White House briefs Dems on implementation strategy -- CBO hikes original estimate -- States join court battle -- Missouri to vote on overhaul

SELLING HEALTH CARE — White House officials on Tuesday night went to Capitol Hill to tout their early progress on implementing the health care overhaul and talk about how members can sell it back home. The message: focus on the early roll-out of tangible benefits and, if all goes as planned, win over a skeptical public more than any rhetoric could. Nancy-Ann DeParle and Stephanie Cutter, from the White House Office of Health Reform, briefed the House Democratic Caucus on the soon-to-be implemented reforms. They focused the conversation on consumer-friendly provisions, including extending coverage for dependents through age 26, implementing high-risk pools for Americans with pre-existing conditions and supplementing insurance for early retirees. The programs all have one thing in common: they set a foundation for Democrats to build a strong entitlement program — one that, once implemented, history suggests will be difficult to knock back. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) also showed lawmakers a new health reform calculator that they could put on their websites, which would allow constituents to see how the new law would impact them. POLITICO story

POTENTIAL FOR ANOTHER $115 BILLION IN COSTS — Congressional Budget Office estimates released Tuesday predict the health care overhaul will likely cost about $115 billion more in discretionary spending over ten years than the original cost projections. The additional spending — if approved over the years by Congress — would bring the total estimated cost of the overhaul to more than $1 trillion. Republicans pounced on the news, which they called another sign that the Obama administration makes promises it cannot deliver. ‘The American people wanted one thing above all from health care reform: lower costs, which Washington Democrats promised, but they did not deliver,’ said House Minority Leader John A Boehner (R-Ohio). But a Democratic leadership aide on Capitol Hill said the Congress will have to stay within the budget. ‘Just like other authorized programs, the discretionary programs in health reform will need to compete for funds within set budgetary limits,’ the aide said. The Congressional Budget Office expects the federal agencies to spend $10 billion to $20 billion over 10 years on administrative costs to implement the overhaul. The CBO expects Congress to spend an additional $105 billion over 10 years to fund discretionary programs in the overhaul. The CBO released the estimates in response to a request from California Rep. Jerry Lewis, ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. POLITICO story...CBO letter

It's Wednesday. "It's my name that's on that Jag, so remove your bags let me call you a Pulse."

PULSE POLITICS:

STATES MOUNT CAMPAIGN AGAINST OVERHAUL — The Washington Post’s N.C. Aizenman reports: “Efforts to block a key provision of the new health-care overhaul law are under way in 33 states, as a growing roster of mostly Republican officials have mounted legal and legislative challenges to an eventual requirement that virtually all Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty tax.

“This Friday, seven more states will formally join a lawsuit originally filed by Florida and 12 other states in late March. The suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Florida, contends that Congress lacks the constitutional authority to mandate an individual's participation in an insurance plan, and that it has infringed on states' rights by requiring them to extend coverage to more low-income residents without fully funding the additional cost. Many constitutional scholars have said the suit has slim chances. But activists say they view the lawsuit as the first of what they hope will be a slew of challenges mounted by state governments, legislatures and individuals, ultimately narrowing the law's scope and possibly unraveling it altogether. ‘This is going to be a long, protracted war of attrition and we haven't even seen the first wave of regulations yet,’ said Clint Bolick, litigation director of the Goldwater Institute — an Arizona-based group that is advising state officials.”

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Source: http://feeds.politico.com/click.phdo?i=776698e6cbc93c20e9d774ca60c88ca8

Bill Johnson Bill Nelson Bill Owens Bill Pascrell Jr

Daniels for President?

Is Mitch Daniels running for president?

Right now, if Indiana Republicans had to gamble, they would say yes — but they wouldn’t put all their chips on the table.

Daniels has long said that he will announce his decision after Indiana’s legislative session ends, and he is nearing the crucial moment. The session is slated to end this Friday, and if Daniels is serious about running, he needs to begin soon assembling a campaign staff, attracting donors, and visiting early primary states. Furthermore, the news that Mississippi governor Haley Barbour won’t run spares Daniels from having to factor into his decision the question whether he wants to run against a good friend.

“If I had to bet, I’d say I think he will run,” says Chris Chocola, president of Club for Growth and a former Indiana congressman. “I think he is running in a sense — he’s doing things he probably wouldn’t do if he weren’t strongly considering it.”

One such thing is Daniels’s decision to give a major address on education reform at the American Enterprise Institute in early May, signaling a desire to maintain a national presence. “Daniels is making the right moves to position himself for a presidential campaign — delivering high-profile Washington speeches, appearing on the Sunday-morning programs, contributing op-ed columns with regularity,” comments Robert Schmuhl, a professor of American studies at Notre Dame. “He’s even got a book coming out in the fall.”

“I think he wants to run,” says one GOP source close to Daniels. “The question is: Will his family support that decision?” Daniels and his wife, Cheri, have four adult daughters.

The Washington Post reported this week that Daniels “got quiet” when asked about his family’s willingness. He said that it was “a very important factor.” But there are hopeful indicators for those cheering on a Daniels run: Cheri Daniels threw out the ceremonial first pitch for the Triple-A Indianapolis Indians on opening day earlier this month, and she will be the keynote speaker at a GOP fundraising dinner May 12.

“She has not been an extremely visible first lady in our state,” says Curt Smith, president of the Indiana Family Institute. “Recently, these two things she’s done make me think she’s at least checking out what a more public life might mean.”

“She has been reluctant for him to be a candidate for president,” Smith adds. “Campaigning is a thankless kind of thing.” He notes that the Danielses had a “rocky time in their marriage.” Rocky indeed: In 1993, after 15 years of marriage, Cheri divorced Mitch and married another man. Four years later she returned to (and remarried) Mitch. The only public comment Daniels has ever made on the topic is telling the Indianapolis Star, “If you like happy endings, you’ll love our story.” Still, it’s understandable that the couple might dread media (and possibly opponents’) focus on that period.

James Bopp, an RNC committee member, agrees that familial considerations will ultimately determine Daniels’s decision. “I think he’s more likely to run than not,” Bopp says. He cites Daniels’s impressive gubernatorial record before acknowledging the personal factors that will play a role in his decision. “Campaigning does put a lot of demands not only on the candidate — and that affects his family life — but also on the family directly. For someone to run, the family has to be on board with it. So I assume he will only run if they are.”

