Gallup: Jobs, Reducing Federal Corruption Top Priority

"Creating good jobs, reducing corruption in the federal government, and reducing the federal budget deficit score highest when Americans rate 12 issues as priorities for the next president to address," reports Gallup. Increasing taxes on the wealthy, or tax 'fairness', came in last.

Woman Dies From Abortion at Planned Parenthood Clinic

This Chicago Sun-Times news report debunks the myth that "legal abortions are safe" — and it happened at a Planned Parenthood clinic no less:

Woman Dies After Abortion at Planned Parenthood Clinic

Updated: July 24, 2012 5:16AM

A woman died of injuries she received during an abortion at a local Planned Parenthood clinic Friday.

Tonya Reaves, 24, of the 1500 block of N. Kildare, was pronounced dead at 11:20 p.m. Friday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office. She was taken to the hospital from the Planned Parenthood clinic at 18 S. Michigan Ave.

An autopsy done Saturday listed the woman’s cause of death to be hemorrhage, with a cervical dilation and evacuation, as well as an intrauterine pregnancy as contributing causes, according to the medical examiner’s office. Her death was ruled an accident.

Calls to local and national Planned Parenthood offices were not returned.

CFL Light Bulbs Unhealthy for Skin

CFL light bulbs may save energy, but they are harmful to healthy skin cells. "The warning comes based on a study conducted by Stony Brook University and New York State Stem Cell Science — published in the June issue of Photochemistry and Photobiology — which looked at whether and how the invisible UV rays CFL bulbs emit affect the skin," reports Caroline May at Daily Caller.

The scientists found that cracks in the CFL bulbs phosphor coatings yielded significant levels of UVC and UVA in all of the bulbs — purchased in different locations across two counties — they examined.

With high levels of ultraviolet radiation present, the researchers delved into how the exposure affected the skin. According to the findings, skin damage from exposure to CFLs was consistent with harm caused by ultraviolet radiation.

Incandescent bulbs of the same high intensity had zero effects on healthy skin.

Young Voters Favor Bush Tax Cuts Most

"Young voters ages 18-29 favored tax cuts for everyone by a margin of 69-29, the largest margin of any age group," reports David Goldstein. Overall, the latest McClatchy-Marist poll found that 52% of registered voters support extending the Bush tax rates for all, including the rates on those with incomes over $250,000.  Only 43% would increase tax rates for incomes over $250,000.
Other findings:

• Latinos favored tax breaks for all incomes by 62% to 36%
• Whites favored it by 50% to 44%
• African-Americans split: 47% favored tax breaks for all incomes, while 48% favored higher taxes on those with incomes over $250,000
• Those earning under $50,000 favored tax breaks for all incomes by a 53% to 41% margin

The Welfare States of America

"If the false charge against capitalism is that it allows 'the strong' to exploit 'the weak'," write Yaron Brook and Don Watkins in Forbes, "then the true nature of the welfare state is that it allows 'the weak' -- i.e., the unproductive -- to exploit 'the strong' -- i.e., the productive."

And exploiting they are. The Davey family, for instance, made headlines in 2010 for receiving £42,000 in state-provided benefits while driving a Mercedes, enjoying cutting-edge electronics, and continuing to have children (at the time of the story they had seven with another on the way). Mrs. Davey had never worked, and Mr. Davey had quit his job after he figured out he could do better by living on the dole. “I don’t feel bad about being subsidized by people who are working,” Mrs. Davey told The Daily Mail.

This sort of story does not represent some bizarre failure of the system—it captures the system’s spirit.

The U.S. has its own examples: the Michigan lottery winner who continued to collect food stamps and the prison inmates using food stamps behind bars.

On July 12, the Obama Administration added a powerful new weapon that the 'unproductive' can use to fleece the 'productive'.

Quiz: How Liberal Are You?

Are you 'stuck in a liberal mindset'?  Take AEI's short online quiz to find out. Fun and enlightening.

