Saturday, June 30, 2012

66% Put National Security Ahead of Human Rights - Rasmussen Reports™ OBAMA PUTS OPEN BORDERS WITH NARCOMEX AHEAD OF NATIONAL SECURITY

66% Put National Security Ahead of Human Rights - Rasmussen Reports™


AMERICAN HAS WITNESSED HOLDER AND OBAMA PROMISE OBAMA’S CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS THEY WOULD NEVER BE PROSECUTED.

OBAMA HOLDER HAVE ALSO ENDLESSLY HARASSED AMERICAN STATES WITH LAWSUITS TO ADVANCE OBAMA’S LA RAZA AGENDA OF OPEN BORDERS, NO E-VERIFY, NO ID TO VOTE, ENDLESS GRINGO-PAID DREAM ACTS TO KEEP THE ILLEGALS CLIMBING OUR BORDERS AND JOBS.

OBAMA’S DEPT of (illegal) LABOR IS LA RAZA SUPREMACIST HILDA SOLIS!

CRIMINAL BANKSTERS WELLS FARGO ARE BANKSTERS TO THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS.
WELLS FARGO, ALONG WITH BANK of AMERICA, IS A MAJOR DONOR TO THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA.

BOTH BANKS HAVE OPENED BANK ACCOUNTS FOR ILLEGALS USING PHONY MEX CONSULATE IDS.

A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF THE MONEY ILLEGALS DEPOSIT IS MEX GANG MONEY.

WELLS FARGO HAD THEIR CALIFORNIA MORTGAGE LICENSE REVOKED IN 2003. IT SILL IS. THE CRIMINAL BANK SIMPLY DECLARED ITSELF ABOVE THE LAW AND WENT ON PERPETRATING THEIR MORTGAGE SCAMS ON CONSUMERS NATIONWIDE UNTIL TAX PAYERS WERE FORCED TO BAILOUT OUT ALL THE DAMAGES.


“The program of “gunwalking,” as the tactic of permitting known buyers for the Mexican gangs to purchase weapons and take them to Mexico, was part of a murky but undoubtedly reactionary effort by the US government to develop relations with the drug cartels, some of which deposited huge sums in American banks, to the benefit of Wall Street.”

US House votes contempt citation for attorney general

By Patrick Martin
30 June 2012

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to find Democratic Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress Thursday, the first time in US history that such a sanction has been applied to the top US law enforcement official.

The vote came on a near-party-line vote of 255 to 67, with 108 Democrats abstaining. The majority of Democrats walked out of the Capitol during the voting in order to make a show of outrage over the contempt citation. The action is not expected to have any practical effect, since the House of Representatives will now request the US Attorney for Washington DC, who is Holder’s subordinate, to bring charges against his own boss, and he is likely to refuse.

The contempt citation is purportedly the outcome of a protracted congressional investigation into “Fast and Furious,” an abortive effort by the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, ostensibly to gather intelligence on Mexican drug cartels. The ATF allowed gang representatives to buy weapons at American gun shops and then bring them across the Rio Grande into Mexico.

The operation was first initiated under the Bush administration, under the codename “Wide Receiver,” but was shut down in 2007. It was revived after Obama and Holder took office, under its new name, although it is not clear whether the White House or senior Justice Department officials were aware of it.

In December 2010, Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was shot to death in a gun battle in which several “Fast and Furious” weapons were involved. The program was abruptly shut down, and top Justice Department officials initially denied its existence in a February 4, 2011 letter to Congress that was later retracted.

The House Governmental Operations committee, headed by California Republican Darrell Issa, has focused its investigation not on the “Fast and Furious” program itself, but on efforts to prove that top Justice Department officials lied about the program in the course of a series of responses to the committee in 2011.

Each request from Issa’s committee for documents has been followed by further requests for internal emails about the Justice Department’s response to the previous document requests, in an evident effort to construct and trigger a perjury trap that would implicate either Holder or one of his top subordinates in a purported cover-up.

