From Missouri Political News Service:

We’ve just learned  that the Missouri Health Insurance Pool has just voted on behalf of the state to accept $21 million dollars from the federal government to establish an health exchange here in Missouri. They are designating John Huff as the director.

Didn’t Missourians vote overwhelmingly against Obamacare in 2008 with theirProp C vote? Just like President Obama does all the time, Nixon is taking the executive order route – completely bypassing the legislature.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Elizabeth Blackney discuss the latest Solyndra developments, the scandal that gets juicier by the day and how it may impact Obama’s 2012 chances. Then Elizabeth gives us her take on Michele Bachmann’s claim that vaccinations are anti-liberty, and that the HPV vaccination caused mental retardation in the daughter of someone Bachmann met at the debate. As Elizabeth puts it, Michele Bachmann needs to “pray the crazy away.”

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Solyndra failure draws attention to other firms
Is the Solyndra Scandal Obama’s Watergate?
Michele Bachmann’s Former Campaign Manager Calls ‘Retardation’ Comment A Mistake
Rick Perry knocks Michele Bachmann’s HPV story

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The final results from the special election held in New York’s uber-liberal 9th Congressional District could be both an ominous sign and political tide that may roll over the Democrat Party in Florida in 2012. NY-9 was considered one of the “safest” congressional districts that Democrats neve rthought they would lose.  But with greater numbers of traditional Democrats becoming increasingly hostile towards President Obama’s toxic agenda and his mistreatment of Israel, this 40% Jewish district has shifted Republican.

Suffice to say, the Republican Party is positively giddy over the results and smells blood in the waters of other once “safe” congressional districts- especially those in Florida.

“The results of New York 9 send a message for all incumbents, but especially Democrats who live in the delusion that their reelection is certain. NY-9 implies that even some of Florida’s most traditionally Democrat districts understand a principled-Republican message of economic prosperity through less government and more freedom.”-Brian Hughes, RPOF Communications Director

All eyes will be on Florida in next year’s Presidential election, one could say that it will be the proverbial Mount Megiddo where political Armageddon will take place in November 2012.  Could the once supposedly “safe” Democrat Congressional seats in Florida now be in play?  The most high-profile “safe” seat is in Congressional District 20, held by DNC Chair and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Wasserman-Schultz spun the NY-9 defeat rather incredulously, stating that it was a “tough district” for Democrats to win even though it was Warren Harding who was President when Republicans last held the seat in 1923.  But Debbie’s real problem is that NY-9 was a complete rebuke of Obama’s policies, and make no mistake about it- Debbie, as DNC Chairwoman, is married (figuratively) to the President and his policies. The deal breaker for many Jews which set off alarm bells may have been when Obama stated that Israel should return to its indefensible 1967 border lines as a precondition for future peace negotiations with the Palestinians.  As President Obama’s hand-picked DNC Chairwoman, Debbie is in a major bind- her inability and refusal to separate herself from the President’s failed and offensive policies could ultimately send her packing from Congress- a situation she might not have been in had she not accepted the appointment of DNC Chairwoman.

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Michael Barone in The Washington Examiner:

This result is a rebuke to Barack Obama, but it is a rebuke as well—a stinging one, perhaps more stinging—to Senator Charles Schumer. He represented much of this district for 18 years. The now-disgraced Anthony Weiner was his staffer and pretty obviously Schumer’s chosen successor as congressman when he ran successfully for the Senate in 1998. In addition, Schumer has made it his special project to win back white middle class voters in places like metro New York for the Democratic Party.

In January 2007, just in time for the new Democratic majority in Congress, he published a book, Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time. It is a thoughtful essay on how Democrats can win the votes of the kind of voter Schumer himself has won over in his career as a congressman and senator, with specific policy recommendations as well as public relations advice. As one of the three Democratic leaders of the Democratic majority in the Senate—and by common reckoning the one who outshines in intellect the other two put together—Schumer has played an important role in fashioning Democratic policies, including but not limited to the 2009 stimulus package and Obamacare.