Obamacare's Achilles' Heel

"Insurance exchanges constitute the key to success or failure of the law," writes David Catron, adding "states have an opportunity to shoot a poison arrow directly into Obamacare's Achilles' heel."

• Obamacare can't work with insurance exchanges — i.e., new bureaucracies whose ostensible purpose will be to provide "marketplaces" in which people with no employer-based health insurance can shop for coverage at competitive rates.
• The law assumes states will create insurance exchanges, but it doesn't actually require them to do so.
• States have no rational incentive to create exchanges, since exchanges will cost states from $10 million to $100 million per year to operate.
• The Feds can set up an insurance exchange, but then it would bear the operational costs, which it can't afford. Worse, state-based exchanges may distribute credits and subsidies, but a federal exchange may not. That's a huge problem for Obamacare zealots.

There's one more twist in the law. Not creating an insurance exchange protects a state's businesses from job-killing penalties:

Debunking the US-in-permanent-decline Conventional Wisdom

"We are witnessing a seismic shift in global affairs," writes Victor Davis Hanson, and none of the conventional US-is-in-permanent-decline wisdom "now seems very wise." Consider the "political, demographic and technological change that will soon make the world as we have known it for the last 30 years almost unrecognizable:"

• The European Union, until recently thought to be an emerging powerhouse, is unraveling.
• The Arab Middle East for the last 40 years seemed to be the world's cockpit, as its huge petroleum reserves brought in trillions of dollars from an oil-depleted West. Now the Arab Middle East is in free fall.
• Tiny oil-poor Israel, thanks to vast new offshore finds, has been reinvented as a potential energy giant in the Middle East. Such petrodollars will change Israel as they did the Persian Gulf countries, but with one major difference. Unlike Dubai or Kuwait, Israel is democratic, economically diverse, socially stable, and technologically sophisticated, suggesting the sudden windfall will not warp Israel in the manner it has traditional Arab autocracies, but will instead become a force multiplier of an already dynamic society.
• China is not only resource-poor but politically impoverished. For decades we were told that Chinese totalitarianism, mixed with laissez-faire capitalism, led to sparkling airports and bullet trains, while a litigious and indulgent America settled for a run-down LAX and creaking Amtrak relics. But the truth is that the Los Angeles airport will probably look modern sooner than the Chinese will hold open elections amid a transparent society -- given that free markets did not make China democratic.
• Horizontal drilling and fracking have made oil shale and tar sands rich sources of oil and natural gas, so much so that the United States may prove to possess the largest store of fossil-fuel reserves in the world — in theory, with enough gas, oil, and coal, we will soon never need any imported Middle Eastern energy again. “Peak oil” is suddenly an anachronism. Widespread American use of cheap natural gas will do more to clean the planet than thousands of Solyndras. 

If the United States utilizes its resources, then its present pathologies — massive budget and trade deficits, mounting debt, strategic vulnerability — will start to subside. 
These new breakthroughs in petroleum engineering are largely American phenomena, reminding us that there is still something exceptional in the American experience that periodically offers the world cutting-edge technologies and protocols — such as those pioneered by Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Starbucks, and Walmart.

Gallup: Eroding Confidence in MSM

Only 21 percent of Americans have a "great deal/quite a lot" of confidence in TV news, according to a July Gallup poll, and only 25 percent have that level of confidence in newspapers.  "Liberals and moderates lost so much confidence in television news this year," reports Gallup, "that their views are now more akin to conservative views" (see third graphic below).

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Trillions in Economic Growth, Prosperity

We hear "trillions," and we think national debt these days. Now a new report uses "trillions" to describe our potential for new economic growth and prosperity.

The energy world has been turned upside-down—but not in the way that many expected. ... The United States, Canada, and Mexico are awash in hydrocarbon resources: oil, natural gas, and coal. The total North American hydrocarbon resource base is more than four times greater than all the resources extant in the Middle East. And the United States alone is now the fastest-growing producer of oil and natural gas in the world.

