At least something good has come out of the Rep. Wiener scandal, a new word.

My friend and colleague, who insisted I take his name out of this post, made it up.

From now on, any lewd tweet accidentally sent to the tweet universe, should be henceforth known as a twiener (sounded out, it’s tweener).

A Goggle search for the term “twiener” turns up no results found, so, seems this is the first time its on the web.

(Note to the RedState blogging police, I have knowingly violated the 100 word minimum on blog posts.)

From the diaries by Erick

Note to the universe: do you really think the Supreme Court will act like there is a severability clause in ObamaCare, when one does not exist?

It’s not like the Supremes spend their dawns poring over statutes, line by line, or anything at all like that.

So, President Clinton thought he might mention it.

And now TIME magazine is reporting it.

I predict the Supremes will declare ObamaCare null and void.

Read More →

This is real simple: The One and Senate Democrats refuse to ever cut spending in a meaningful way.

As a result, paltry cuts are well-reported but never actually occur.

The GOP, in control of only the U.S. House, will not precipitate a crisis by refusing to raise the debt ceiling.

The White House will call their non-bluff. This will end any ability of the GOP to force the Dems and The One to accept serious spending cuts. After the debt ceiling is raised, without any leverage, the status quo will remain.

The status quo is the Dems and The One will stop any serious, meaningful spending cuts.

The ever-wider claims of financial distress if the debt limit is not raised will happen regardless of whether the debt ceiling is raised, simply because with out the leverage of not raising the debt ceiling, spending will never, ever be cut.

Claims made by the GOP to cut spending will be seen as a joke by voters, and the Tea Party will continue to field and win GOP primaries that will force the old bulls of the GOP to actually force spending cuts on the Dems instead of a we-will-never-shut-down-the-government and we-will-never-not-raise-the-debt-limit posture.

Therefore, because of the foregoing political realities, U.S. government spending will remain high, deficits will continue to go up, the debt will continue to go up, the Federal Reserve will keep printing trillions of dollars, and the value of the dollar will continue to drop — meaning everything imported (like oil) will keep increasing in cost.

The inability of the United States to effectively face and deal with government spending is going to radically alter the U.S. superpower status, destroy life savings and unleash inflation.

We deserve what we are about to get, really.

It is not only that the day of the dollar is over, the United States as a superpower has begun to unravel, and all because The One and the Dems refuse to cut spending in any way that matters.

It is pathetic.

And the new civil war started by the Dems jamming of ObamaCare down America’s throat, combined with the total inability to cut spending because of the Dems and The One (along with the refusal of the GOP to force the cuts by shutting down the government or refusing to raise the debt limit) will only accelerate the alienation of the voters and the States from Washington, D.C.

The Dems are tone deaf to the revolt that his brewing, and the GOP don’t get it either — the public wanted two things: repeal ObamaCare and cut spending. Neither is happening and if the GOP think that the voters are radical now — just wait.

Not doing what the voters demand does not make them less radical, and not forcing the things the voters want on The One and the Dems is not going to make them less radical, it is going to enrage them further.

This radicalization will continue to be expressed in opposition to many D.C. laws through legal actions by the States — like, for example, States which refuse to implement ObamaCare. When this State level revolt spreads to economic decisions — as in opposing what D.C. decided and declares on the States — the Union will never be the same.

The contortions of the U.S. political system, because The One and the Dems refuse to cut spending, will be significant and damaging.

This is the part where the U.S. debt crisis could, maybe, perhaps, possibly get real.

If Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling, so the tax-borrow-and-spend-some-more cycle in D.C. can not continue without change, then Congress and the White House would have to do something real about the debt ceiling.

Without the crisis of not raising the debt limit, the U.S. will simply never change — its deficit will not go down, the debt will not go down, the money printing will continue, inflation will rise and the dollar’s value will continue to drop.

All the fund managers and sovereign debt funds should be prepared for the outside possibility that the debt limit will not be raised, simply because The One refuses to do anything serious to cut spending.

All The One just wants is to raise new taxes by a couple trillion, that’s all. Oh, and an unconditional increase in the debt ceiling.

Now that Buffet has acknowledge the dollar will drop, and keep dropping, perhaps the world will wake up — although I doubt it.

And because the Senate Democrats who could force the White House to act, will not, there is a possibility that the debt limit will not get raised.

The Dems will refuse to agree to anything serious, in terms of spending cuts.

And as a result, the GOP will refuse to do business as usual, and the debt ceiling is not raised.

I’d say the odds of the GOP standing-to on not raising the debt limit are about 1 in 4.

The credibility of the GOP on the spending question is on the line — and the CBO report that only $350 million was cut from the great-let’s-keep-the-government-running-and-spending deal was a serious political body blow.

If the GOP can’t shoot the hostage (refuse to raise the debt limit) they should not be making threats that they can’t back up.

Oh, if the GOP is not willing to not raise the debt limit, then the White House will call their bluff, and then the GOP will fold.

Then, the GOP base will be really upset, because what the GOP will get will be more spending, more debt and fewer cuts.

The GOP will insist that it got the best deal ever, but the base and the American people will be treated to more spending and borrowing as usual.