“Fast and Furious” does involve serious issues relating to the secret operations of the federal government. The program of “gunwalking,” as the tactic of permitting known buyers for the Mexican gangs to purchase weapons and take them to Mexico, was part of a murky but undoubtedly reactionary effort by the US government to develop relations with the drug cartels, some of which deposited huge sums in American banks, to the benefit of Wall Street. It is likely for this reason that even some Republican Senators have sought to distance themselves from Issa’s campaign—this is not the sort of program that is supposed to see the light of day.

The House Republicans, in fact, are uninterested in exposing either the US manipulation of the drug gangs or the criminal activities of Wall Street. The Justice Department has supplied the committee with the documents related to the origins and functioning of the “Fast and Furious” program. The subpoena rejected by Holder, which triggered a claim of executive privilege by Obama, involves 1,500 pages of internal emails between top Justice Department officials written only after “Fast and Furious” had been shut down.

A driving force in the campaign over “Fast and Furious” vote is the National Rifle Association, the ultra-right group that purports to represent gun owners. Top NRA officials claim that top Obama administration officials devised “Fast and Furious” in order to produce a series of bloody incidents along the border involving guns purchased at US gun shops. The purpose of this alleged conspiracy was to generate political propaganda for sweeping restrictions on gun ownership that the Obama administration supposedly plans to introduce in its second term.

Some 17 House Democrats decided to follow the dictates of the NRA and vote for the contempt citation against Holder, in an effort to win the backing of the right-wing group in the upcoming congressional elections. Only two Republicans voted against the contempt citation.

What is remarkable in the conflict is that there are ample reasons for indicting Attorney General Holder for criminal actions against the democratic rights of the American people, but these are of no interest to the ultra-right groups spearheading the campaign over “Fast and Furious.”

Holder has been one of the most aggressive spokesmen for the claims of the Obama administration of presidential power to order the assassination of American citizens, or to detain them indefinitely without charge or judicial review, in the name of the “war on terror.” The Justice Department has spearheaded a series of prosecutions of whistleblowers who have leaked information on anti-democratic operations of the military-intelligence apparatus within the United States.

The author recommends:


WIKILEAKS EXPOSES OBAMA'S AGENDA OF LA RAZA SUPREMACY AND AN ILLEGAL IN EVERY AMERICAN JOB TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED. THE LEGALS GET THE TAX BILLS FOR THE MEX WELFARE AND CRIME TIDAL WAVE.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2012/05/illegals-obama-promises-his-la-raza.html
*
The Obama administration has also cut worksite enforcement efforts by 70%, allowing illegal immigrants to continue working in jobs that rightfully belong to citizens and legal workers.
 
Obama Quietly Erasing Borders (Article)
THE ENTIRE REASON THE BORDERS ARE LEFT OPEN IS TO CUT WAGES!
THE LA RAZA DEMS HAVE SABOTAGED E-VERIFY TO HELP EASE MORE ILLEGALS INTO OUR JOBS. IN MEX-OCCUPIED CA, THE LA RAZA (ILLEGALS) CONTROLLED STATE LEGISLATURE PASSED A LAW MAKING IT ILLEGAL FOR EMPLOYERS TO USE E-VERIFY. OBAMA HAS SUED AZ TO STOP E-VERIFY…. HERE’S WHY:
“We could cut unemployment in half simply by reclaiming the jobs taken by illegal workers,” said Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, co-chairman of the Reclaim American Jobs Caucus. “President Obama is on the wrong side of the American people on immigration. The president should support policies that help citizens and legal immigrants find the jobs they need and deserve rather than fail to enforce immigration laws.”
 “The principal beneficiaries of our current immigration policy are affluent Americans who hire immigrants at substandard wages for low-end work. Harvard economist George Borjas estimates that American workers lose $190 billion annually in depressed wages caused by the constant flooding of the labor market at the low-wage end.” Christian Science Monitor
*
“Listen to people from the National Council of La Raza, LULAC, CARECEN, Latino TV networks, the Piolin radio show (that’s Hispanic anti-Rush Limbaugh), and you will see that the U.S. is replete with its own Chavezes-in-waiting.”

LA RAZA-CONTROLLED MEXIFORNIA – CAPITAL OF MEXICAN GANGS
THE LA RAZA CRIME TIDAL WAVE
NEARLY HALF OF ALL MURDERS IN CA ARE BY MEXICAN GANGS!