Cheri Daniels’s chief of staff, Julie Aud, has tried to quash speculation that Mrs. Daniels’s keynote speech is any kind of test for a 2012 run. Aud told the Associated Press that Mrs. Daniels had told her that she had decided to give the speech in order to showcase her work in Indiana during her husband’s two terms and that it “didn’t really have anything to do” with a possible presidential run.

On the other side of the ledger is the continued interest in Governor Daniels expressed by Republicans far and wide. “There may have been a time when he or others thought interest in him would fade over time,” says one GOP official close to Daniels, “but just the opposite has occurred. His approach to governing and what’s he getting done here are noticed around the country, far outside Indiana’s borders, and so he’s serious when he says he’s considering it.”

The reason for that continued interest may be that, as crowded as the field of possible GOP contenders is, there’s no Daniels duplicate in the mix. With voters likely to remain focused on the national budget and debt as 2012 rolls around, Daniels’s budget-wonk reputation and his past as an OMB director (under George W. Bush) give him credibility. He can also point to an enthusiastic recommendation from House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, who told The Weekly Standard last year that Daniels “would be a great president,” and that Daniels understood the principles behind Ryan’s famed Roadmap and the necessity of implementing it.

“He’s the thinking man’s candidate,” says Chocola. “I think he will be viewed as kind of the moderate in the race. That will be where the media and maybe even his own campaign would try to position him, but his service has been relatively conservative.”

A number of grassroots groups have emerged urging Daniels to run. Those groups include Switch2Mitch, Americans for Mitch, and Students for Daniels, a band of young adults who have even run a few commercials in support of a Daniels candidacy. There is also the overall discontent with the existing crop of GOP candidates: Only 43 percent of Republicans are satisfied with the current field, according to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, making it clear that there’s ample room for newcomers.

Of course, Daniels would still face plenty of obstacles. In national polls of Republican voters, he currently wins about 3 percent of the vote. His call for a truce on social issues has made social conservatives uneasy. And while voters in 2012 may not place as high a premium on charm and celebrity as voters did during the last presidential election, some observers wonder if any year can generate sufficient voter enthusiasm for a plain-looking, short man whose overall vibe is more accountant than hotshot CEO.

“I guess it’s, Stay tuned,” says Mike O’Brien, a former legislative director for Daniels. “All indications are to just stay tuned until after the legislative session. From a political standpoint, it makes all the sense in the world for him to wait until after the session, when he has education reform, another balanced budget, and the other issues he’s pushing under his belt.”

— Katrina Trinko is an NRO staff reporter.

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/265671/daniels-president-katrina-trinko

Billy Long Blaine Luetkemeyer Blake Farenthold Bob Casey

Joining Forces: Travels with First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden

Click here to see the video.

Following the launch of Joining Forces, First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden traveled throughout the country, celebrating the service of military families and the communities, businesses and non-profits working to support them every day. The initiative aims to educate, challenge, and spark action from all sectors of our society to ensure military families have the support they have earned. At each stop, the First Lady and Dr. Biden encouraged Americans to get involved in any way they can.

Visit www.joiningforces.gov to find opportunities to support military families in you own community.

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/04/26/joining-forces-travels-first-lady-michelle-obama-and-dr-jill-biden

District of Columbia Doc Hastings Don Manzullo Don Young

Oppose Assad

One month ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, citing an apocryphal consensus of “both parties” in Washington, called Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad “a reformer.” As if on cue, Assad made a few token gestures — firing his cabinet, etc. — and proceeded to escalate his crackdown on the protesters against his regime. That pattern, concessionary poses followed by brutal violence, has only accelerated. Last Thursday, he lifted the state-emergency law and then commemorated it by massacring more than 100 demonstrators on Good Friday. The same day, President Obama issued a generic, milquetoast condemnation of the violence. On Saturday, Assad’s lackeys killed at least 18 more.

The total death toll is now over 400, according to rights groups inside Syria, and some witnesses’ reports indicate it could be much, much higher. Independent foreign journalists and monitors have been expelled, so much is uncertain. But we do know that yesterday, Syrian army tanks entered Dara’a and gunfire rang out. And the United States stayed silent.

America’s reservation amid previous Arab protests has been understandable. The upheaval in Egypt was a classic American foreign-policy dilemma. Hosni Mubarak was a relatively benign dictator — certainly not a force for liberal democracy in the Middle East, and unquestionably guilty of human-rights abuses, but also a source of stability, a longstanding ally to American interests, and an essential barrier between Israel and her enemies. The conflicting demands of America’s interest in regional stability and her democratic ideals were real.

The upheaval in Syria is no dilemma. The ruling Assad family famously murdered tens of thousands of its own citizens the last time it was protested, has conspired in the assassination of foreign leaders, supports Hezbollah, lovingly advances Iran’s interests, and has pursued nuclear weapons with persistence. Bashar al-Assad’s ouster would present a perfect confluence of America’s ideals and interests, wounding Iran’s play for regional supremacy, and making an example of a dictator who combines all of the behaviors the U.S. wishes, morally and for its interests’ sakes, to inhibit.

It is to be regretted that so many American and Western leaders (Nancy Pelosi prominent among them) attempted to rehabilitate the Assads’ international standing over the past several years. That was the result of an immoral and diplomatically foolish decision motivated by the deluded idea that Syria could be a reliable partner for Israel, and by the desire to thumb a nose at Pres. George W. Bush, whose hostility toward the Assad regime has since been vindicated.

But that’s in the past. Here’s what the U.S. can do now:

Withdraw America’s ambassador to Syria immediately. With Syria’s regime exhibiting a brutal and manic fight response, our diplomats can’t exercise persuasion from within, but their continued presence is a boon to the regime’s legitimacy and an embarrassment to our claim to oppose violence, let alone support democracy. That Obama has not withdrawn Amb. Robert Ford yet indicates an unwillingness to admit his mistake in rushing the latter’s recess appointment, which was more a snub to Obama’s predecessor than considered diplomacy. Likewise, Syria’s ambassador to the U.S. should be sent home.