This vote is a startling repudiation of those policies by just the voters Schumer was hoping to win over.

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From the Associated Press:

Consumers paid more for a range of goods and services last month, and unemployment benefit applications jumped last week to the highest level in three months. The latest data offered a picture of an economy facing inflationary pressures and a depressed job market.

The Consumer Price Index rose 0.4 percent in August, the Labor Department said Thursday. That followed a 0.5 percent increase in July. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, core prices increased 0.2 percent.

Prices for food, energy apartment rents, and clothing all increased.

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Obama’s new AttackWatch site has been getting a good deal of media attention. Unfortunately, it’s the wrong kind. As Ace of Spades blog points out, major media outlets are pronouncing it the laughing stock of the Internet. As much as media loves and campaigned for Obama in 2008, they also like nothing better than tearing down that which they have built up. While too soon to tell how they ultimately react, there’s a great deal of blood in the water around a weakened Obama administration. His polling numbers are hitting low after low. Blood is notorious for attracting sharks and the media is most assuredly that. They turned on Carter, eventually. Without his air support from the Mainstream media, Obama could be open to more attacks than any one website could hope to handle in 2012.

Also getting aa good deal of buzz, Sarah Palin took to her Facebook page to go after Crony Capitalism within the current administration.

Big Journalism editor Dana Loesch has accepted an invitation from Hollywood’s Harvey Weinstein. What a hoot that party  could turn out to be.

In financial news, UBS AG, Switzerland’s biggest bank, may be unprofitable in the third quarter after a $2 billion loss from unauthorized trading at its investment bank.

Israel has cleared out its embassy staff in Jordan. The so called Arab Spring doesn’t seem to be turning out precisely as some may have planned.

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In 2008, candidate Obama famously dodged a serious question by telling America that the question was simply “above [his] pay grade.” Three years into his Presidency, voters around the country are clearly voicing their opinion that being held accountable for the failing economy is not above his pay grade.  Even in California, perhaps America’s last bastion of liberalism, voters are finally turning on Obama.

Around the country, the numbers all point to Obama losing in next year’s Presidential election.  Generic Republicans beat him in polling match ups.  Following Democrats’ loss of the House last year, Republicans just won a special election for a seat in New York that they haven’t held since 1923.  Perhaps the most telling number, unemployment is above 9% (with no real improvement in sight) and no President has won re-election with unemployment above 8%.

In California, however, a majority of voters have stood by Obama.  For most of this year, a strong majority of voters approved of Obama’s job performance.  Now suddenly, Obama’s ratings took a sharp turn for the worse and, for the first time, less than a majority of voters in California approve of his job performance – just 46% to be specific.

Given that the economy has not changed much over the last year, the question could be asked:  Why have California voters suddenly turned on Obama?

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Wisconsin Democratic State Senator Lena Taylor (Milwaukee) posted an online plea on Tuesday for a boycott of several consumer products manufactured and distributed within Wisconsin.

“Money talks! Why shouldn’t you buy the following: Dixie Cups, Vanity Fair Paper Products, Mardi Gras Napkins, Brawny and Sparkle Paper Towels, Angel Soft and Quilted Northern Toilet Paper…” Taylor wrote on her facebook page. “Your purchase supports destruction of democracy, two words…Koch Brothers. Join the boycott, send this to all of your Facebook Friends.”

Taylor’s ire is directed at products produced by Georgia Pacific.

According to the company’s website, Georgia-Pacific (GP) employs about 2,300 people in Green Bay. Approximately 1,800 employees work at one of four manufacturing facilities and produce and distribute an array of commercial and retail brands of bath tissue, napkins, towels and other paper products.

The Senator’s boycott campaign could have far-reaching impact. Taylor has more than 7,500 friends on the popular social networking site and many of her online friends piled on with supportive comments to her post.

One wrote: “copy and paste this and keep it in your purse. Also remeber georgia pacific…. Watch some of the off brands, dont buy if they are distributed by georgia pacific. copy and paste this and keep it in your purse. Also remeber georgia pacific…. Watch some of the off brands, dont buy if they are distributed by georgia pacific.”