OBAMACARE and ROMNEY

A Game-Changer For Romney
By LAWRENCE KUDLOW
Posted 06/29/2012 05:41 PM ET


In the hours following the Supreme Court's decision to ratify ObamaCare, Mitt Romney got $4.6 million in donations from 47,000 individuals. The tide is with him. The Supremes are a game changer.
But Romney has to make the case. He needs to link the anemic jobs and economic situation to the ObamaCare tax, spend and regulate fiscal drag. And he has to add to that mix the dangers to our freedoms embodied in Justice John Roberts' expansion of the power to tax our personal behavior.
Scott Rasmussen says the idea of ObamaCare repeal has held steady at around 54% ever since its passage in March 2010. This reveals the dynamic political opportunity that Gov. Romney has.
Again, it's a three-pronged attack: The anemic economy, the ObamaCare costs that are stifling the economy and the John Roberts expanded power of taxation that will bring us more mandates, more entitlements and less personal freedom, all of which will further cripple the economy.
One way of looking at Roberts' sleight-of-hand decision to vote in favor of ObamaCare is that a tax is a tax is a tax. As a non-lawyer, I see the Roberts vote as a massive expansion of federal government taxing power — just what we don't need.
Supply-siders like me argue that when you tax something you get less of it. With Judge Roberts throwing in with the liberals on the court to expand federal tax powers, we now face the massive threat of ultra-slow economic growth in the U.S. for years to come.
The Roberts Court has served up a "tax mandate" that is more powerful than the still-limited Commerce Clause regulatory mandate. Roberts has created a huge new loophole. Instead of new purchase mandates, we'll have new purchase tax mandates.
This expanded tax power could force me to eat broccoli if the government so chooses, or make me put solar panels on my home. Gov. Bobby Jindal now worries about the people who "refuse to eat tofu or refuse to drive a Chevy Volt." Not because of the Commerce Clause, but because of the new tax-mandate clause. You'll be taxed heavily if you don't do what the government wants you to do.
And don't we have enough taxes already in this country? And what about the tax threats that are coming down the road?
Repealing the Bush tax cuts and adding on the ObamaCare tax hikes will produce outrageous marginal tax rates of roughly 45% for successful earners, dividend investors and small-business owners. In other words, European-style taxes, which suggests anemic European-style growth.
Americans for Tax Reform estimates that ObamaCare contains 20 new or higher taxes on American families and small businesses. Investor's Business Daily says this comes to a $675 billion tax hike over the next decade. Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal editorial board cites CBO estimates that roughly 8 million (or 76% of) middle-class taxpayers earning less than $120,000 a year will shoulder the new Obama-Care tax mandate authorized by Judge Roberts.
And this whole panoply of ObamaCare taxes is already one big drag on the economy. Just in recent days, revised GDP came in at 1.9%, and real consumer spending was essentially flat. Job growth has slowed markedly, as have new factory orders. Economists on Wall Street are looking for only 2% growth this year. The Fed is so worried about the economy it might launch another counterproductive quantitative easing.
Meanwhile, health care premiums are going up, not down. Mandated one-size-fits-all health services and insurance will incentivize businesses to pay the fine and push employees into the state's exchange system. And this will drive up the subsidized entitlement even more.
The CBO now estimates that ObamaCare spending will hit $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years. That's a number that started out at only half as much. But that's what happens when you install European-style entitlements. You threaten to bankrupt the nation's finances. Or you threaten to literally tax us into perpetual subpar growth and high unemployment.
And that's the case Mitt Romney has to make. But he has to hammer away, day by day. He needs to make these points if we're to end the malaise.

60% Say Border Control Should Be Top Immigration Priority - Rasmussen Reports™ 100% of Illegals Will Vote For Obama's LA RAZA OPEN BORDERS AGENDA Again!

60% Say Border Control Should Be Top Immigration Priority - Rasmussen Reports™




WHO DOES OBAMA LIE TO THE MOST?

LEGALS OR ILLEGALS?

Shame about all those earlier deportations, the ones the administration was boasting about until recently. The decision looks nakedly political. You can hardly claim to be standing on principle when you're driven entirely by tactical calculation.

Out and out lawlessness, Charles Krauthammer called the decision. America is supposed to be a nation of laws.