Implement the whole gift bag of diplomatic sanctions. Freeze Syrian elites’ overseas assets, forbid them travel in and out of the country, freeze the Syrian central bank (using financial-sanctions provisions of the PATRIOT Act), and ban arms trade with Syria. France and Britain are currently introducing resolutions to the United Nations for condemnations and sanctions. The United States should not take a backseat.

Turn up the volume. President Obama’s only recent statement on Syria never once employed the first person. Obama prides himself on his being a persuasive wordsmith and on the influence of his moral leadership. Why can’t he craft some strong, unequivocal condemnation for Assad?

Things could get very, very bad in Syria. The Alawites (the Shia sect of which the Assads are a part) have long been a politically dominant minority in this majority-Sunni country. The elite are consequently tightly bound together, by ethno-religious solidarity and shared fate: they fear recriminations if they are overthrown. Expect no real concessions, or defections. So there are limits to our influence, and our response must evolve with circumstances. But there’s no doubt that our response so far has been incongruent to the crimes Bashar al-Assad has perpetrated, and cowardly and weak.

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/265674/oppose-assad-editors

California Candice S. Miller Carl Levin Carolyn B. Maloney

Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day

Today is Take our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. The Executive Office of the President celebrated by encouraging staff to bring their children to work with them at the White House. Over 150 children took part in a program designed to encourage young people to explore the different paths they can take to create their own future. The theme for this year’s event was Invent Your Future: A Day at the White House for Tomorrow’s Leaders.

The day began with the children taking the same Oath of Office their parents took on their first day in the EOP. They were then treated to a slideshow presentation from the White House Photo Office, showing the President and Vice President at work in Washington, DC and around the country. The children also learned first-hand what it is like to work for the United States Secret Service, the National Park Service, the White House Pastry Chef, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The highlight of the event was a question and answer session with First Lady Michelle Obama, where the children asked about her job as First Lady, and First Mom. Some of the great questions included: What is her favorite sport (tennis); what is her first favorite book (Song of Solomon); and what is Bo’s favorite activity (walking the White House grounds or cuddling with the First Lady).

A special thanks to all those who helped the children of the EOP take another step toward inventing their future.

Hilary Alley is the Associate Director of the White House Office of Management and Administration.

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/04/28/take-our-daughters-and-sons-work-day

Dana Rohrabacher Daniel J. Benishek Daniel K. Akaka Daniel K. Inouye

Marine Corps and Peace Corps

 

I was north of Kandahar, flying in a helicopter with an American general who was telling me more than I could absorb about rural irrigation systems. I asked if he had ever imagined, back when he was at West Point, that he would become so expert in agricultural development.

No, he said, he had not. But he did learn at West Point that a soldier does whatever is necessary to accomplish his mission. So if fighting rural poverty is what it takes to win in Afghanistan, he would fight rural poverty — without hesitation or complaint. I remember being mightily impressed by the general. I still am. But, more than two years later, I’m skeptical about whether this is the most effective strategy for winning in Afghanistan — and, more importantly, for winning the global war being waged against the West by those who call themselves jihadists.

Such doubts have increased in recent days in the light of revelations that a fraud has been perpetrated by Greg Mortenson, celebrated proponent of the view that “soft power” — education and economic development — is key to overcoming the appeal of militant Islam.

Mortenson’s books, Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools, have been required reading for American officers assigned to Afghanistan. But journalist Jon Krakauer, once an enthusiastic backer of Mortenson, and CBS’s 60 Minutes have produced evidence that Mortenson’s inspiring personal story is largely fiction and that he has not achieved what he claims to have achieved: Many of the schools he says he built were not built; he doesn’t know who has been teaching what in the schools he did build; and there is no way to measure whether his efforts have had any positive impact at all.

I’ve also been reading Bing West’s recently published The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan. A Marine combat veteran, a former Pentagon official, and a member of the board of advisors of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, West has been embedded dozens of times with frontline units in Afghanistan over the past two years. His respect for the skills and courage of the officers and troops is unequivocal. But he has come to believe they have been commanded to put too much emphasis on nation-building, and not enough on “kinetic operations” — doing battle with the enemies of Americans and Afghans.

West quotes Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who, in 2008, told the colonels at the National Defense University: “Where possible, kinetic operations should be subordinate to measures to promote better governance, economic programs to spur development, and efforts to address the grievances among the discontented.”

Given these instructions, West writes, American commanders have become “de facto district governors, spending most of their time on non-military tasks. . . . The U.S. military coined the aphorism ‘Dollars are bullets.’ Battalion and company commanders doled out millions of dollars.”

Sending the message that nation-building is “the enlightened way for soldiers to fight an insurgency,” West argues, has transformed the U.S. military in Afghanistan “into a giant Peace Corps.”

Such criticism takes nothing away from Gen. David Petraeus and his troops and what they achieved in Iraq at a time when many — perhaps most — Americans believed the conflict had been lost. I would argue that the “surge” in Iraq succeeded not because schools and clinics were built and development projects launched, but because Petraeus understood what too many Americans and most Europeans still do not: Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Iranian-backed militias were responsible for most of the carnage.

Ordinary Iraqis did not support suicide bombings in their markets. Nor were they confused about who was to blame — as were so many in the media. But there was no way ordinary Iraqis could openly align with American forces against the terrorists until they became convinced that those forces were what West has called The Strongest Tribe — a tribe that would not abandon them to their mutual enemies when the going got tough. Most Iraqis also understood that while al-Qaeda and Iran were eager to control their lands and their lives, the Americans — though derided in Europe, the U.N., and corners of the U.S. as “occupiers” — wanted only to complete their mission and go home.

Afghanistan is a different place. The Taliban is a different enemy. In West’s view, a different strategy is required. He argues that in Afghanistan the “primary U.S. mission” should be to establish and maintain “advisor task forces” that would “go into combat with the Afghan forces, provide the link to fire support, and have a voice in who gets promoted.” This could be achieved, he argues, “while reducing our total force from 100,000 to 50,000.” Such a reduction would allow American forces to stay in Afghanistan longer — which he believes will be necessary to defeat the Taliban.

