Reflections From a Murky Pond

The Obama Regime and the Liberals in Congress are masters of Orwellian Newspeak – what would be called bald-faced lying among Americans. Nowhere is this more evident than in attempts to foist ObamaCare onto an unwilling American people.

Misdirection after misdirection, re-branding of terms after re-branding of terms, half-truth after half-truth – and outright lie after outright lie were the orders of business for President Obama and his Socialist myrmidons in getting ObamaCare through – though never actually passed by – Congress.

And the lies and/or Newspeak just come drooling out of jabbering maws the soldiers of Obama’s Regime, namely the thugs in the Justice Department who report to Obama’s boy, Attorney General  Eric Holder.

First Obama and his Liberals claimed that the Individual Mandate included in ObamaCare wasn’t a tax; now, faced with court challenges by over 20 states and several private organizations and being worried that SCOTUS would rightly rule that forcing Americans to purchase health insurance was unconstitutional, they’re defending their position as being an exercise of the federal government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”

Shockingly, this is even being reported by the New York Times:

When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.” And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.

Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.

Under the legislation signed by President Obama in March, most Americans will have to maintain “minimum essential coverage” starting in 2014. Many people will be eligible for federal subsidies to help them pay premiums.

In a brief defending the law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes.

Congress can use its taxing power “even for purposes that would exceed its powers under other provisions” of the Constitution, the department said. For more than a century, it added, the Supreme Court has held that Congress can tax activities that it could not reach by using its power to regulate commerce.

While Congress was working on the health care legislation, Mr. Obama refused to accept the argument that a mandate to buy insurance, enforced by financial penalties, was equivalent to a tax.

“For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” the president said last September, in a spirited exchange with George Stephanopoulos on the ABC News program “This Week.”

When Mr. Stephanopoulos said the penalty appeared to fit the dictionary definition of a tax, Mr. Obama replied, “I absolutely reject that notion.”

Obviously President Obama has a lot of bellyfeel that the SCOTUS’s potential scuttling of his planned government takeover of the health insurance industry is ungood because it interferes with his doublethink regarding the individual mandate in ObamaCare being a tax or not.

~*~

Keep your eyes open. Travel light but load heavy, and always put another round in the enemy after they’re down.

The seven dirty words are seven words in the English language that were considered highly inappropriate and unsuitable for broadcast on the public airwaves – television or radio – in the United States. Comedian George Carlin first listed them in 1972 in his monologue “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television”.  The words were avoided in scripted material, and”bleeped out”  in those rare instances in which they were used.

That sort of censorship was true then in 1972, and it remained largely true throughout the intervening years, but it looks like it has now changed, possibly dramatically.

On Tuesday, July 13, 2010 a federal appellate court threw out the FCC’s rules on indecent speech. This is a big win for broadcasters that could lead to a new Supreme Court test of the government’s power to control what is said on television and radio. For now, the court’s ruling will likely end the commission’s campaign to keep the airwaves clean of even spontaneous vulgarisms with the threat of punitively large fines.

From the Wall Street Journal:

A federal appeals court threw out the FCC’s rules on indecent speech Tuesday, in a big win for broadcasters that could lead to a new Supreme Court test of the government’s power to control what is said on television and radio.

A three-judge panel of the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said the Federal Communications Commission’s indecency policies violate the First Amendment and are “unconstitutionally vague, creating a chilling effect that goes far beyond the fleeting expletives at issue here.”

The decision doesn’t mean broadcast TV and radio shows will now be littered with profanity, because advertisers and viewers would likely complain. But the ruling will likely end, for now, the commission’s campaign to cleanse the airwaves of even spontaneous vulgarisms with the threat of hefty fines.

“I think the notion that broadcasters are going to be dropping f-bombs in prime time is ludicrous,” said Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters. “If we wanted to do that we could do that from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.,” when FCC indecency standards don’t apply.

Ashby Jones and Joe White discuss the ruling by a federal appeals court that struck down the FCC’s indecency policy. The court said the agency’s efforts to punish broadcasters for allowing “fleeting” expletives was “unconstitutionally vague.”

The judges found that the agency’s decision to sanction broadcasters’ airing of one-time or “fleeting” expletives is unconstitutional, and suggested the FCC’s broader indecency enforcement efforts are unconstitutional as well.

Fox along with other broadcasters sued the FCC in 2006 after the agency said the networks had violated indecency rules when airing “un-bleeped” profanities of celebrities during live televised events and levied heavy fines and penalties against them. Since the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York affirmed the broadcasters’ lawsuit President Obama’s FCC will have to take this the US Supreme Court if they wish to continue continue to police the language used in broadcast media as they have been doing.

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Recently a group of Democrat Governors gathered in Washington DC to complain to President Obama’s administration about his regime’s lawsuit attacking Arizona’s new immigration law, SB 1070.

These Democrat Governors really don’t want the White House to address anything regarding immigration, a topic they consider “toxic,” at this juncture. They’d like the President to focus on the economy instead.

President Obama’s legal attack upon Arizona and the American people scares the shit out of them and they’re no longer willing to follow The One in blind and silent lock-step anymore.

As reported by Fox News:

Democratic governors expressed “grave” concerns to White House officials this weekend about the Obama administration’s suit against Arizona’s new immigration law, warning it could cost the party in crucial elections this fall, The New York Times reported late Sunday.

The closed-door meeting took place at the National Governors Association in Boston on Saturday, according to two unnamed governors who spoke to the Times.

“Universally the governors are saying, ‘We’ve got to talk about jobs, and all of a sudden we have immigration going on,’” Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a Democrat, was quoted as saying. “It is such a toxic subject, such an important time for Democrats.”

The Arizona law, which is facing a U.S. Justice Department challenge, requires police to question people about their immigration status while enforcing other laws if there’s reason to suspect someone is in the country illegally.

“I might have chosen both a different tack and a different time,” Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, a Democrat, was quoted by the Times as saying. “This is an issue that divides us politically, and I’m hopeful that their strategy doesn’t do that in a way that makes it more difficult for candidates to get elected, particularly in the West.”

Of course it’s sadly typical that these Democrat Governors’ “grave” concerns are over how President Obama’s attack upon Arizona will affect their and other Dems’ election / re-election chances instead of over how such an attack, especially if successful, will negatively impact the safety and security of the men, women, and children of America, or over how it is an attempt to usurp greater authority for the federal government.

Don’t get me wrong though; this isn’t a purely Democrat failing. Placing their own continued employment in political office over the needs of the nation is a common failing of politicians from both parties in America. The Democrats are just a bit more brazen when it comes to speaking of it.