Obama's Immigration Maneuver


By Clive Crook

I welcome Obama's decision on immigration. Pursuing and deporting illegal immigrants who were brought to this country as children is inhumane. If the US stands for something, it should never sink so low.

Out and out lawlessness, Charles Krauthammer called the decision. America is supposed to be a nation of laws. Yes, when it chooses to be. A settled, intelligent and indisputably legitimate immigration policy is needed. But there's no sign of it. In the meantime, resorting to a legal maneuver that lets the administration leave a cruel law unenforced is the best that can be done, and in my view much the lesser evil.

It would be nice to call it a brave decision, but the timing tempers one's enthusiasm. What took him so long? Oh yes, there's an election coming up, and the Latino vote could be pivotal. Shame about all those earlier deportations, the ones the administration was boasting about until recently. The decision looks nakedly political. You can hardly claim to be standing on principle when you're driven entirely by tactical calculation.

Since it's the right decision I hope it pays off. A new Bloomberg poll suggests it might. But perhaps the administration is taking more of a chance than it knows. Sean Trende thinks the electoral calculation may backfire for three main reasons. Latinos aren't concentrated in important swing states. (Florida? Latinos in Florida don't vote like Latinos elsewhere.) White working-class voters are likely to be offended by the decision. And Latinos might not care about immigration policy quite as much as Democrats are apt to think.

[J]ust as there's a ceiling on the Republican share of this vote, there's probably something of a floor. (Harry Enten provides some good analysis here.)

I'd just add that in 2008, only 69 percent of Latino voters described illegal immigration as "very" or "extremely" important to them in exit polls. Of these, nearly one-third voted Republican, suggesting that a near-majority of Latinos either thought that illegal immigration wasn't an important issue, or thought it was and voted Republican anyway...

In short, it's not really clear what Obama's tack on immigration really accomplishes, politically speaking. It probably will result in minimal gains among Latino voters, in states with only a few electoral votes. But what it costs him could easily offset those gains, and then some.

Is it possible Obama did the right thing, even suspecting it might cost him in electoral terms? These days, sad to say, that's hard to believe.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/06/obamas-immigration-maneuver/258679/


OBAMA, the MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS and WELLS FARGO - CRIMINAL BANKSTERS TO THE MEX DRUG CARTELS




AMERICAN HAS WITNESSED HOLDER AND OBAMA PROMISE OBAMA’S CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS THEY WOULD NEVER BE PROSECUTED.

OBAMA HOLDER HAVE ALSO ENDLESSLY HARASSED AMERICAN STATES WITH LAWSUITS TO ADVANCE OBAMA’S LA RAZA AGENDA OF OPEN BORDERS, NO E-VERIFY, NO ID TO VOTE, ENDLESS GRINGO-PAID DREAM ACTS TO KEEP THE ILLEGALS CLIMBING OUR BORDERS AND JOBS.

OBAMA’S DEPT of (illegal) LABOR IS LA RAZA SUPREMACIST HILDA SOLIS!

CRIMINAL BANKSTERS WELLS FARGO ARE BANKSTERS TO THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS.



WELLS FARGO, ALONG WITH BANK of AMERICA, IS A MAJOR DONOR TO THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA.

BOTH BANKS HAVE OPENED BANK ACCOUNTS FOR ILLEGALS USING PHONY MEX CONSULATE IDS.

A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF THE MONEY ILLEGALS DEPOSIT IS MEX GANG MONEY.

WELLS FARGO HAD THEIR CALIFORNIA MORTGAGE LICENSE REVOKED IN 2003. IT SILL IS. THE CRIMINAL BANK SIMPLY DECLARED ITSELF ABOVE THE LAW AND WENT ON PERPETRATING THEIR MORTGAGE SCAMS ON CONSUMERS NATIONWIDE UNTIL TAX PAYERS WERE FORCED TO BAILOUT OUT ALL THE DAMAGES.







“The program of “gunwalking,” as the tactic of permitting known buyers for the Mexican gangs to purchase weapons and take them to Mexico, was part of a murky but undoubtedly reactionary effort by the US government to develop relations with the drug cartels, some of which deposited huge sums in American banks, to the benefit of Wall Street.”