"Change" for the Worse

"Two-thirds of likely voters say President Obama has kept his 2008 campaign promise to change America — but it’s changed for the worse, according to a sizable majority," The Hill reported yesterday.

A new poll for The Hill found 56 percent of likely voters believe Obama’s first term has transformed the nation in a negative way, compared to 35 percent who believe the country has changed for the better under his leadership.

The results signal broad voter unease with the direction the nation has taken under Obama’s leadership and present a major challenge for the incumbent Democrat as he seeks reelection this fall.

Conducted for The Hill by Pulse Opinion Research, the poll comes in the wake of last month’s Supreme Court decision that upheld the primary elements of Obama’s signature healthcare legislation.

Too Many Teachers in Public Schools

"Since 1970, the public school workforce has roughly doubled — to 6.4 million from 3.3 million — and two-thirds of those new hires are teachers or teachers' aides," writes Andrew Coulson. "Over the same period, enrollment rose by a tepid 8.5%. Employment has thus grown 11 times faster than enrollment. If we returned to the student-to-staff ratio of 1970, American taxpayers would save about $210 billion annually in personnel costs."

Taxpayers were promised that hiring teachers to reduce class sizes would improve student achievement. Did it work?

Hennessey: Strategy to Undo Obamacare

"In 2009 and 2010 the nation took huge steps down a path toward more government control of health care," writes Keith Hennessey in the WSJ. "A shift to the consumer-based reform path is still available—if voters want it."  It begins by repealing Obamacare in specific steps, then replacing it with these market-based reforms:

• replace the tax exclusion for employer-provided health insurance with a flat tax deduction or credit;
• allow consumers to buy portable health insurance sold anywhere in the nation, through their employer or on their own;
• expand contribution limits for health savings accounts;
• enact national medical liability reform; and
• enact Medicare [senior] and Medicaid [welfare] reforms such as the bi-partisan Wyden0Ryan Medicare reform plan, which provides a stronger system of competing private health plans as opposed to government-run "fee-for-service" Medicare.

CO2 Emissions Plummet, Thanks to Shale Gas

"For US energy-related carbon emissions, fuel switching to gas is back to the future." writes John Hanger. "After the first quarter, the USA’s 2012 emissions are falling sharply again and may drop to 1990 levels, or just slightly above that important milestone, according to data in EIA’s latest Monthly Energy Review. ... Shale gas production has slashed carbon emissions and save consumers more than $100 billion per year. Truly astonishing!"

"What is most interesting is that this is market driven, not mandate driven," writes Anthony Watts, who graphed the EIA data (below). 




"The shale gas revolution and Barack Obama’s lousy economy, quipped John Hinderaker at powerlineblog.com, "have achieved what endless global warming conferences couldn’t..."

Hayward: Liberalism's Biggest Lie

"What is liberalism’s current equivalent of “Of course I’ll still respect you in the morning!,” asks Steven Hayward. "Without question it is that they only want the 'rich' to pay their 'fair share'.  You can waterboard a liberal, but you’ll never get a specific definition of what constitutes the 'fair' tax rate for 'the rich' that isn’t always 'more than the rate they’re paying now'.”

Hayward recalls three major examples of broken "morning after" liberal promises and makes two predictions if Americans are foolish enough to fall for liberalism's biggest lie yet again. Worth the read.

Christian: Will Liberty Suffer under 'Roberts Court'?

Yes, if the Roberts court "refuses to protect people from the excesses of presidents and members of Congress," writes Ernest Christian, who takes apart Roberts's 'tax' rationale.

The question is why did Roberts climb so far out on such a shaky limb. The opinion he wrote on the status of ObamaCare under the Commerce Clause is profound and sure-footed. In contrast, his opinion on the tax issues seems to have been written by a different person who is far from a master of the subject, and himself not fully convinced, but feels compelled to uphold ObamaCare.