This just in, Estonia — the former Soviet communist captive state — has a better financial rating than the United States.

Here is the U.S. strategic financial situation — a complete joke.

While the public tries to sort out if CBO was right, and the great budget deal only cut $350 million, or the $38 billion widely reported by the mainstream media, Rome is burning.

Besides, who really cares if it’s $350 million or $38 billion when “the Congressional Budget Office’s alternative fiscal scenario—which it sees as politically more likely than its baseline scenario—the federal debt could hit 344 percent of GDP by 2050. Interest payments would absorb nearly all federal tax revenues.”

This why Wall Street’s rally after the Standard and Poor’s rating downgrade of U.S. debt shows is so naive. Wall Street and the international sovereign debt funds and others really believe the U.S. will lower its deficit or its debt.

Here is the hard news: uh, no. Not now, and not while The One is in the White House.

The One is an hidebound ideologue who refuses to listen to anyone.

He added his trillion dollar ObamaCare to a trillion stimulus and now wants trillions in new taxes.

The public is clearly at cut spending, not taxes, but The One and the Senate Democrats simply do not care, a la, ObamaCare.

They will never agree to cuts that are serious — never ever, ever, ever.

And Wall Street and the international money and the Fed’s money printing, notwithstanding, are going to have some hard days ahead when they realize that The One simply will not stop spending.

Once The One gets his debt limit increase, he will keep spending until it is reached.

It is classic irrational behavior of the ruling elite: if we just keep doing what we have been doing, things will get better — despite all evidence otherwise. The elite do not believe the structural and strategic economic posture of the U.S. is so bad that radical changes are needed. They are wrong.

The real wake up call is when Wall Street figures out The One will say anything, but do nothing about the deficit or the debt, and that the Senate Dems listen to what he says and will not oppose him.

Once the global community figures that out, then the dollar and U.S. stock flight will happen with a vengeance.

In short:

The U.S. debt will keep going up.

The deficit will keep going up.

The dollar will keep going down. The real question is why the Federal Reserve Chairman want a devalued the dollar. Regardless of why, it’s working.

Inflation will keep going up.

Gold will continue to rise (it hit an all-time record high, again, yesterday.)

All because the House GOP cannot force their will on the White House or the Democrat controlled Senate, but mostly because Senate Dems will not oppose The One, who says he wants to lower the deficit, but keeps pushing it ever higher.

Turns out the economic joke that the U.S. has become is about to go global, and when it does, the U.S. will suffer irreparable harm.

It is fiction that The One and the Dems want to or will cut the deficit, or lower the debt.

And as long as The One is in office and the Dems control the Senate, lowering the deficit or the debt is total fantasy land.

Which is why the U.S. is fast becoming a fiscal joke.

The One’s steadfast refusal to cut spending and his tax raising proposals are not the only thing that is driving the spiraling in of the U.S. economy and the value of the U.S. dollar.

No, The One is the trillion dollar President, the spender-in-Chief, and anyone who believes for a second he cares about the deficit or about the Fed’s printing of money or that he will do anything other than massively increase our debt, well, for those people, there is one born every minute.

To those that cannot see it now, that The One is stubborn and will not change, even in the face of massive electoral losses and the loss of the control of the U.S. House. The folks who believe The One’s talk of lowering the deficit are willfully ignoring the facts — primarily that The One keeps increasing the deficit and plans to for the years ahead.

The real reason The One’s spending and refusal to reduce either the deficit or the debt will never end as long as he is the President is not only because he will not stop spending (that is a given), it is because Democrats in the Senate are too liberal or too weak to oppose The One.

The GOP, while controlling only one of two parts of the legislative and none of the executive branch, simply do not have the power to force the Senate Dems and the White House to lower either the deficit or the debt, especially given Obama’s heavy hand on the scale of the Senate and the White House.

And those on Wall Street or Main Street or inside the beltway who believe any different are simply naive.

Without Presidential leadership, a Democratic controlled Senate will never lower the deficit or the debt. Let me give you one example. I was speaking to a senior, multi-term GOP Senator who at times has been both Chairman and Ranking on one of the top Committees in the Senate. He admitted to me that the only time in recent history when spending went down, is because Congress did not know they could spend more, because they did not know tax revenues were spiking higher. This was back in the Clinton years.

It was a complete accident that spending went down, in other words. Had they known, Congress would have spent more, and increased our debt more.

Therefore, based on all known historical evidence, U.S. government spending or the deficit will not go down. In fact, it will continue to go up — even after the super-spending levels The One has insisted on to date.

The Fed will continue to print money to compensate, because they believe they can without consequence. Given the history of the Fed, it is hard to argue with that interpretation of history. The problem now, is simply that things have changed.

The International Monetary Fund which reported the U.S. has lost credibility on controlling government spending and our debt levels also, today, reported the sun rose.

This in turn caused Standards and Poor to report, also, that the sun rose.

It is time to short the dollar, as a Fortune commentator and hedge fund manager wrote today. (It has been that time, for some time.)

As long as The One sits in the White House, the United States will suffer indignity of the McEconomy.

