would require states to raise Medicaid payment rates to doctors, but Senate legislation would not.

The answer, of course, is that the states cannot afford it. Earlier in the year, news reports showed that 46 of our 50 states were facing budget shortfalls, yet Obama wants to force these same states to come up with billions more for his unfunded Obamacare mandates?

With most states on the verge of the equivalence of bankruptcy Washington and Obamacare will force billions more in spending on states that simply cannot afford it. And Obama calls it “reform.”

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