RedStateEclectic

Unconstitutional

Rather than picking and choosing his cases, as many proponents of Obamacare like to do, he went through all of the relevant case law at length before concluding that the mandate violated the Commerce Clause.  He correctly observed that “it would be a radical departure from existing case law to hold that Congress can regulate inactivity under the Commerce Clause.”  He then concluded that “the individual mandate and the remaining provisions are all inextricably bound together in purpose and must stand or fall as a single unit. The individual mandate cannot be severed.”  As such, he appropriately struck down the entire law. 

via blog.heritage.org

A good analysis from Heritage.

Frederick Russell Jones

I don't know recent American history sufficiently well to grasp why so many influential and successful Americans converted to Islam (as early as the 1950s in the below case), emitting so little knowledge and appreciation of Islam into their American environment. Maybe the enthusiam of many of them then was as 'fake' and forced as the present fad of racism.

Enjoy Ahmad Jamal.

 

The Stealth Fighter Shoe

If you are intent on kicking someone ...

... consider this option: the stealth fighter shoe. More.

 

Lone Defender of Civilization and Liberty - Defunct

Mark Steyn has my support as he argues

that the Anglosphere was the all but lone defender of civilization and of liberty. In broader geopolitical terms, the key regional powers in almost every corner of the globe are British-derived—from Australia to South Africa to India—and, even among the lesser players, as a general rule you’re better off for having been exposed to British rule than not: Why is Haiti Haiti and Barbados Barbados?

And he has my support, evinced from the very first post I ever entered at RedStateEclectic, that the civilization of the West, more properly the civilization of the Anglosphere, is in a state of advanced and perhaps irreversible decline.

In a truly remarkable article, Mark Steyn expands, from his contemporary point of view, on Hayek's " ... insight in The Road to Serfdom, which he wrote with an immigrant’s eye on the Britain of 1944:

There is one aspect of the change in moral values brought about by the advance of collectivism which at the present time provides special food for thought. It is that the virtues which are held less and less in esteem and which consequently become rarer are precisely those on which the British people justly prided themselves and in which they were generally agreed to excel.

 The virtues possessed by Anglo-Saxons in a higher degree than most other people, excepting only a few of the smaller nations, like the Swiss and the Dutch, were independence and self-reliance, individual initiative and local responsibility, the successful reliance on voluntary activity, noninterference with one’s neighbor and tolerance of the different and queer, respect for custom and tradition, and a healthy suspicion of power and authority.

See also The State Against Blacks and Britain's Trillion Pound Horror Story.

Mitch Daniels takes more than two-to-one lead in straw poll - The Hill's Ballot Box

A new straw poll of Washington state Republicans preferred Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (R) with two-to-one over all other potential Republican presidential candidates.

Daniels had 31 percent of those surveyed in the poll conducted by the Washington GOP during their annual Roanoke Conference.

That’s more than twice the level of support won by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Romney won 14 percent of support, while former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty won 13 percent.

More than a dozen other potential GOP candidates — including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour — failed to break double digits in the poll.

The poll included both possible Republican candidates who have strongly hinted or even expressed an interest outright in running for president in 2012 and others who with increasingly large profiles, such as House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)

Daniels on Friday said he'd make up his mind and announce whether he will run for president soon.

"I don't think that I've waited too long, but I believe I should come to some decision. There are a lot of people waiting and I owe them an answer," Daniels said according to the Northwest Times of Indiana.

Read the results here.

via thehill.com

We need to start developing our scale of candidates soon--from the ideal, down to the despised. In all likelihood, we'll end up with a candidate somewhere in between, and the question is: who could we live with?

2012 Starting to Heat Up

I don’t know much about Governor/Ambassador Huntsman’s political views, but two thoughts strike me:

1. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to have a president who speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese?!?
2. Does he look a little Romney-like to anyone else?  Former Governor of Utah (and Mormon), are he and Romney going to split the Mormon vote?

Obama's Huge Spending Cuts

I am not sure about the part of the penny demonstration of which the narrator claims it is "money we have," but the visualisation of proportions is impressive and, I am afraid, rather credible:

 

 See my posts How to Make 300 Million Human Beeings Feel Bored, Preparing Your Tax Return? Here Is How to Do It, Here's My Money, Give Me Some Debt.

American Government Revisited

 

Holy Cow!  I’m going to have to change all of my American Government lectures!  Who knew that the Senate and House were separate branches of government, and that the U.S. (apparently) has gotten rid of the judiciary?

For Senator Schumer:

North Korea—Be Careful What You Ask For

Another guest post by Doug Newman—posing a question about single payer health care….

 

By Doug Newman

North Korea has single-payer health care, for which many on the left clamor. It also has the world’s most comprehensive most comprehensive national security apparatus, for which many on the right clamor.

Would you want to live there?

Utopia always sounds good, when someone else is on the business end of it.

(Aerial photograph of the Korean Peninsula at night.)

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The Great Debate?

This promotion has been going on for a couple of months now, and we may or may not have published something about it in the past, but it’s worth pushing yet again.

There’s more about this at the Mises blog, here. 

This was the first video in the series.

And who says that economists don’t have a sense of humor:

That’s got to be worth a little bit in the pledge bucket, doesn’t it?