McDonald’s announced they will hire 50,000 employees, which was the lead on CNN yesterday. Oh, the dark horse reason that McDonald’s is hiring, has nothing to do with the economy. It’s that Subway now has more restaurants than McDonald’s, something that simply does not sit well with McDonald’s.

Simply put, continued spending and money printing will destroy the value of the dollar, feed inflation, and cripple the already limping U.S. economy.

And spending will not stop as long as The One sits in the White House, and those handful of Senate Dems who might, possibly, some day, maybe, if the planets align, agree to cut spending will not — because they will not oppose The One, not publicly, not in their voting and not on spending.

Why is Wall Street listening to what the Senate Dems and the White House says, and not watching what they are doing? Perhaps, the news is too hard to contemplate otherwise.

Similarities of events (patterns) warrant a re-examination of the consequences.

For example, when liberalization of energy production options in the United States produces a renaissance in nuclear power generation approvals interest as a viable power generation strategy, and The One actually approves off shore drilling, it seemed that the U.S. was on its way to a Brazil like strategy of finally becoming its own producer of its own energy.

But Deepwater Horizon ignites in the Gulf of Mexico — and the official investigations still have no clue as to what happened.

Predictably, The One reversed himself on off shore drilling — and refuses to reverse his imperious “executive order” to ban drilling, despite a court order to do just that.

Then, just when it was safe to go back in the physics lab, an earthquake produces a tsunami that scours the coast line of Japan with a water-borne debris field that has an evil efficiency that makes the landscape look like everything below the top soil has been ground away by a huge belt sander — including the water pumps and electrical systems to keep three nuclear reactors from melting down.

It may interest everyone that despite the fact that nuclear power is safer than sex, Krauthammer has pronounced it “dead.”

Thus cometh the yelping and hand-wringers-of-do-something, who are ready to yield to the leadership of the Chinese. They just announced they are stopping the construction of some 100 (expensive and difficult to build) nuclear power generation stations.

After all, what do the Chinese care? They are building one and a half coal fired power generation plants a week.

This, of course, brings up a great point — in the U.S. half our electricity is generated by coal.

Now that the latest conspiracy of events has stopped off shore drilling and delivered a blow to the body politic on nuclear power — we should all buy coal stocks.

After all, what’s left? Wind and solar power?

Given that life without electricity is far less safe than life with electricity, perhaps that should be the alternative considered by the hand-wringers and nattering nabobs of negativism.

To date, The One has not stopped the U.S. economic decline.

By all recent measures, none of The One’s policies to-borrow-and-print-money-and tax-and-spend-it-on-the-government has worked.

While Japan is experiencing a slow march towards an uncertain fallout outcome, and it begins to call its debts due from the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve announced the very corrosive policy decision to print $600 billion, presumably — in part — to pay the Japanese.

The mainstream financial media is now beginning to report on the possibility that Japan will begin to liquidate it’s $7 trillion in foreign assets and the “U.S. debt at risk if Japan repatriates.”

Meanwhile, in one day, the U.S. Treasury added $72 billion to our national debt – while the Treasury Secretary pleads with Congress to further raise the debt limit.

Gasoline prices continue their march upwards, and economists continue to state the obvious:

“Right now it acts as a very pernicious tax increase,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moody’s Analytics who has advised both parties on the economy. “There’s nothing worse for our economy than a significant increase to our energy prices.”

Meanwhile, food prices have spiked upwards the most in 36 years.

U.S. housing starts in February hit their second lowest since 1946 — they dropped 23% since January.

Inflation is beginning to rear its ugly head:

“Put simply, wholesale prices, often a trigger for consumer price rises, have taken off. In February, they rose at a 8% year-over-year rate.”

At what point will inflation increases push interest rates up and stocks down? Soon is a good answer.

The compounding of the dire debt crisis is the GOP’s refusal to defund ObamaCare, and Obama’s refusal to stop spending — which will continue to create a downward spiral in the economy, and upward pressure on interest rates, which will itself have a devastating impact on all those with adjustable rate mortgages.

Zuckerman, editor of the U.S. News and World Report writes in the Wall Street Journal:

“In short, the triple whammy of weak consumer sales, a weak housing market, and a deeply anemic job market is still very much with us. There are no quick fixes to the post-bubble credit collapse. The painful process of deleveraging is far from over. Current debt loads are not sustainable either by incomes or asset values, which are falling.”

The debt Zuckerman is talking about is that of the average American — not the U.S. government.

Strangely, the mainstream media is pushing the line that The One will win re-election.

Here’s one response that line of thinking, by Stephen Hayward:

“I’m not so sure that Obama, who increasingly comes across as cold and aloof rather than prudent, will outshine the eventual GOP nominee on the personality front, and that includes supposedly charisma-challenged candidates such as Daniels or Pawlenty. I can see the charisma of competence outshining the rockstar persona of The One quite easily. In other words, Obama looks more gimpy than Gipper.”

Bottom line, this economy is being hurt further by The One’s policies of spend, borrow, increase taxes and print money. It will not get better unless The One changes his policies, or, among other things, the GOP saves a trillion dollars by killing ObamaCare.

Since The One is not doing things that will improve the economy, it will not improve.