Another submitted this missive: “Find 800-numbers for customer feedback and give them a call to tell them why you’re unhappy with the company and taking the trouble to identify and avoid their products.”

Georgia Pacific traces their roots to the Fort Howard Paper Company which was founded in Green Bay in 1919 by Austin E. Cofrin.  Since 2005 the company has been owned by Koch Industries.

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There has been news aplenty about the Solyndra solar power company.

The chock-full-of-Barack-Obama-Administration-cronies-and-donors corporation that received more than half a billion dollars in government-guaranteed loans to build the alleged future of energy.

Which President Obama hailed as such after the government-backed checks had cleared.

Which turned out to be totally untrue, and Solyndra’s solar folly an abject failure.  In fact, a bankrupt one.

Which anyone who knows anything at all about “green” energy knew would be the result long before it was even a glint in Obama’s Crony Socialist eye.

(This is Crony Socialism.  It has very little to do with – and is even less successful than – Crony Capitalism.)

And as it turns out, the those-in-the-know included the Obama Administration.  Who were repeatedly warned that the company was in hay-yuge trouble before the first check was cut, but pushed through the loan guarantees anyway.

And now the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has raided the joint, walking out with boxes and boxes of documents.  (We don’t yet know if this is the beginnings of a real inquiry, or a Clinton-esque move where the paperwork vanishes, only to turn up years from now in the White House residence wing.)

Was the Administration so hurriedly adamant – despite all the evidence screaming “Stop” – because of the company’s Obama cronies and their campaign cash?

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Today, in 1940, was the climax of the Battle of Britain.

There is a labor dispute going on in the Midwest that has taken an ugly turn as the union involved has allegedly resorted to racial attacks against security personnel and replacement workers.

In Iowa, Minnesota and North Dakota, American Crystal, a cooperative that accounts for 38 percent of the nation’s sugar from beets and 15 percent of overall sugar production, locked out 1300 unionized workers over a month ago as their negotiations for a new contract fell apart.

American Crystal’s last offer was a 17 percent pay increase over five years, but workers rejected it over job security provisions, health care costs and language in the contract they say will hurt workers in future years.

While lockouts are a company’s legal alternative to a union strike, they do not occur all that often. According to the National Labor Relations Board [PDF]: (more…)

In late August House Majority Leader Eric Cantor published an open memo announcing that House Republicans would seek to block ten regulations currently being considered by various federal administrative agencies. Most of these regulations involve the Environmental Protection Agency, including ozone protection, greenhouse gas regulation, coal ash and utility pollution standards. The National Labor Relations Board is also targeted for its proposed union election rules and its attempt to block Boeing from opening a new, non-union factory in right-to-work South Carolina.

Rep. Cantor has sound reasons to target these regulations. The economic impact of any one of these ten regulations on an economy already on the brink of a double-dip recession would be severe. Some, like new emission rules for utility plants are guaranteed to increase energy costs, which would have a cascade effect on all aspects of the economy. Others, like NLRB’s Boeing decision, are bald-faced pandering to the labor interests that shower so much support on Democrats in general and President Obama in particular. Put bluntly, the targeted regulations serve special interests like unions or environmentalists at the expense of the public interest.

While having the virtue of being good policy, and probably good politics, Rep. Cantor’s strategy has the vice of treating the symptoms while ignoring the underlying cause. The larger problem with these regulations is not that these agencies are abusing their rulemaking power; the problem is that these agencies possess rulemaking power in the first place. Administrative agencies are exercising authority which properly belongs to Congress.

The Constitution is unmistakably clear. Article I, Section 1 states that “All legislative Power herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States….” If the power is legislative, and if the power is granted to the federal government by the Constitution, then the power must be exercised by Congress, and only by Congress. Congress is nowhere authorized to transfer the power to make laws to any entity. Only Congress is constitutionally empowered to make laws.