US House votes contempt citation for attorney general

By Patrick Martin
30 June 2012

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to find Democratic Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress Thursday, the first time in US history that such a sanction has been applied to the top US law enforcement official.

The vote came on a near-party-line vote of 255 to 67, with 108 Democrats abstaining. The majority of Democrats walked out of the Capitol during the voting in order to make a show of outrage over the contempt citation. The action is not expected to have any practical effect, since the House of Representatives will now request the US Attorney for Washington DC, who is Holder’s subordinate, to bring charges against his own boss, and he is likely to refuse.

The contempt citation is purportedly the outcome of a protracted congressional investigation into “Fast and Furious,” an abortive effort by the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, ostensibly to gather intelligence on Mexican drug cartels. The ATF allowed gang representatives to buy weapons at American gun shops and then bring them across the Rio Grande into Mexico.

The operation was first initiated under the Bush administration, under the codename “Wide Receiver,” but was shut down in 2007. It was revived after Obama and Holder took office, under its new name, although it is not clear whether the White House or senior Justice Department officials were aware of it.

In December 2010, Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was shot to death in a gun battle in which several “Fast and Furious” weapons were involved. The program was abruptly shut down, and top Justice Department officials initially denied its existence in a February 4, 2011 letter to Congress that was later retracted.

The House Governmental Operations committee, headed by California Republican Darrell Issa, has focused its investigation not on the “Fast and Furious” program itself, but on efforts to prove that top Justice Department officials lied about the program in the course of a series of responses to the committee in 2011.

Each request from Issa’s committee for documents has been followed by further requests for internal emails about the Justice Department’s response to the previous document requests, in an evident effort to construct and trigger a perjury trap that would implicate either Holder or one of his top subordinates in a purported cover-up.

“Fast and Furious” does involve serious issues relating to the secret operations of the federal government. The program of “gunwalking,” as the tactic of permitting known buyers for the Mexican gangs to purchase weapons and take them to Mexico, was part of a murky but undoubtedly reactionary effort by the US government to develop relations with the drug cartels, some of which deposited huge sums in American banks, to the benefit of Wall Street. It is likely for this reason that even some Republican Senators have sought to distance themselves from Issa’s campaign—this is not the sort of program that is supposed to see the light of day.

The House Republicans, in fact, are uninterested in exposing either the US manipulation of the drug gangs or the criminal activities of Wall Street. The Justice Department has supplied the committee with the documents related to the origins and functioning of the “Fast and Furious” program. The subpoena rejected by Holder, which triggered a claim of executive privilege by Obama, involves 1,500 pages of internal emails between top Justice Department officials written only after “Fast and Furious” had been shut down.

A driving force in the campaign over “Fast and Furious” vote is the National Rifle Association, the ultra-right group that purports to represent gun owners. Top NRA officials claim that top Obama administration officials devised “Fast and Furious” in order to produce a series of bloody incidents along the border involving guns purchased at US gun shops. The purpose of this alleged conspiracy was to generate political propaganda for sweeping restrictions on gun ownership that the Obama administration supposedly plans to introduce in its second term.

Some 17 House Democrats decided to follow the dictates of the NRA and vote for the contempt citation against Holder, in an effort to win the backing of the right-wing group in the upcoming congressional elections. Only two Republicans voted against the contempt citation.

What is remarkable in the conflict is that there are ample reasons for indicting Attorney General Holder for criminal actions against the democratic rights of the American people, but these are of no interest to the ultra-right groups spearheading the campaign over “Fast and Furious.”

Holder has been one of the most aggressive spokesmen for the claims of the Obama administration of presidential power to order the assassination of American citizens, or to detain them indefinitely without charge or judicial review, in the name of the “war on terror.” The Justice Department has spearheaded a series of prosecutions of whistleblowers who have leaked information on anti-democratic operations of the military-intelligence apparatus within the United States.

The author recommends:



The Supreme Court ruling on Obama’s health care overhaul - WHY THE SPECIAL INTEREST ARE BEHIND OBAMACARE

The Supreme Court ruling on Obama’s health care overhaul

The Supreme Court ruling on Obama’s health care overhaul


30 June 2012

When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was voted into law in March 2010, President Barack Obama hailed the measure as a vindication of the “American dream” and proof that “government of the people and by the people still works for the people.”