Obviously, he cannot win re-election with an economy that is in decline — see above if you have any questions about the decline.

Politico just spent four pages outlining how the GOP House Freshmen want to cut spending and how Senate Majority Leader Reid refuses to cut spending in order to pass a continuing resolution that would fund the federal government.

Meanwhile, The One is radio silent, and is not engaging either the Republicans in the House or in the Senate.

The Dems are also in nostalgia-land about the how then President Clinton whipped new-Speaker Gingrich over the issue. It is clear, according to Politico, that the Dems think they can win because they say their budget cuts total $40 billion — while the media and the Dems stay quiet on their $1.5 Trillion in tax increases.

But the Dems have zero credibility on cutting the budget with voters. This is especially true for The One, with his ObamaDebt.

Nor does The One have the political skills to manage the Dems out of the shutdown.

Regardless, the Dems are talking up the shut down, according to Politico, “almost incessantly.”

Here is Politico’s conclusion:

For all the effort Democrats have put into portraying Republicans to be hot on the idea of a shutdown, it’s really Democrats who are talking much more about it – almost incessantly.

Why? It’s quite simple: The last time budget fighting let to shutdowns, in late 1995 and early 1996, a new Republican majority tested a Democratic president entering the stretch run of his first term. Gingrich lost the public relations war to Clinton – and badly. Many Republicans aren’t anxious to reprise that history.

Every time a Democratic leader says Republicans want a shutdown and that it would be bad for the country, listen closely for the clause that follows: Often it’s a veiled mention of 1995.

By talking about a shutdown – and saying it’s Republicans who want one – Democratic leaders are making sure to position themselves for the blame game that would surely ensue.

The top House Democrat, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said last week that it would be “a failure” on Boehner’s part if the government runs out of the authority to spend money.

“History shows you don’t want to shut down government,” Connecticut Rep. John Larson, chairman of the Democratic Caucus, said Friday of the 1995 impasse.

For many reasons, the parallels are limited. But if history is the Democrats’ guide, they believe they’ll win again.

Clearly, the party of we-love-the-government wants it to shut down because they think it will teach Republicans a lesson about how much Americans and the economy relies on the government. But the problem with fighting the next war with a strategy that is 16 years old, is that things have changed.

The first and foremost is that government and their sucklers are seen by many in the nation as a favored class who have grown fat with fully funded pensions and big health benefits, during a time when the country is suffering economically, most are hurting, and those at the Fed trough are not only fat, they are hurting the country and the economy by piling up debt and are spending taxpayer’s money on themselves, all while people are sacrificing to pay taxes.

But most importantly, The One and the Dems may say they will cut spending — but voters in the main simply will not believe them.

What the Republicans should demand as a price, is the $1 Trillion in savings CBO says would result in the repeal of ObamaCare — since the Dems are determined to see the shut down happen — the country ought to get something for the political scrum and media circus that will result.

The One is finding that States are handing back billions and telling him to take his high speed rail (most of which funds small speed increases for existing slow Amtrak trains) and high tail it out of their state.

The One is weak, everyone can see it, smell it and taste it. It invites an expansion of influence into The One’s shrinking sphere of influence.

The One is out of touch. All he ever can do is spend more by raising taxes or going into debt. His budget has $1.5 Trillion in new taxes. His “freeze” in spending still increases spending annually. It’s beyond Clinton-like, it’s ObamaFantasy.

There is a looming sense he has wasted everyone’s time and money on his politically suicidal ObamaCare — and the grinding pain inflicted on his allies and friends will increase as the law is implemented — something the Dems simply cannot understand. (Just like they could not understand why they should not have crammed ObamaCare down everyone’s throat.)

And if the Supremes rule the mandate to buy is unconstitutional, and the law is made void because there was no House-Senate Conference to put a severability clause in, then Obama will go down in history as the worst President in a century. His first two years will be a massive waste of everyone’s time, all the while, the economy burned and is still burning.

His priorities are incomprehensible in a massive debt crisis and global currency war. The only real explanation for his priorities is that he is hell bent on massive wealth redistribution and empowerment of the government in the financial, medical, insurance, automobile, energy generation, mining, oil extraction sectors — while historically increasing our debt, spending and taxes to levels that could very well sow the seeds of the destruction of the U.S. dollar.

Without a doubt, The One’s agenda, priorities and actions are simply a foreign agenda to most Americans.

OK, so now I’ve really have heard everything.

E.J. Dionne, the uber-liberal, is complaining about the mainstream media coverage, it’s too-tea-party-friendly. Hah. The recent focus on the Federal debt, city and state debt has sent E.J. over the edge — he thinks it is all the Tea Party’s and the media’s fault.

Dionne uses the usual go to liberal lines about the bad economy and how cutting spending is not helping people, but cannot make the connection between the bad economy, our deficit or our debt or the value of the U.S. dollar that is circling the drain.

He really cannot see the relationship between The One’s take-over of any number of industries by legislation and regulation, and the corporations, investors and entrepreneurs sitting on their cash — or converting their dollars into foreign currency or holding their wealth in commodities, instead of U.S. currency. (How else does the price of gasoline keep rising while supplies are also rising?)