The ObamaCare saga may signal a new kind of "activist" judicial philosophy that, given Roberts' young age and the advanced years of many of the other justices, may in time develop into the "Roberts Court." The chief justice says it is the duty of the court to uphold what Congress and the president do if it possibly can, and, in this case, he actively sought to do so, going well beyond what the dissenting justices and many others seem to think is reasonable.

In the future, instead of the court going to great lengths to protect individuals from government, as many liberals and conservatives have done in the past, and instead of trying to preserve the rightful role of the states in a federal system, as many conservatives have so often tried to do, the court under Roberts' leadership may primarily seek to protect the growing power of the federal government from court challenges by those who disagree with its decisions.

If that is the course taken by the Roberts court, and if it refuses to protect people from the excesses of presidents and members of Congress who by hook or crook have managed to get themselves elected, liberty will suffer.

Mandel: The Great Miscalculation of John Roberts

Opponents "lost the [Obamacare] case, thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts's decision to elevate politics over jurisprudence," writes Seth Mandel. "But now it's time for Roberts to confront disappointment himself."

Roberts believed he was doing two things by upholding ObamaCare: he was settling the issue of whether the mandate is a tax (it is), thus protecting the Commerce Clause, and he was preventing the further delegitimization of the Supreme Court by the Democrats, thus improving its general reputation. He failed on both counts.

Roberts extended an open hand to the administration and its allies only to find, as a favorite White House metaphor would have it, a clenched fist. But he shouldn’t have been surprised—nor should he be surprised to read the recent polling showing his Court to have lost some of the public’s respect. Apparently, bowing to pressure and issuing a ruling consistent neither with constitutional law nor public opinion won’t endear him to the people.

But Roberts’s ruling should have at least settled the tax issue. After all, the bill only survives because the mandate must be labeled a tax... Here [Press Secretary Jay] Carney unleashes the chutzpah:

“With regard to the penalty as was discussed by Chief Justice Roberts in his opinion, for those who could afford health insurance but choose to remain uninsured — forcing the rest of us to pay for their care — a penalty is administered as part of the Affordable Care Act.”

Far from settling the question, then, Roberts’s decision has rendered the Court’s opinion irrelevant. The debate about ObamaCare continues as if there were no Supreme Court ruling, only now there’s no judicial oversight waiting on the horizon. Roberts seems to have accomplished nothing with this ruling except diminishing the Court’s standing.

Shlaes: Women Can Have It All

If women want to "have it all" — i.e., career and family concurrently — they would be wise to choose a "results-oriented" job over a "process-oriented" job, suggests Amity Shlaes. She explains why one type of job consumes our time while the other frees us up. An interesting read.

Voters 18-24 Voters More Conservative, Libertarian

"According to a spring Harvard Institute of Politics poll," writes Alana Goodman at Commentary magazine, "18 to 24-year-olds are far less likely to support President Obama than 25 to 29-year olds, and they're more likely to hold conservative tendencies. ... There is also a libertarian streak among the youngest voters that isn't as apparent in the slightly older group:"

Today, specifically, the youngest potential voters are more likely than their older peers to think it is important to protect individual liberties from government, the Harvard data suggest, and less likely to think it is important to tackle things like claimate change. health care or immigration.
Mr. Tevlin, for instance, found the Supreme Court ruling upholding Mr. Obama’s health care law troubling. “I don’t think the government should force you to buy anything,” he said.

NYTimes article: "Stung by Recession, Young Voters Shed Image as Obama Brigade"

Obamacare Ruling Fallout

Much more will be learned in the months ahead about the Obamacare ruling, but here is an early summary of the fallout: (1) Chief Justice Roberts went 'wobbly', switched his vote, and became one of recent history's most activist judges; (2) the decision is short on silver linings and long on big-government disasters; (3) those hardest hit by Obamacare taxes are under-$120,000-earners; (4) public opinion of the High Court slipped following the decision; and (6) conservatives are 'mad as hell':