In 2007, to avoid what would have been a humiliating and consequential defeat in Iraq, President Bush — perhaps belatedly — changed strategies. Four years later, to avoid what would be a no less humiliating and consequential defeat, President Obama may have to follow Bush’s example.

West, an experienced and thoughtful military expert, has offered one option. There are others. With Secretary Gates planning to leave the Pentagon, now is the time for Obama to listen hard to a variety of perspectives — not least that of General Petraeus. But Obama should make it clear that the mission is not to prevail only on the Afghan battlefield. The mission is to prevail in the global war now underway. That will require that President Obama acknowledge that such a war is underway, and that nothing matters more to the future of the United States than who wins it.

— Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism and Islamism. 

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/265800/marine-corps-and-peace-corps-clifford-d-may

Ann Marie Buerkle Anna Eshoo Anthony D. Weiner Arizona

West Wing Week: "My Old Number, Twenty Three"

Welcome to the West Wing Week, your guide to everything that's happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This week, President Obama held townhalls in Northern Virginia, California, and Nevada, to speak directly to the American people about his vision for reducing our debt and bringing down our deficit based on the values of shared responsibility and shared prosperity.

Click here to see the video.

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Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/04/22/west-wing-week-my-old-number-twenty-three

Bill Cassidy Bill Huizenga Bill Johnson Bill Nelson

The American Soviet

The security forces of Bashar Assad — a thug whom Hillary Clinton deemed a “reformer,” and with whom Barack Obama was determined to restore diplomatic relations — are slaughtering hundreds in the streets of Syria’s major cities. I know that the Turkish government will express no outrage. It will not help to sponsor a flotilla of private ships to sail into the port of Latakia to protest the government-sponsored barbarity. European “human rights” activists will not fly into any Arab city to board a freighter, Gaza-style, that would bring humanitarian assistance by sea to those being blown apart by the Assad regime. I know that.

Recently, Palestinian teenagers, in service to a Palestinian terrorist organization, massacred — in the literal sense of the word — the Fogel family of Israel, a savagery replete with the throat-slitting of toddlers and infants. The Palestinian police authority — U.S. trained and equipped — just shot down Jewish worshippers at Jacob’s Tomb. This comes amid the Palestinian Authority’s commemoration of the 2002 Passover Massacre of 30 Israeli civilians, apparently a national moment of honorific reflection on the West Bank. Yet I know that no one in Europe and few in America will protest to the Palestinian Authority, which the West subsidizes, that it seems to commemorate butchery in its midst.

This week President Obama ordered Predator drone attacks against Libya, as NATO and American forces began re-targeting the Qaddafi clan personally. I know that there will be no outcry that the U.S. is a party to targeted assassinations of a foreign leader and his family, an act once deemed illegal for an American administration. I also note that the use of Predator assassinations in Afghanistan and Pakistan has increased fourfold since January 2009, and that we have blown up five times more suspects in the last 27 months than we did in the prior 96 months. I know that the U.N. and the Arab League are both praised by the Obama administration for authorizing us to impose a no-fly zone over Libya and ignored by the administration when we must go far beyond a no-fly zone to end the Qaddafi regime, which we seek to destroy even as we declare that is not our aim. And I know there will be no outcry from the American Left over a third Middle East war against an Arab Muslim oil-exporting nation (even though this one posed no threat to the security of the United States), over the complete bypassing of the U.S. Congress in launching that war, or over the efforts to blow up a foreign leader and all in his vicinity. I know that.

The past week a sensationalized video of a transgendered female in extremis went viral on the blogosphere. Two young African-American women beat her senseless at a McDonald’s restaurant. The African-American staff is shown in the clip as mostly passive bystanders to the brutality. Yet I know this nationally viewed abhorrence is not a teachable moment about much of anything. Unlike the Professor Gates mix-up, this public spectacle will not be used by the president to warn us about the wages of incivility or the need for a new racial tolerance and understanding. Nor will there be, among the homosexual community, much of a national Matthew Shepard moment seeking to present the public beating as a symbol of a wider hatred of the sexually ambiguous among us. There is about as much chance of a Hollywood movie about the incident as there is of a sequel to Rendition. At best, we are to accept such violence as inevitable, as the powerless sometimes thrash out against the more privileged classes and races; at worst, these are the tragic wages of prior oppression that must be contextualized and constructed in the proper narrative of the centuries.

So what are we to make of the past week’s news?

We are living in another Soviet, a 21st-century sort in which we nod to official pieties and mouth politically correct banalities while in our private lives, for our safety, well-being — and sanity — we conduct ourselves according to altogether different premises. In the Soviet Union, the anonymous masses turned out to hear boilerplate praise for socialist comradeship, while those of them who were lucky enough to have a car took off the windshield wipers when they parked it — accepting both that their utopian state could not supply affordable replacement auto parts and that their comrades would steal almost anything they could from other suffering subjects.

#pageIn our version of the Soviet, we know that Israel is supposed to be culpable and that we are asked to praise the “aspirations” of the Palestinians, but if we were to go to the Middle East we most certainly would not stay in Gaza or the West Bank or visit unescorted a Christian shrine. We would wish to dine with people like the Fogels, but not their killers or the people who ordered them to kill. We are also to understand that the Arab and Turkish worlds abhor Israeli violence, and so we nod our assent; but privately we know that the issue is really Jews, not savagery per se, and that an Arab dictator can murder 1.000 Arabs with less worry about Western condemnation than an Israeli soldier can shoot one Arab on the West Bank in self-defense. Publicly we accept that tiny Israel, a country of 7 million, is an overdog, the foreign-policy equivalent of the demonized “them” here in America, the people who make over $200,000 a year — too successful, too Western, too unquestioning of their culture. Privately, we sort of admire Israel’s courage and understand that anti-Semitism, oil, fear of terrorism, and demographic calculus construct Arabs as sympathetic victims and Israelis as neo-colonialists.

We say that we are worried about the legality and morality of Predator strikes, Middle East wars, preventive detention, tribunals, Guantanamo, renditions, and the like. But we really aren’t. Privately we accept that these are merely tags that we pin on an evil Texas-drawling George Bush, the scapegoat on whom we placed all our collective angst and cheap moralizing. We accept either that these measures keep us safe and so should continue, or that to maintain consistent criticism against them would endanger the agenda and career of Barack Obama, the manifestation of all our postmodern pretensions.