Dionne really believes this is a time for more government:

“this is also a time for more government – yes, more government – in areas that would expand opportunities and strengthen the economy.”

E.J., why don’t you read Atlas Shrugged?

You and your pals want the government in everyone’s lives, in everyone’s pocket, in everyone’s health care — and now you are lamenting the fact that the government cannot run the economy and that the public sees the public debt as the lead weight that is holding down job creation — all the while your pals tie the hands of those who could make a difference.

Does it really surprise anyone other than E.J. that the nation’s employers have collectively shrugged?

This is what happens when government is too big, too powerful and too greedy — in other words, run by a socialist like our current President.

The only rational reaction is to do nothing or to send your money outside the reach of the U.S., especially when the government is intrusive and ties your hands, debases the currency and taxes you to the point that doing anything is obviously counter-productive.

Actually, The One and Pelosi and Dionne go farther than the government being intrusive and heavy-handed via the IRS. Often The One and his pals include jail sentences for those who cannot follow the government’s rules. But E.J. says nothing about the exemptions given out to General Electric or for those the government deems should not have to follow the insane ObamaCare rules or law.

Everyone knows that the only way to fix the economy is to grow it, but Dionne and his pals are bent on doing everything they can to stop the changes that would allow the economy to grow.

The New York Times is crying over the many and varied cuts that the GOP in the House is merrily voting on to trim the monster U.S. government.

These cuts are a result of not dealing with Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, so says the New York Times.

But the NYT did not oppose ObamaCare, a massive entitlement growth of Medicaid, nor did they call out the Dems on the fake half trillion in cuts to Medicare that The One said would finance ObamaCare.

The New York Times would get a whole lot more credibility if it held the Dems feet to the fire (such that the shrinking NYT editorial fires get these days) on cuts to the entitlements. But don’t count on it.

The only blood-sport — a word the editorial uses to describe the GOP cuts — the NYT indulges in is pounding the GOP on cutting a bloated government while ignoring cuts Dems say they want to make to the entitlement programs the NYT says need to be cut.

It’s hypocrisy: The NYT cries for the GOP to make cuts in entitlements, but ignores the non-existent entitlement cuts the Dems have already passed into law that were supposed to fund ObamaCare, but have not appeared in The One’s budget nor in any Dem efforts in the U.S. Senate.

Speaking of ObamaCare, other GOP House amendments to cut spending include amendments that, as reported by the NYT, “would cut all financing for the health care reform law.”

Oh boy, I wonder how that vote is going to turn out.

As time slips by, and ObamaCare has it’s appointment with the Supremes — sooner or later — the decision will come to make void ObamaCare and its political wreckage for the Dems. (Of course, the political gains made by the GOP as a direct result of ObamaCare will largely be retained.)
It is highly unlikely that the Supreme Court will decide the individual mandate is unconstitutional, and then conclude that notwithstanding the fact that Congress did not include a severability clause, the Supremes are going to rule as if one was in the bill.

The reality that the ObamaCare train wreck could be all in vain, and that possibility is beginning to seep into the Dem consciousness.

So now, the Dems are trying to lie some more.

Really, they are trotting out Newsweek to explain that the individual mandate was a Republican idea. So if the Supremes throw out the individual mandate, they are really throwing out a Republican health care idea.

I have been in a continuous Republican and Democratic House and Senate office meeting cycle on health care since the HillaryCare fight. If a single Republican wanted a mandate, I can’t remember them telling me.

But this lying is all normal. The Dem ObamaCare play book goes like this:

First, refuse to compromise.

Second, dismiss experts who disagree with their policies, even if the Dems would be much better off politically and policy-wise if they listened.

Third, lie. They lie about the House and Senate rules, which if followed, would have prevented this sucking chest wound that is and has been draining the Dems of political life and energy. The One himself, for example, gave a speech to a Joint Session of Congress about a bill that was in his head, not the one being considered by Congress. That way he could say whatever he wanted.

You know: under ObamaCare, you can keep your health plan. Businesses will not drop their health benefits. It will lower the deficit. This is not socialism. We will cut government spending by half a trillion to pay for ObamaCare.

And on the mandate fight, Newsweek is now doing the lying. No surprise here, the media always carries The One’s water.

Yessssir, Yessssir, three bags full say they.

Fourth, because the Dems refuse to bend on their ObamaCare insanity, they break.

Politically, every time ObamaCare hits the news, it hurts the Dems and helps the GOP. The independent voters cannot stand ObamaCare, and their views are locked in. All the continuous ObamaCare stories do is remind voters why they voted the Dems out of the House, especially when the Dems refuse to budge on repeal or any serious changes.

The break-because-we-won’t-bend part has already come in the form of the Dems now not being able to stop a filibuster in the Senate, and the GOP taking the House.

But the Supremes are immune to lies like Newsweek tells as truth, and every blogger or news-media-Obama-bootlicker should be hounded for their usual we-will-do-anything-and-say-anything-for-The-One and his failures when they say the mandate was a Republican idea.

Only government by the nanny-state, freedom crushing leftists want a mandate — you know, like The One.

Oh, the joy!

What the objection to the conferees in the U.S. Senate has wrought is the now legal reality of the ObamaCare law being declared null and void.

