Puterbac News Network and Political Discussion Thread

[GBJs]

I don't know if all else is trivial, but that was an excellent read.

[innocentbystander]

I just voted for Santorum and Paul.

That did no good.

[puterbac]

Puterbac ranted a few pages back about O'Keefe finding a problem where none existed, but he missed this one...

http://www.h-online.com/security/news/i ... 63881.html

Researchers at the University of Michigan have reported that it took them only a short time to break through the security functions of a pilot project for online voting in Washington, D.C. "Within 48 hours of the system going live, we had gained near complete control of the election server", the researchers wrote in a paperPDF that has now been released. "We successfully changed every vote and revealed almost every secret ballot." The hack was only discovered after about two business days – and most likely only because the intruders left a visible trail on purpose.

Good news. I've never been for Internet voting or machines that also don't keep a paper record of your vote that you verify before hitting done.

[puterbac]

I'm curious what the lawyers think about this.....



George F. Will

Opinion Writer

Obamacare’s contract problem

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html

On Monday the Supreme Court begins three days of oral arguments concerning possible — actually, probable and various — constitutional infirmities in Obamacare. The justices have received many amicus briefs, one of which merits special attention because of the elegant scholarship and logic with which it addresses an issue that has not been as central to the debate as it should be.

Hitherto, most attention has been given to whether Congress, under its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce, may coerce individuals into engaging in commerce by buying health insurance. Now the Institute for Justice (IJ), a libertarian public interest law firm, has focused on this fact: The individual mandate is incompatible with centuries of contract law. This is so because a compulsory contract is an oxymoron.
The brief, the primary authors of which are the IJ’s Elizabeth Price Foley and Steve Simpson, says that Obamacare is the first time Congress has used its power to regulate commerce to produce a law “from which there is no escape.” And “coercing commercial transactions” — compelling individuals to sign contracts with insurance companies — “is antithetical to the foundational principle of mutual assent that permeated the common law of contracts at the time of the founding and continues to do so today.”

In 1799, South Carolina’s highest court held: “So cautiously does the law watch over all contracts, that it will not permit any to be binding but such as are made by persons perfectly free, and at full liberty to make or refuse such contracts. . . . Contracts to be binding must not be made under any restraint or fear of their persons, otherwise they are void.” Throughout the life of this nation it has been understood that for a contract to be valid, the parties to it must mutually assent to its terms — without duress.

In addition to duress, contracts are voidable for reasons of fraud upon, or the mistake or incapacity of, a party to the contract. This underscores the centrality of the concept of meaningful consent in contract law. To be meaningful, consent must be informed and must not be coerced. Under Obamacare, the government will compel individuals to enter into contractual relations with insurance companies under threat of penalty.

........more in the link....l

[Owlman]

ays that Obamacare is the first time Congress has used its power to regulate commerce to produce a law “from which there is no escape.”

Technically, it's not a compulsory contract. What it is is an encouragement to prevent a tax. There is the contracts clause in the Constitution, but it's more about interference with existing contracts (and during the widely criticized Lochner era, about the right of individuals to contract with corporations, used to prevent both the federal and state govts from enacting things such as child labor laws). Not only that, we have for a long time required groups to enter into contracts. The argument in this case is whether the feds can use the power of taxation to force (or encourage depending on what side of the argument you're on) performance by individuals.

The second argument before the court is whether the feds have gone too far with requiring specific regs with regard to receiving federal medicaid funds which increases the cost of medicaid to the states. I'm actually surprised they took this aspect of the case. The argument is that the states have become so use to fed medicaid money that they don't have the choice of saying no to federal money. In other words, we can't say no to federal money so the requirements you've placed on receiving this money are too much.

Much stronger argument with the former than the latter issue, imo.

[10ac]

[youtube]erYpXzE9Pxs[/youtube]

[puterbac]

ays that Obamacare is the first time Congress has used its power to regulate commerce to produce a law “from which there is no escape.”

Technically, it's not a compulsory contract. What it is is an encouragement to prevent a tax. There is the contracts clause in the Constitution, but it's more about interference with existing contracts (and during the widely criticized Lochner era, about the right of individuals to contract with corporations, used to prevent both the federal and state govts from enacting things such as child labor laws). Not only that, we have for a long time required groups to enter into contracts. The argument in this case is whether the feds can use the power of taxation to force (or encourage depending on what side of the argument you're on) performance by individuals.