In our daily lives we avoid places like a McDonald’s restaurant in a so-so neighborhood, as we avoid direct association in the nocturnal hours with certain members of the supposed underclass, who appear not merely capable of violence but capable of violence without any remorse. Yes, we avoid all that privately as much as publicly we deny that we do. We accept that a Professor Gates breaking into his own home and being mistakenly arrested as a burglar is as timely a reflection of the pathology of a racist America as a transgendered woman being beaten to a pulp is symbolic of not much of anything other than being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Whatever — stuff happens.

In the American Soviet, we publicly praise Obamacare as we seek desperately and privately to obtain an exemption from it. Our politicians talk loftily of the need to pay our fair share of taxes, as the secretary of the Treasury, the secretary of labor, the attorney general, and the then head of the House Ways and Means Committee seek to delay or avoid entirely paying their family’s tax obligations. In terms of modern sin — from plagiarism to sexual harassment — we accept publicly that they are the most serious of transgressions, while privately we know that they are only sort of the most serious, since the particular circumstances, the profile of the offender, the real intent of the transgressor — all that and more can reconstruct a felony into a minor lapse, a premeditation into an accident, a crime into a tragedy with all of us as victims.

In the American Soviet, only two questions remain. Do these double lives of ours make a sort of sense: Is it that the official utopian rhetoric about love among the masses offers psychological compensation for our private self-interested skepticism about the nature of man? Or is the daily lie a modern Western rather than an enduring human phenomenon — our 21st-century leisure and affluence infecting us with intellectual and moral boredom, in which we long ago outsourced our collective morality to our bureaucratic overseers as we busied ourselves with far more enjoyable private indulgences?

— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/265591/american-soviet-victor-davis-hanson

Doris O. Matsui Douglas L. Lamborn Duncan D. Hunter Dutch Ruppersberger

Wasserman Schultz staff may follow her to DNC

Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, recently tapped by President Barack Obama to be the next chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, may be bringing some of her congressional staff to her latest gig.

Democratic insiders said Wasserman Schultz may be taking Tracie Pough, chief of staff in her House office, Jonathan Beeton, her longtime spokesman, and several other aides to the DNC. The committee has a May 4 meeting scheduled during which Wasserman Schultz will be approved as the new chairwoman.

But a source close to the Florida Democrat cautioned that such discussions are "still in flux" and that these aides could end up splitting their time between the DNC and her House office, depending on their own personal situations and what best serves her — and the DNC's — best interests.

"Since she will be doing both official and political work, we are looking into the ability for some of her senior staff to be both official and political," the source said. "As such, we are exploring options with the relevant officials to make sure that this can be done in a way that complies with all laws and rules. If this can't be done, then a decision will need to be made as to where [they] would go."

The source added: "So, she will have some staff that is strictly official and some staff that is strictly DNC, but there may be some staff that are shared so that they can more accurately reflect the work she'll be doing both in the House and at the DNC."

Source: http://feeds.politico.com/click.phdo?i=0c3561c2815b4f22b685429318130e19

Elijah E. Cummings Eliot L. Engel Elton Gallegly Emanuel Cleaver

A US-India Partnership on Open Government

Ed. Note: Read the fact sheet on the US-India Partnership on Open Government (pdf).

Today in Mumbai, President Obama attended what is likely the first ever  Expo on Democracy and Open Government. India's dynamism in the technology sector is well known, as is Gandhi's legacy in India of civic action and bottom-up change, but today's expo highlighted something very fresh: Indian civil society's harnessing of innovation and technology to strengthen India's democracy -- by fighting corruption, holding government officials accountable, and empowering citizens to be the change they seek.

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Source: http://feeds.whitehouse.gov/~r/whitehouse/open/~3/wIDQ9aVvb-8/a-us-india-partnership-open-government

Bill Shuster Billy Long Blaine Luetkemeyer Blake Farenthold

Partners in Sustainability

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with representatives from Seattle area businesses and discuss ways we can work together to strengthen our nations clean energy economy.  With the General Service Administration’s portfolio of nearly 10,000 federal buildings and influence over 400,000 federal vehicles we are uniquely positioned to move our government towards this goal.  But we can’t do this alone -- that’s why GSA is working to facilitate conversations with private sector leaders that foster an exchange of ideas.  

On my first stop in Seattle, I took part in a roundtable conversation with representatives from business, construction and design and academia to discuss the business case for green building. With GSA’s 370 million square feet of facility space it is imperative for us to invest in innovative clean energy technologies that make our buildings more cost and energy efficient for the American taxpayer.  Conversations like this roundtable allow GSA to work with the private sector and share best practices so we can make informed decisions on implementing innovative building technologies.

While in the Puget Sound area I also had the opportunity to speak to building managers, urban planners and local government officials at the Bellevue City Hall for a workshop on electric vehicle charging stations.  I spoke with attendees who are leading remarkable initiatives to create and support infrastructure for plug-in vehicles. As part of our efforts to make the federal fleet more efficient, GSA will be launching an EV pilot program to purchase 100 plug-in electric vehicles. To make electric vehicles an integral part of our federal fleet we must take steps to ensure the necessary infrastructure exists, including charging stations.  The workshop attendees I met with are ensuring we are on track to meet President Obama’s goal of having one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

I’d like to thank my hosts in and around Seattle, and I look forward to continuing the conversation with our partners in sustainability.   

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/04/25/partners-sustainability

Barney Frank Ben Cardin Ben Chandler Ben Nelson

Kent Conrad: Another deficit peacock seeking 'middle ground' in budget

Sen. Kent Conrad

Echoing Sen. Dick Durbin, who casts the Obama budget proposal as the left side of the spectrum from the Republican plan, renowned deficit peacock Sen. Kent Conrad says the budget he'll come up with will find a middle ground.

Conrad, considered a fiscal conservative among Democrats, suggests he will stake out the middle ground in between the visions of House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and President Barack Obama. Conrad hopes his budget, which he might unveil in May, will ultimately emerge as the most viable bipartisan vehicle to start whittling down the national debt. But it will take deft political maneuvering to get that plan through the narrowly divided Senate ? and would be a momentous task to reconcile his version with the Ryan plan that not a single House Democrat supported.