No House and Senate conference for ObamaCare meant that the Dems could not insert a severability clause in the bill, which would allow one of the provisions of a law to be declared unconstitutional, but the remaining parts of the bill still be in force.

Not so much now.

Here is what the Florida judge wrote:

“I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate,” Vinson writes. “Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void.”

And what has ObamaCare wrought for the Dems: continued and repeated political pain and suffering.

They lost the U.S. House. They lost Senate seats in Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

All for what?

The very real legal possibility the law will be declared unconstitutional and null and void.

Oh joy!

After losing the Speaker’s Office and having more than 80 freshmen Republicans encamp in the U.S. House of Representatives, while watching moderate Dems retire at a fast clip in the Senate, it has not stopped the Dems from drinking more of the Jonestown Brigade Kool-Aid served up by the White House and the Minority Leader’s office. It’s a new flavor, they call it ObamaCare.

The latest news from The Hill is the Dems actually think they will defend ObamaCare.

From what, the Supreme Court?

The already successful repeal in the U.S. House?

A repeal vote in the Senate that the LSM (Lame Stream Media) insist does not matter?

The majority of States who have sued the Federal government over various provisions in ObamaCare?

The death by 1,000 amendments that are now being cooked up in the House and the Senate?

The repeated full-throated cry of the American public to repeal it?

Here is a summary of polling data on ObamaCare from two Democrats writing in Politico:

“Indeed, directly after the House voted to repeal, a few polls showed slight upticks in favorability. But whatever ground the health care law appeared to have gained proved fleeting. A poll released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health shows the law remains unpopular — with 50 percent of respondents viewing it unfavorably, up 9 percentage points from the last survey.

The health care law is at its “lowest level of popularity ever,” said Jake Tapper of ABC News, citing a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll. Rasmussen Reports, which has measured support for repeal since the bill passed, continues to find more than 50 percent of respondents in favor of repeal.”

ObamaCare polls like a lead wrecking ball tied to the ankles of the Democratic party, even as they try for the (n)teenth time to swim out of treacherous it’s waters — all while screaming about how great the law is and how it was the right thing to do. Even an average of polls has repeal at +6.

The fact that the Dems are politically irrational about ObamaCare is now a proven fact — a mere glance at Minority Leader Pelosi is proof enough: we would have lost more seats if we had not passed ObamaCare, says she.

Go ahead, strap on the dynamite t-shirts (again).

What is wrong with these people?

Really. Why don’t they just negotiate a surrender? The fact that they will not surrender is made evident by moderates who announce their retirement, while blaming ObamaCare. Senator Conrad (D-ND) knows the lunatics will fight to the last man while all around them lose ground politically, and the fact that Senators like Conrad can’t talk some sense into the irrationals speaks volumes about just how hopelessly nuts about ObamaCare Obama and the Dems and their media pals have become.

Here is more bad news for the Dems that their leadership refuse to acknowledge, listen to or understand, again — from the Politico piece cited above:

Election studies at Stanford University and the University of Minnesota concluded that at least one-third of the House seats that Democrats lost can be attributed to the electorate’s negative reaction to the health care bill. Election night exit polls found that a near majority (48 percent) of voters favored outright repeal. Independents who favored outright repeal voted for Republicans, 86 percent to 9 percent.

Normal, rational people already understood these “study” conclusions as fact.

Jonestown Kool-Aid Brigade irrationals resolutely refuse to understand the basic political facts about ObamaCare. They are scream into the wind of repeal, it is popular, it is good for our party, but — no surprise — few hear them, and fewer of the voters who hear them actually believe them.

So now the LSM is going to subject the country to another round of The One chest-beating about ObamaCare, which will drive the independents further away from the Dems because, again, just like the ObamaCare-crawl-over-glass-exercise-to-pass-it, the independent voters can see two things quite clearly, that are quite lethal to the Dems politically:

1) they still are not listening; and,

2) they don’t get it even after they were voted out of office.

As an aside, how exactly do politicians win votes by ignoring voters, and by telling voters they need to win the next election, to go pound sand?

Let the LSM promote, defend and push the pro-ObamaCare line, just like they did during the entire debate, it will only further enrage the electorate.

Which is why, when reading stories with headlines like this: “Democrats mount most aggressive fight yet to protect healthcare reform law,” it’s the best news ever.

Yes, really, the Dems have gone well past irrational straight on to stupid, and their LSM hand-maidens of self-destruction are fitting their Dem pals with dynamite t-shirts — in the mistaken and nutty belief that it will help.

It will help, just not who the LSM wants to help.

Here is the thing, when The One gave his address to the Joint Session of Congress on ObamaCare, his speech he repeatedly talked about a bill that was not the bill before Congress.

In fact, The One later admitted to then Rep. Stupak (D-MI) — who could not square what Obama said with what was in the ObamaCare legislation — that his Joint Session of Congress speech was about the ObamaCare bill that was in his head, not the one being considered by Congress. This is called a broad mental reservation. The One can do this on stage before the entire nation, the media, his political opponents and his allies. He can say anything while holding in his head a broad mental reservation.