Moreover, Article I, Section 7 mandates that any action of the federal government, which has the force of law, must be enacted according to the specific process enumerated therein. Both houses must approve, and the bill must be sent to the president for his signature. His veto may be overridden, but only by a supermajority in each house. The very act of enacting rules on the part of the EPA or any other agency is thus a violation of this provision of the Constitution, because it deviates from this process.

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Congressman Paul Ryan, Chair of the House Budget Committee, has become the GOP’s go-to guy for everything economical, and there are two reasons why: first, he is courageous enough to jump into the water and get the pool party started. As with his Path to Prosperity, his budget, and his plan for Medicare, Mr. Ryan is clear that Americans need to talk about big changes in the amount of money we spend and ways we can grow our economy, increase productivity, and, of course, employment- none of which have been even remotely addressed by the current administration. His willingness to get out on the road and talk to Americans about his ideas, have conversations with them, and take on the darts and arrows demonstrates a strength of character that the president and his party might only dream of possessing.

Second, Congressman Ryan’s brilliant ability to explain aspects of the budget and economic data to Americans who may not be economists and budget analysts is on display in his new video, in which he describes the three necessary features of a new tax code: fairness, competitiveness, and simplicity.

Mr. Ryan told Tina Korbe of Hot Air, “If you tax something more, you get less of it. If you tax something less, you get more of it. If you tax work, savings, investment more, you’re going to get less of those things. If you lower tax rates across the board, we always see stronger economic growth result across the board.”

How simple is that? No jobs saved and created here. No double-counting Medicare in Obamacare. No tax increases to pay for investment, i.e., spending, in infrastructure.

In the same interview, the chairman made an important distinction between being “pro-market,” versus “pro-business.” He explained that Republicans need to be advocates for the former, a term which invokes the concepts of entrepreneurism, American creativity, and competitiveness in world markets.

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As acting Department of Justice antitrust head, Sharis Pozen, said a couple of weeks ago, one of the DoJ’s main goals in working to block the AT&T / T-Mobile merger was to promote competition, not competitors.

But would its suit really accomplish that?

I wonder.

By attempting to stop the AT&T merger, the DoJ may actually work to impose a “tax hike” of sorts, one designed not to benefit consumers and workers through lower prices and more innovation, but one which would tamp down market dynamics, thus insulating competitors from increased competition instead.

Let me explain.

By most any measure, the wireless market is exceptionally vibrant and competitive.  Service offerings and technological innovation abound, as prices remain at or below the CPI.  In short, customers are getting a good deal for what they buy.

But companies are always on the lookout for “ruinous competition,” such that it forces prices downward, which in turn squeezes profits to uncomfortable levels.

AT&T rival, Sprint, seems particularly concerned about this.  With its profit margins about half of the industry leaders’ (though still healthy), the company has got an apparent bugaboo about the deleterious effects of increased competition.

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Texas Representative Louie Gohmert is a genius. He’s absconded with the name of Obama’s jobs bill — the American Jobs Act of 2011 –and used it for his own tax-cutting bill.

Is it a Republican dirty trick? How can Gohmert do this? Because Obama is either incompetent or cynical.

Here is the thing, either Obama was never serious about this so-called jobs bill in the first place and never intended to submit it, or he is one of the most inept politicians in presidential history.

If Obama were an effective president Rep. Gohmert would never have been able to appropriate Obama’s bill name for his own. If Obama was effective he’d have crafted his jobs bill, delivered his speech that night, and lined up at least one Democrat, if not the whole Democrat Party, to introduce his bill the very next morning after the speech.

But Obama did no such thing. Not only was there no bill when he delivered the speech, even this many days after the speech the bill has never been introduced in the House of Representatives where such bills might begin the legislative process.

That means that there was no bill called the “American Jobs Act of 2011″ in the House, so Rep. Gohmert was under no compulsion not to use it as a name for his own bill.

Of course, it is also possible that President Obama never intended to submit any bill named the “American Jobs Act of 2011″ in the first place. It is possible he never wanted such a bill debated for real because all he was doing was using it as a political ploy for his reelection campaign.