Thursday’s ruling by the US Supreme Court upholding key provisions of the law met with a similar response from the president, Democratic supporters of the bill and what passes for the liberal media in the US. The basic premise of their celebration of the high court decision was that the health care law is a genuine reform that will expand coverage for ordinary Americans and implement safeguards to guarantee quality care. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The law constitutes a sweeping attack on health care for tens of millions of working people. Its principal aim is not to provide universal health coverage—millions will remain uninsured under its provisions—but rather to reduce costs for corporations and the government, in large part by rationing care for all but the wealthy. The Supreme Court ruling upholding the law, moreover, is itself a deeply reactionary decision with far-reaching implications for the social and democratic rights of the American people.

The health care legislation was crafted to serve the interests of the private insurers, pharmaceutical firms and giant health care chains. They stand to profit handsomely from its provisions.

The centerpiece of the law, the so-called individual mandate, which was upheld by the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling, will require all but the very poorest individuals to obtain health insurance from private companies or pay a penalty. This will funnel tens of millions of new cash-paying customers to the private insurance companies.

Other features of the law include:

• $500 billion in cuts to the Medicare program for the elderly

• An Independent Payment Advisory Board to ration health care under Medicare

• Accountable Care Organizations tying payments for Medicare to cost-cutting

• A tax on so-called “Cadillac” health insurance plans held by unionized and other employees.

While individuals can be fined by up to 2 percent of their income if they do not have coverage, the fines for employers who fail to offer insurance to their employees are so low as to create an incentive for companies to drop their insurance programs. That will force workers to buy individual policies offering reduced coverage. One recent study showed that as many as 9 percent of businesses plan to drop coverage for their employees by 2014.

The fact that such a regressive measure is passed off as a progressive reform says a great deal about 21st century America, as does the Supreme Court ruling that upheld it. The decision—written by the right-wing chief justice, John Roberts, and endorsed by the four nominal liberals on the court—reflects the fact that the corporate establishment is heavily invested in the legislation.

Justice Roberts joined with the other right-wing justices to reject the Obama administration’s argument that the health care law, and its requirement that every person obtain health insurance, was constitutional on the basis of the government’s authority to regulate interstate commerce (according to the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution). Roberts instead based his ruling upholding the individual mandate on the government’s taxation powers, equating the penalty for those who do not purchase insurance to a tax.

The rejection of the Commerce Clause as the basis for federal social legislation is the culmination of an expanding right-wing attack on what had, ever since the New Deal of the 1930s, been regarded as a settled matter of constitutional jurisprudence. Congress had cited the Commerce Clause as the constitutional foundation for reforms such as the minimum wage, child labor laws, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and civil rights legislation, as well as regulations on the activities of corporations. The aim of all five right-wingers on the court, including Roberts, was to set a legal precedent weakening the power of Congress to legislate any social reforms or limitations on corporate profit-making.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg characterized Roberts’ “rigid reading” of the Commerce Clause as “stunningly retrogressive.” She noted that it harkened back to the early part of the last century, when the Supreme Court routinely overturned social reform legislation and laws regulating corporate activities.

The one provision of the health care law that was rejected by the court was a measure related to the expansion of Medicaid, the health care program for the poor jointly administered by the states and the federal government. The law sought to cover an estimated 11 million people by extending Medicaid coverage to all individuals under the age of 65 with incomes at 133 percent of the poverty level or less.

It empowered the federal government to withhold Medicaid funding from any state that refused to implement this expansion. Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling stripped that power from the federal government, making the expansion of Medicaid by the individual states, as a practical matter, optional.

What the Supreme Court and the ruling elite as a whole have in their sights is not only Medicaid, but the entire framework of social programs such as Social Security, Medicare and food stamps, as well as laws upholding democratic rights such as the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.

Passage of the Obama health care legislation in 2010 ushered in a new stage in the assault on the working class. Austerity measures have been implemented across the country, with states implementing deep cuts to Medicaid and other social programs. In the midst of the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression, the White House and Congress made a deal to reduce the duration of unemployment benefits.