So, with that in mind — so to speak — should The One be taken at his word about the following passage from the 2011 State of the Union:

Now, I have heard rumors that a few of you still have concerns about our new health care law. (Laughter.) So let me be the first to say that anything can be improved. If you have ideas about how to improve this law by making care better or more affordable, I am eager to work with you. We can start right now by correcting a flaw in the legislation that has placed an unnecessary bookkeeping burden on small businesses. (Applause.)

What I’m not willing to do — what I’m not willing to do is go back to the days when insurance companies could deny someone coverage because of a preexisting condition. (Applause.)

…So I say to this chamber tonight, instead of re-fighting the battles of the last two years, let’s fix what needs fixing and let’s move forward. (Applause.)

The Democrats are going to be tarred and feathered with this issue of over-paying their friends, which is so clearly described by Mortimer Zuckerman below. The Dems cannot escape it, and it will act like the political equivalent of a massive parasite sucking political power, voter consensus and support from the Dems — just like bailouts and ObamaCare did:

“According to a study by Daniel DiSalvo, a political scientist at City College in New York, state and local workers now earn an average of $14 more per hour in wages and benefits than their private sector counterparts. In general, the average state government worker reaps retirement benefits several times richer than a counterpart in the private sector, a critical reason why public pension costs have become unsustainable. For example, state and local governments contributed $3.04 per hour toward each employee’s retirement in 2007, according to U.S. Labor Department figures, while private employers paid 92 cents an hour.

Public and private sector workers live in separate economies. The public sector unions are flourishing. The private sector has had to let go many of its workers as economic conditions have worsened. They suffer through frequent turnovers, relentless downsizing, stagnant wages, and rising health insurance premiums. They often fund their own retirements through 401(k)’s and similar plans, which rise and fall with the tides of the economy. By contrast, the public sector is a haven of security and stability, where people have jobs for life and performance measurements are rare. Most public sector workers enjoy job security and boast defined benefit retirement programs. The number of government jobs rose even as overall unemployment in this recession jumped past 10 percent.”

And as Zuckerman points out, when you combine this issue with the spending mandates forced on the States by ObamaCare you have a toxic political cocktail that will see the Dems shrink in numbers of elected official — again. More debt, more spending on something half the country really, really dislikes.

The simple truth of the matter is that the Dems are not to be trusted with a) the public treasury, or b) the ability to raise taxes or c) issue publicly held debt (bonds.) This issue of over-paying, over-pensioning and over-benefiting the public employees will not go away and will continue to hurt the Dems.

Furthermore, it is clear that the Dems have no idea what to do about it, nor do they even understand the political power of this issue. The choice they face is to renege on promises made to their political pals and allies or face the music by the voters.

It is clear, given the make up of the Dem party elite that they will dismiss this issue as nothing to worry about, just like they did with the bailouts and ObamaCare, because to do otherwise would be to deny what they believe in — taxing others to give money to their friends and supporters.

Only now, the voting public is beginning to get the fact that the Dems are spending the country into unsustainable debt to help their friends, and just like Illinois, want to tax Americans more to continue to do it.

Oh boy, this is going to great — another Jonestown Kool-Aid brigade moment is coming for the Dems.

Make no mistake, just like ObamaCare, they will make a great showing of chest-beating and drinking it.

We know from the Dem ObamaCare cliff-jumping exercise, that the Dems listen to, and do as they are told by the mainstream media. But the cracks in the ObamaCare-hold-hands-and-sing-kum-bah-ya-love-fest are now beginning to be hard for the MSM to ignore.

First, Kate Pickert of TIME magazine wrote a piece that argued the Dems have fallen into a trap by passing ObamaCare, and that politically, things are going to get worse for the Dems as the law is implemented.

Second, David Brooks of the NYT laid out all the reasons that ObamaCare will likely fail, and the list is long, powerful and persuasive.

Third, Evan Thomas, a former editor of Newsweek magazine, said recently that ObamaCare has failed.

Fourth, Jennifer Rubin wrote a fascinating piece in the Washington Post where she cited Ezra Klein’s state-the-painfully-obvious-to-everyone-and-call-it-wisdom about the political realities of ObamaCare for the Dems: that there are “some bad signs” in the future and that it is “unpopular.”

Only the true-believers like E.J. Dionne are still pushing the fantasy that the Dems are going to rise again and win the ObamaCare fight.

That the Dionne-Dems are living in the fantasy of ObamaCare being a winning issue is really a symptom of their inability to face the facts: that the Dems should lock themselves in a room when they consider health care legislation because it turns them into Dr. Jekyll — and they become a danger to themselves and others.

The MSM and the Dems try but cannot continue to ignore the fact that Gallup found a plurality of Americans (46%) want ObamaCare repealed. The Dems made a practice of ignoring the intensity of those opposed to ObamaCare, but will they in the future?

After all, even the mainstream media is now dissing ObamaCare, since their strategy of purposefully ignoring and refusing to publish intelligent critiques of ObamaCare has failed. The MSM has little choice but to state the obvious.

What is extraordinary is that the Jonestown Kool-Aid Brigade could convince so many Dems to commit political suicide over such a bad law, a law that increases health care costs, decreases choices and changes everyone’s health care plan without their consent.