The second argument before the court is whether the feds have gone too far with requiring specific regs with regard to receiving federal medicaid funds which increases the cost of medicaid to the states. I'm actually surprised they took this aspect of the case. The argument is that the states have become so use to fed medicaid money that they don't have the choice of saying no to federal money. In other words, we can't say no to federal money so the requirements you've placed on receiving this money are too much.

Much stronger argument with the former than the latter issue, imo.

So facing a tax if you don't isn't coerced or under duress?

[Professor Tiger]

The judicial rape of the commerce clause a long time ago made the current blatant government powergrab that is Obamacare inevitable.

[Professor Tiger]

I just voted for Santorum and Paul.

That did no good.

I beg to differ. While my vote for Santorum got swallowed up in in the masses, my vote put Ron Paul put him in double digits in my county.

[Toemeesleather]

Nothing brings out the true caring compassion of progressives like a Dick Cheney headline.

[Jungle Rat]

That guy had a heart?

[sardis]

Your tax dollars about to be put to work...


http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/0 ... amble.html

[puterbac]

What a dumbass idea....so people are going to drive 85 miles from LA and then pay $100 for a train ticket to ride another 80 minutes when they can get airfares from LAX for $100 or less? Political Boondoggle....

AP Enterprise: Vegas rail: a gamble or good thing?

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/0 ... rylink=cpy

[Professor Tiger]

Railroads absorb billions in taxpayer subsidies yet still provide travel that is slower and more expensive than airplanes.

[aTm]

How much has the airline industry received in subsidies and infrastructure development? trillions?

[Professor Tiger]

That's a good question. How much money does the federal government fork over each year to Airtran or Southwest every year to stave off their bankruptcy? How much does Uncle Sam dole out to bankrupt airlines like Delta and American to get them solvent? I doubt much, if any at all. But I am open to contrary proof.

What a dumbass idea....so people are going to drive 85 miles from LA and then pay $100 for a train ticket to ride another 80 minutes when they can get airfares from LAX for $100 or less?

That arrangement will appeal to wealthy acrophobics with a lot of time on their hands.

[innocentbystander]

How much has the airline industry received in subsidies and infrastructure development? trillions?

Quite a bit, billions (in the single digits), immediately after 9-11, mostly loans to tide them over. But that was a very short lived airline depression, they recovered in months, not years. That said, there isn't exactly a lot of "infrastructure development" in this industry outside of the airports. It isn't like they build super highways in the sky. The subsidy from government (much that it is) is the government keeping the tiny, bullshit, municipal airports open, and government subsidizing the little bullshit regional airlines to fly in and out of them. There are actual lobbiest groups in DC working for Mesa Air Group, SkyWest, Spirit Air, and quite a few others, paying Congress Critters to make sure those subsidy dollars keep rolling in....

Prior to CAB, the major airlines didn't need government money. They had government intervention instead preventing other airlines from competing with each other for the same routes. So airlines had a monopoly on their runs and could charge whatever price they wanted for a route, any price that guaranteed a profit (and half empty planes.) Flying was for the wealthy only. The poor and middle class didn't fly. Ever.

[Toemeesleather]

Another rant from some right wing Princeton nut case....


Large fluctuations from warm to cold winters have been the rule for the U.S., as one can see from records kept by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA. For example, the winters of 1932 and 1934 were as warm as or warmer than the 2011-2012 one and the winter of 1936 was much colder.


Nightly television pictures of the tragic destruction from tornadoes over the past months might make one wonder if the frequency of tornadoes is increasing, perhaps due to the increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. But as one can read at Andrew Revkin's New York Times blog, dotearth, "There is no evidence of any trend in the number of potent tornadoes (category F2 and up) over the past 50 years in the United States, even as global temperatures have risen markedly."

We need high-quality climate science because of the importance of climate to mankind. But we should also remember the description of how science works by the late, great physicist, Richard Feynman:

"In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience; compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong."

Mr. Happer is a professor of physics at Princeton.

[Professor Tiger]

Mr. Happer is a professor of physics at Princeton.

At least he used to be. After uttering such heresy, his key to the faculty lounge at Princeton no longer works.

[Professor Tiger]

Looks like Obamacare might be hitting a snag with SCOTUS - this according to liberal media:

http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c1#/vi ... andate.cnn

If I were Obama, I'd bench that feckless solicitor general and replace him with a more eloquent advocate of the individual mandate, like Mitt Romney. He's good at that.