As for Gohmert, his new “American Jobs Act of 2011” (H.R. 2911) among other things the bill would repeal the alternative minimum tax and would make corporate tax rates zero percent.

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“Virginia filed this action on March 23, 2010, the same day that the President signed the Affordable Care Act into law. The Governor of Virginia did not sign the VHCFA into law until the next day.”  This is important, the court asserted, because “the only apparent function of the VHCFA is to declare Virginia’s opposition to a federal insurance mandate. And, in fact, the timing of the VHCFA, along with the statements accompanying its passage, make clear that Virginia officials enacted the statute for precisely this declaratory purpose.”

Via The Heartlander

In ruling last week the Commonwealth of Virginia lacks standing to challenge the individual mandate provision of Obamacare, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit made a “rookie” factual error serious enough to call for invalidation of its entire decision.

Virginia had enacted a state statute — the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act (VHCFA) — declaring the individual mandate contained in the Obamacare bill did not apply to its citizens. Virginia then filed a lawsuit alleging the individual mandate violates the Commerce Clause of the United States because the federal government lacks the constitutional power to require individual citizens to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty.

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From National Journal:

While speaking in North Carolina on Wednesday, President Obama said, “I love you back” to an audience member who shouted “I love you.” He added, “But if you love me you’ve got to help me pass this bill.”

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And Watergate wasn’t the defining episode of the Nixon administration. But that’s how desperate Team Obama have become. And with today’s House hearing cancelled after the Solyndra gang phoned in a no-show, methinks this is not the end or even the beginning of the end of what Solyndra will tell us about Obama’s term.

Countering WaPo’s front page story showing deep and intense White House involvement in rushing through $535 million in taxpayer dollars to the brainchild of major Obama contributor George Kaiser, failed solar panel boondoggle Solyndra, today’s E&E Daily has a story (subscription required) “Democrats launch counteroffensive on Solyndra”.

The hand-waiving effort — Schwarzenegger was a fan! A Solyndra exec is a registered Republican! The program Obama abused was originally created by Congress during George W. Bush’s presidency! (untrue, “Sec. 1705″ was a 2009 project in the…stimulus bill…of Henry Waxman (D-CA)) — concludes with the following cry for help, or at least for a good fisking:

Other Democratic leaders were quick to pan the RNC’s attempt to make Solyndra the face of the stimulus effort.

“Solyndra is unfortunate. Did it not work? It didn’t work apparently. But that’s not the face of the Recovery Act,” said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) in an interview.

I’m sorry…whose effort to make Solyndra the face of ’stimulus’?

Which other project received — on top of the internal push to rush a half-billion dollars to this “NOT ready for prime time” (per an OMB email) project — personal attention and public promotion by the Energy Secretary, Vice President, and President? But, no, it wasn’t the face of ’stimulus.’

But, what of that whole presidential address, whose details make this claim something less than near-fetched:

“So that’s why we’ve placed a big emphasis on clean energy.  It’s the right thing to do for our environment, it’s the right thing to do for our national security, but it’s also the right thing to do for our economy.

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Republican Bob Turner’s win in New York’s 9^th Congressional District is a story the Frank Sinatra hit song, New York, New York, was written for. The GOP can now sing this tune about itself, specifically these lines:

If (we) can make it there, (we’ll) make it anywhere

It’s up to you, New York, New York

It was up to New York, and New York delivered big time. Just like Senator Scott Brown’s “unlikely” win in liberal Massachusetts, Turner’s election in a historically Democratic stronghold signals a sea change in politics. If Republicans can win this seat – considered untouchable for 90+ years – then how tough will it be for them to win in places considered toss-ups or GOP-leaning?

Of course, the Democratic Party is in denial, at least publicly. Debbie “Downer” Wasserman-Shultz dismissed any concern about Turner’s win, saying that the 9^th District is a difficult district for her party. Really?

Turner’s win, like the rise of the Tea Party and the 2010 Republican election victories, are also rebukes of the mainstream media and nearly every political pundit. Let’s take a walk down memory lane and revisit some of the obituaries written about the GOP a mere three years ago.

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