For the record, again, the Obama plan should not be considered the left pole in the budget debate. It's a very conservative plan. It's been correctly called "center right" by Paul Krugman, and "a rather conservative one, significantly to the right of the Rivlin-Domenici plan" by the Center on Budget and Policy Priority's Bob Greenstein.

The left pole in this debate truly is the the People's Budget, introduced by the Congressional Progressive Caucus which has been praised by the likes of The Economist and Paul Krugman alike. It has some very smart solutions that could quite easily be incorporated into a larger plan, and should be.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/tfUlDsiKEZg/-Kent-Conrad:-Another-deficit-peacock-seeking-middle-ground-in-budget

Daniel R. Coats Daniel Webster Danny K. Davis Darrell Issa

The Left Hates Oil Companies

When oil prices blew sky high in 2008, ExxonMobil paid $36.5 billion in income taxes, $34.5 billion in sales taxes, and $45 billion in other taxes, for a total of $116.2 billion in taxes paid and collected in 2008. That’s according to Mark Perry at the Carpe Diem blog.

Exxon will report earnings later this week. And while oil prices aren’t quite as high today as they were three years ago, it’s all a bit like 2008.

I read somewhere that either Exxon or the whole oil industry pays more in taxes than the bottom 50 percent of the whole income-tax system. So while president Obama is out there ragging on oil companies to remove so-called tax subsidies, it’s odd that he doesn’t mention how much in taxes the energy firms actually pay to Uncle Sam.

There’s a laundry list of tax credits that go to oil, both large and small firms. Basically, these tax credits allow for the expensing of high-risk investment. That’s what this is about.

Of course, if you really wanted to stop expensive subsidies, you’d kill the ethanol subsidies that have a big carbon footprint and drive corn and wheat prices sky high. But the liberal-left progressives hate oil and gas companies, period. That’s really what all this is about.

Ironically, besides the usual plea for wind, solar, and biofuels — which amount to virtually nothing in terms of our energy use — the president does include natural gas. But natural gas is produced by oil and gas companies. And you have to drill for it. Therefore, oil expenses in the whole drilling process — including leases, permits, geology research, and dry holes, and then drilling, producing, lifting, and ultimately refining for sale — should be 100 percent expensed.

So it would be great if the president understood that you have to drill for natural gas. It also would be great if the president and his pals, instead of harping on a measly $4 billion a year in so-called subsidies (compare that with a $1.5 trillion deficit), focused on real pro-growth corporate-tax reform that drops the rates and includes permanent 100 percent expensing.

That’s pro growth. That’s tax reform. That will create more oil, more natural gas, and more gasoline. That would probably stabilize prices, assuming the Fed doesn’t totally destroy the dollar. That would generate millions of new jobs and lower unemployment. And that would be a good policy.

– Larry Kudlow, NRO’s Economics Editor, is host of CNBC’s The Kudlow Report and author of the daily web blog, Kudlow’s Money Politic$.

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/265688/left-hates-oil-companies-larry-kudlow

Gary Peters Gene Green Geoff Davis George Miller

Obama vs. Free Speech, Again

In its Citizens United ruling, the Supreme Court held that Americans do not forfeit their First Amendment rights when they join together to form businesses. This hardly remarkable conclusion produced howls of indignation among Democrats, who summarily denounced both the justices and the “corporations,” about which they are inclined to whisper darkly. Now the president is contemplating the imposition of free-speech restrictions through executive fiat.

Democrats’ main response to Citizens United was the DISCLOSE Act (if you must know and can stomach it, that’s the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections Act) which, among other things, would have encumbered private, individual political donations made by employees of firms that bid on federal contracts. Unhappily for Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the DISCLOSE Act’s sponsors, their campaign to chill Americans’ political speech did not fare well in Congress, and the bill foundered. Democrats sought to impose similar restrictions through the Federal Election Commission, again with no success. Having been defeated both in the democratic forum and in court, Pres. Barack Obama has had drafted a diktat to simply impose DISCLOSE limitations by White House decree. You might wonder: Upon what constitutional authority might the president issue a directive abridging Americans’ First Amendment rights, recently reconfirmed by the Supreme Court? We wonder, too, and suspect that President Obama is getting a little big for his constitutional britches.

Federal contractors, it bears noting, already face disclosure rules. What the new restrictions would do is require Big Business to play Big Brother and keep tabs on employees’ private political activities. Which is to say, the same Democrats who decry the political influence of corporations want to empower — to require – those same corporations to spy on their workers in the name of political transparency. The political uses of a list of the political activities of a firm’s employees are obvious, and obnoxious.

Individuals making campaign donations already face disclosure rules, and the new restrictions the president contemplates would not shed any new light on the operations of American campaign finance. What they would do is have a chilling effect on the private political activities of a particular class of Americans, based simply on where they work, and provide the president with a handy device for aggregating his critics for future political retaliation. In short, this is Barack Obama forcing those he regards as his enemies to compile his enemies list for him.

Agreements with private firms for goods and services are not the only sort of contracts the federal government negotiates. The contracts it negotiates with its unions, for example, dwarf in financial scale the typical business contract. Those public-sector unions, as you may have heard, are rather lopsidedly Democratic in their political sympathies. No surprise, then, that they are to be exempt from these restrictions. Likewise, organizations receiving grants and other support from the federal government — public dependents that unsurprisingly tend to favor a large public sector and, consequently, Democrats — remain immune.

We are generally in favor of disclosure, as opposed to outright restriction, as the main tool for achieving openness and transparency in campaign finance, and it is reasonable that some scrutiny be given to the political activities of parties negotiating contracts with the government. We already have sufficient standards and rules in place — in fact, we have too many of them, thanks in no small part to the tirelessly wrongheaded efforts of John McCain. Worse still, the decree Obama is considering would place similar restrictions on non-campaign expenditures, such as donations to issue-advocacy groups and nonprofit organizations. The case for having politicians police political campaigns is weak enough; having them police private, non-campaign endeavors that intersect with public affairs is a deep and grievous violation of Americans liberties. For the president to simply command that it be so, having lost in Congress and in the Court, would be more troubling still.