Clearly, the Dems have never faced a room full of employees where you have a discussion about changing their health care plan.

Basically, the Dems are simply not politically competent to handle the health care issue, their biases and passion always blinds them and they engage in self-destructive behavior, writ large.

This is nothing new, I have been saying it for months prior to the November election — but now (see above) the mainstream media is beginning to get the joke — they are seeing the Dems for what the public sees them as, worthy of a class-action political malpractice lawsuit.

Since the Dems will not listen to the public or the GOP on health care, perhaps the mainstream media now sees it’s role as the ones who must save the Dems from themselves — the Dr. Jekyll antidote.

As far as legislative battle goes to repeal ObamaCare, Horace Cooper has it exactly right:

How many times will vulnerable senators consent to voting on the most controversial elements of the new health care law – putting them between the rock of the right and hard place of the left – before they see the wisdom of breaking with Reid and voting, along with the House, to toss the whole business into the ashcan, even if they know Obama will veto the repeal?

In a sense, forcing a veto forces everyone’s hand – but after the results of November 2010 it is highly unlikely that there are that many vulnerable Senate Democrats who are willing to fall on their sword for the president. They would much rather let him take the heat – by vetoing repeal – than having to time and again calculate the proper course to take when confronted with wedge issues like repeal of the individual mandate, which the public supports and without which the whole scheme collapses in on itself.

The U.S. Senate is the perfect place to make the Dems repeatedly walk the plank. And walk they will, until they collectively decide they would rather, well, not walk the plank anymore.

ObamaCare has become one of the most potent wedge issues of this time, and expect it to be used as such, often.

Regular readers of this blog know that one of my major concerns has been an impending bailout of the blue states and cities by the Federal Reserve.

This concern was largely eliminated when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke put a pad-lock on the Federal Reserve cash machine when he announced the Fed would not bail out cities and states who cannot get their fiscal house in order. According to the WSJ, Bernanke said:

“We have no expectation or intention to get involved in state and local finance,” Mr. Bernanke said in testimony before the Senate Budget Committee. The states, he said later, “should not expect loans from the Fed.”

This is a huge victory for rational fiscal policy.

I salute the Chairman of the Fed for this wise and correct decision.

It is not a stretch to say that Bernanke likely averted a fiscal civil war by his announcement.

Any bailout of any state or city by the Fed would have created a chain-reaction of petitions from states and cities in dire straights. Bailing out all of them could have easily surpassed $1 trillion.

If he had bailed out the blue states, see this graph, then he would have created a political firestorm — directed at the Fed — that Bernanke and the Fed governors would not have been able to control. My guess is that it would have cost Bernanke his job, because Congress would have intervened. (Obama, who is now so weakened politically, would not veto any effort to prevent any Fed bailout or the legislation to clip the Feds wings that such a bailout would have created.)

Further, any bailout by the Fed of the blue states or cities would have undermined and discredited Bernanke’s own public statements about needing to get the U.S. Federal deficit under control, as well as ingrained in the minds of the incompetent blue state governments they can spend without consequence.

These states and cities would have thought — and by extension, Congress and the White House — why bother with any fiscal discipline or spending realities, the Fed will just bail us out?

Thankfully, because of Bernanke’s actions, this will not happen.

Given that Congress is fully aware of the polling data around bailouts (the public hates them, really hates them) and the Republican control of the U.S. House — there will be no bailout by the U.S. government of the incompetent and largely blue states and cities.

Now, these spendthrift cities and states will have to fix their fiscal house all by themselves — and the place they will have to cut is the pensions, health benefits and salaries of government employees.

Lets just say the heyday of the public employee is ending, because, simply put, it cannot continue.

Thank you Megan McArdle for this wonderful piece of clarity in confused times.

She cites Governor Cuomo (D-NY) blunt and spin-free truth-telling about how to manipulate and influence the political process — a lesson that free enterprise leaders need to understand:

Cuomo himself has described the [budget] process thusly: “The governor announces the budget; unions come together, put $10 million in a bank account, run television ads against the governor. The governor’s popularity drops; the governor’s knees weaken; the governor falls to one knee, collapses, makes a deal.”

Note to free enterprise leaders: Listening to people who have been successful in achieving policy outcomes they want despite the fact that those who have to implement them oppose what you want, is a smart strategy.

To achieve the political result they want, successful organizations run television ads, millions and millions of dollars in television ads. They also attack their friends and allies when necessary, and — even more simply — attack their opponents.

They run ads that work.

The opponents cave.

This is really not that difficult. It is pretty straight-forward stuff.

But it takes will and resolve. (Resources obviously, but business is not without resources.)

What it is without, as evidenced by the passage of ObamaCare and “banking reform” is the will to act in an effective and tough manner.

Unfortunately, the lack of will on the part of free enterprise is really a lack of resolve, which can be traced directly back to a lack of courage.

And no amount of memo writing or urging or illustrations of success (see above) can create courage where there is little.

This leaves the heavy lifting to those who have will and resources to ignore the hand-wringers on every free-enterprise Association Board or Legislative Committee — and why they must ignore the Democratic lobbyists all large businesses retain.