The Affordable Care Act and the Supreme Court ruling upholding it underscore the incompatibility of private ownership of the means of production and production for profit with basic social needs such as health care. There is no possibility of achieving genuinely progressive social change within the framework of the capitalist economic and political system.

Universal, quality health care requires taking profit out of the provision of medical care and placing the health care system on socialist foundations. The insurance firms, pharmaceutical companies and health care chains must be nationalized and transformed into public utilities under the democratic control of the working people.

The Socialist Equality Party and its candidates in the 2012 elections, Jerry White for president and Phyllis Scherrer for vice president, are committed to the fight for high-quality, universal health care as a basic social right of the working class. Visit the Socialist Equality Party campaign website.

Kate Randall
*

A Game-Changer For Romney
By LAWRENCE KUDLOW
Posted 06/29/2012 05:41 PM ET
In the hours following the Supreme Court's decision to ratify ObamaCare, Mitt Romney got $4.6 million in donations from 47,000 individuals. The tide is with him. The Supremes are a game changer.
But Romney has to make the case. He needs to link the anemic jobs and economic situation to the ObamaCare tax, spend and regulate fiscal drag. And he has to add to that mix the dangers to our freedoms embodied in Justice John Roberts' expansion of the power to tax our personal behavior.
Scott Rasmussen says the idea of ObamaCare repeal has held steady at around 54% ever since its passage in March 2010. This reveals the dynamic political opportunity that Gov. Romney has.
Again, it's a three-pronged attack: The anemic economy, the ObamaCare costs that are stifling the economy and the John Roberts expanded power of taxation that will bring us more mandates, more entitlements and less personal freedom, all of which will further cripple the economy.
One way of looking at Roberts' sleight-of-hand decision to vote in favor of ObamaCare is that a tax is a tax is a tax. As a non-lawyer, I see the Roberts vote as a massive expansion of federal government taxing power — just what we don't need.
Supply-siders like me argue that when you tax something you get less of it. With Judge Roberts throwing in with the liberals on the court to expand federal tax powers, we now face the massive threat of ultra-slow economic growth in the U.S. for years to come.
The Roberts Court has served up a "tax mandate" that is more powerful than the still-limited Commerce Clause regulatory mandate. Roberts has created a huge new loophole. Instead of new purchase mandates, we'll have new purchase tax mandates.
This expanded tax power could force me to eat broccoli if the government so chooses, or make me put solar panels on my home. Gov. Bobby Jindal now worries about the people who "refuse to eat tofu or refuse to drive a Chevy Volt." Not because of the Commerce Clause, but because of the new tax-mandate clause. You'll be taxed heavily if you don't do what the government wants you to do.
And don't we have enough taxes already in this country? And what about the tax threats that are coming down the road?
Repealing the Bush tax cuts and adding on the ObamaCare tax hikes will produce outrageous marginal tax rates of roughly 45% for successful earners, dividend investors and small-business owners. In other words, European-style taxes, which suggests anemic European-style growth.
Americans for Tax Reform estimates that ObamaCare contains 20 new or higher taxes on American families and small businesses. Investor's Business Daily says this comes to a $675 billion tax hike over the next decade. Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal editorial board cites CBO estimates that roughly 8 million (or 76% of) middle-class taxpayers earning less than $120,000 a year will shoulder the new Obama-Care tax mandate authorized by Judge Roberts.
And this whole panoply of ObamaCare taxes is already one big drag on the economy. Just in recent days, revised GDP came in at 1.9%, and real consumer spending was essentially flat. Job growth has slowed markedly, as have new factory orders. Economists on Wall Street are looking for only 2% growth this year. The Fed is so worried about the economy it might launch another counterproductive quantitative easing.
Meanwhile, health care premiums are going up, not down. Mandated one-size-fits-all health services and insurance will incentivize businesses to pay the fine and push employees into the state's exchange system. And this will drive up the subsidized entitlement even more.
The CBO now estimates that ObamaCare spending will hit $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years. That's a number that started out at only half as much. But that's what happens when you install European-style entitlements. You threaten to bankrupt the nation's finances. Or you threaten to literally tax us into perpetual subpar growth and high unemployment.
And that's the case Mitt Romney has to make. But he has to hammer away, day by day. He needs to make these points if we're to end the malaise.