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/265511/obama-vs-free-speech-again-editors

C. W. Bill Young California Candice S. Miller Carl Levin

White House briefs Dems on implementation strategy -- CBO hikes original estimate -- States join court battle -- Missouri to vote on overhaul

SELLING HEALTH CARE — White House officials on Tuesday night went to Capitol Hill to tout their early progress on implementing the health care overhaul and talk about how members can sell it back home. The message: focus on the early roll-out of tangible benefits and, if all goes as planned, win over a skeptical public more than any rhetoric could. Nancy-Ann DeParle and Stephanie Cutter, from the White House Office of Health Reform, briefed the House Democratic Caucus on the soon-to-be implemented reforms. They focused the conversation on consumer-friendly provisions, including extending coverage for dependents through age 26, implementing high-risk pools for Americans with pre-existing conditions and supplementing insurance for early retirees. The programs all have one thing in common: they set a foundation for Democrats to build a strong entitlement program — one that, once implemented, history suggests will be difficult to knock back. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) also showed lawmakers a new health reform calculator that they could put on their websites, which would allow constituents to see how the new law would impact them. POLITICO story

POTENTIAL FOR ANOTHER $115 BILLION IN COSTS — Congressional Budget Office estimates released Tuesday predict the health care overhaul will likely cost about $115 billion more in discretionary spending over ten years than the original cost projections. The additional spending — if approved over the years by Congress — would bring the total estimated cost of the overhaul to more than $1 trillion. Republicans pounced on the news, which they called another sign that the Obama administration makes promises it cannot deliver. ‘The American people wanted one thing above all from health care reform: lower costs, which Washington Democrats promised, but they did not deliver,’ said House Minority Leader John A Boehner (R-Ohio). But a Democratic leadership aide on Capitol Hill said the Congress will have to stay within the budget. ‘Just like other authorized programs, the discretionary programs in health reform will need to compete for funds within set budgetary limits,’ the aide said. The Congressional Budget Office expects the federal agencies to spend $10 billion to $20 billion over 10 years on administrative costs to implement the overhaul. The CBO expects Congress to spend an additional $105 billion over 10 years to fund discretionary programs in the overhaul. The CBO released the estimates in response to a request from California Rep. Jerry Lewis, ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. POLITICO story...CBO letter

It's Wednesday. "It's my name that's on that Jag, so remove your bags let me call you a Pulse."

PULSE POLITICS:

STATES MOUNT CAMPAIGN AGAINST OVERHAUL — The Washington Post’s N.C. Aizenman reports: “Efforts to block a key provision of the new health-care overhaul law are under way in 33 states, as a growing roster of mostly Republican officials have mounted legal and legislative challenges to an eventual requirement that virtually all Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty tax.

“This Friday, seven more states will formally join a lawsuit originally filed by Florida and 12 other states in late March. The suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Florida, contends that Congress lacks the constitutional authority to mandate an individual's participation in an insurance plan, and that it has infringed on states' rights by requiring them to extend coverage to more low-income residents without fully funding the additional cost. Many constitutional scholars have said the suit has slim chances. But activists say they view the lawsuit as the first of what they hope will be a slew of challenges mounted by state governments, legislatures and individuals, ultimately narrowing the law's scope and possibly unraveling it altogether. ‘This is going to be a long, protracted war of attrition and we haven't even seen the first wave of regulations yet,’ said Clint Bolick, litigation director of the Goldwater Institute — an Arizona-based group that is advising state officials.”

Continue reading post...

Source: http://feeds.politico.com/click.phdo?i=776698e6cbc93c20e9d774ca60c88ca8

Chris Coons Chris Gibson Chris Murphy Chris Smith

Witness: Grimm was 'carrying on like a madman'

The New Yorker has published a lengthy piece on freshman New York Rep. Michael Grimm's controversial tenure as an FBI agent.

Most of Evan Ratliff's story raises questions about the tactics used when working with undercover informants. But included toward the end of the piece is a troubling anecdote from a night club incident in 1999, when Grimm got into an altercation with the husband of a woman he was with.

Shortly after midnight, Michael Grimm walked in with a woman of Caribbean descent.  The woman's estranged husband, who is also of Caribbean descent, was at the club and confronted Grimm.  The two men began to argue.  Williams escorted Grimm away.  Williams recalled, "He said to me, 'Thanks a lot man, he don't know who he's f***ing with.'  Then he said something frightening.  'I'll f***in' make him disappear where nobody will find him.'"  (Grimm calls this allegation "insane.")  After that, Williams said, Grimm and the woman left, as did the husband.

Around 2:30 A.M., there was a commotion on the dance floor.  According to Williams, somebody was shouting, "He's got a gun!"  Following a crowd into the club's garage, Williams discovered that Grimm and the husband had returned, and Grimm was holding a weapon.  Grimm was "carrying on like a madman," Williams said.  "He's screaming, 'I'm gonna f***ing kill him.  So I said to him, 'Who are you?' He put the gun back in his waist and said, 'I'm a f***ing FBI agent, ain't nobody gonna threaten me.'  (Grimm said he only moved his gun from an ankle holster to his waistband.)  The bouncer at the front door told Williams that, when he patted Grimm down and found his gun, Grimm had showed his FBI identification.  The bouncer then let him pass through the club's metal detector.

The story also says that Grimm later told police he had been assaulted by the estranged husband and his friends.  

Williams said that Grimm took command of the scene and refused to let the remaining patrons and employees leave.  "Everybody get up against the f***ing wall," Williams recalled him saying.  "The FBI is in control."  Then Grimm, who apparently wanted to find the man with whom he'd had the original altercation, said something that Williams said he'll never forget:  "All the white people get out of here."

As for the alleged threat to kill people, Grimm said, "That's not my personality. I don't need to speak that way."

 

 

Source: http://www.politico.com/blogs/davidcatanese/0411/Witness_Grimm_was_.html

Eni F. H. Faleomavaega Eric Cantor Erik Paulsen F. James Sensenbrenner Jr

The President?s Facebook Town Hall: Budgets, Values, Engagement

We noted after the President’s town hall in Virginia that the questions he got from the crowd mirrored almost perfectly the issues that are being debated right now in Washington, and that the philosophical differences guiding that debate will have profound implications for the lives of virtually every American throughout their lives.  And so while a Facebook Town Hall on our fiscal future might seem an odd fit at first glance, the President explained in his opening remarks why a platform like that was important:

And historically, part of what makes for a healthy democracy, what is good politics, is when you’ve got citizens who are informed, who are engaged.  And what Facebook allows us to do is make sure this isn’t just a one-way conversation; makes sure that not only am I speaking to you but you're also speaking back and we're in a conversation, we’re in a dialogue. 

Members of the audience take pictures as President Barack Obama participates in a town hall meeting moderated by CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.

The questions came from a number of sources, from Facebook employees in the room to Facebook users across the country who had opportunities to ask questions live or days ahead of time.  As it happened, a Facebook employee raised in Detroit asked a question we hear a lot on all of our channels online, from Facebook to Twitter to YouTube to WhiteHouse.gov:

read more

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/04/21/president-s-facebook-town-hall-budgets-values-engagement

Daniel K. Inouye Daniel Lipinski Daniel R. Coats Daniel Webster

What I Heard About Energy Policy through Advise the Advisor

A word cloud of feedback from the Advise the Advisor program gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in your feedback (by Wordle.net)

Earlier this month, I asked the public for feedback on energy policy as part of the White House’s “Advise the Advisor” program.  Specifically, we asked for your comments and ideas about President Obama’s goal of reducing the amount of oil we import by a third in a little over a decade, along with the need to both increase our domestic energy production and reduce energy waste.

Thousands of you offered suggestions on how we can be more efficient and rely more on America’s clean energy resources.  Here is a summary what we heard from you:

read more

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/04/22/what-i-heard-about-energy-policy-through-advise-advisor

Brian M. Higgins Brian P. Bilbray Bruce Braley C. W. Bill Young

Designing for Democracy

On his first full day in office, the President signed the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, which directed Executive departments and agencies to “offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information.” President Obama is committed to tapping ideas from the American people to make government work smarter, better, and more efficiently. At its heart, open government is about changing the relationship between government and the American people.

One vexing challenge to engaging Americans in governance has been finding new models and tools for the next generation of citizen consultation.  We want to take advantage of the latest technology to: 1) enable government officials to circulate notice of opportunities to participate in public consultations to members of the public with expertise on a topic; and 2) provide those citizen experts with a mechanism to provide useful, relevant, and manageable feedback to government officials.

read more

Source: http://feeds.whitehouse.gov/~r/whitehouse/open/~3/JplcpHvaGnc/designing-democracy-0

Frank D. Lucas Frank Guinta Frank Pallone Jr Frank R. Lautenberg

White House briefs Dems on implementation strategy -- CBO hikes original estimate -- States join court battle -- Missouri to vote on overhaul

SELLING HEALTH CARE — White House officials on Tuesday night went to Capitol Hill to tout their early progress on implementing the health care overhaul and talk about how members can sell it back home. The message: focus on the early roll-out of tangible benefits and, if all goes as planned, win over a skeptical public more than any rhetoric could. Nancy-Ann DeParle and Stephanie Cutter, from the White House Office of Health Reform, briefed the House Democratic Caucus on the soon-to-be implemented reforms. They focused the conversation on consumer-friendly provisions, including extending coverage for dependents through age 26, implementing high-risk pools for Americans with pre-existing conditions and supplementing insurance for early retirees. The programs all have one thing in common: they set a foundation for Democrats to build a strong entitlement program — one that, once implemented, history suggests will be difficult to knock back. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) also showed lawmakers a new health reform calculator that they could put on their websites, which would allow constituents to see how the new law would impact them. POLITICO story

POTENTIAL FOR ANOTHER $115 BILLION IN COSTS — Congressional Budget Office estimates released Tuesday predict the health care overhaul will likely cost about $115 billion more in discretionary spending over ten years than the original cost projections. The additional spending — if approved over the years by Congress — would bring the total estimated cost of the overhaul to more than $1 trillion. Republicans pounced on the news, which they called another sign that the Obama administration makes promises it cannot deliver. ‘The American people wanted one thing above all from health care reform: lower costs, which Washington Democrats promised, but they did not deliver,’ said House Minority Leader John A Boehner (R-Ohio). But a Democratic leadership aide on Capitol Hill said the Congress will have to stay within the budget. ‘Just like other authorized programs, the discretionary programs in health reform will need to compete for funds within set budgetary limits,’ the aide said. The Congressional Budget Office expects the federal agencies to spend $10 billion to $20 billion over 10 years on administrative costs to implement the overhaul. The CBO expects Congress to spend an additional $105 billion over 10 years to fund discretionary programs in the overhaul. The CBO released the estimates in response to a request from California Rep. Jerry Lewis, ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. POLITICO story...CBO letter

It's Wednesday. "It's my name that's on that Jag, so remove your bags let me call you a Pulse."

PULSE POLITICS:

STATES MOUNT CAMPAIGN AGAINST OVERHAUL — The Washington Post’s N.C. Aizenman reports: “Efforts to block a key provision of the new health-care overhaul law are under way in 33 states, as a growing roster of mostly Republican officials have mounted legal and legislative challenges to an eventual requirement that virtually all Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty tax.

“This Friday, seven more states will formally join a lawsuit originally filed by Florida and 12 other states in late March. The suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Florida, contends that Congress lacks the constitutional authority to mandate an individual's participation in an insurance plan, and that it has infringed on states' rights by requiring them to extend coverage to more low-income residents without fully funding the additional cost. Many constitutional scholars have said the suit has slim chances. But activists say they view the lawsuit as the first of what they hope will be a slew of challenges mounted by state governments, legislatures and individuals, ultimately narrowing the law's scope and possibly unraveling it altogether. ‘This is going to be a long, protracted war of attrition and we haven't even seen the first wave of regulations yet,’ said Clint Bolick, litigation director of the Goldwater Institute — an Arizona-based group that is advising state officials.”

Continue reading post...

Source: http://feeds.politico.com/click.phdo?i=776698e6cbc93c20e9d774ca60c88ca8

Andre Carson Andy Harris Ann Marie Buerkle Anna Eshoo