SEIU gets ObamaCare waiver, then tells congress you better make everyone else pay. Bullies can dish it out but they can't take it.

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2/2/11, "SEIU fights healthcare repeal after obtaining waivers from law," The Hill, A. Bolton

"The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is lobbying hard against the amendment offered by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to repeal the healthcare reform law.

SEIU has sent e-mails to Senate offices urging lawmakers to vote against the proposal to unwind President Obama’s signature domestic initiative.

“A vote in support of this amendment is a vote to raise out-of-pocket healthcare costs for working families and takes away critical consumer protections provided to Americans for the first time,” SEIU urged senators, according to a copy of the e-mail obtained by The Hill.

The lobby informed senators that a vote for McConnell’s amendment would count against them on

• its legislative scorecard.

SEIU’s outspoken defense of the law has prompted charges of hypocrisy from Republicans, given that some of the union’s chapters have sought" (and received) "waivers exempting them from a key provision of the law requiring the phaseout of health plans with low caps on annual benefits."...
============================

Reference: 1/24/11, "Three SEIU Locals--Including Chicago Chapter--Waived From Obamacare Requirement," CNS News
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via Weasel Zippers

Latest Obama finger in the eye of Gulf workers who still have no work thanks to Obama--a buyout claiming 'economy' will return...BBC

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It sounds like Obama is offering buyouts to desperate, displaced workers in the Gulf based on a fantastic theory that their jobs will all be back by next year. Feldman says payments are based on that theory. Seven rigs have left the Gulf, no deep water permits have been issued, so this is just another sign of Obama's deep affection for people with Southern accents. "Louisiana resident Mike Helmer, a fishing guide, described the proposed offer as "a joke".

• "He's asking people to sign away their rights for basically peanuts. I don't see anyone accepting this," he said . "This is an insult. This is unbelievable.""...

2/2/11, "Gulf of Mexico 'to recover from BP spill by end 2012'," BBC

"The Gulf of Mexico will have largely recovered from the BP oil spill by the end of 2012, the administrator of the $20bn (£12bn) pay-outs fund has said.

Attorney Kenneth Feinberg said that compensation to those who lost revenue from the disaster

• would be based on this prediction.

Meanwhile, a judge has ruled that Mr Feinberg make clear to claimants that

• he is not independent from BP....

The fund was set up by BP in August to compensate those affected by the spill, and has so far paid out about $3.3bn to 168,000 people.

Mr Feinberg said experts have determined that most of the

• oil would have dispersed

• and the economy picked up
  

by the end of next year. There will be a 30% recovery in 2011, he added.

But he also noted that the recovery of oyster harvesting may take longer.

The assessment was based mainly on reports from a Texas professor

• and a consulting firm.

Based on the predictions, Mr Feinberg has proposed that claimants receive twice the amount they lost in 2010,

• apart from oyster harvesters, who will be offered four times as much.
  

Florida Attorney General Pamela Bondi, however, questioned the experts' predictions.

• "While this office had hoped that the methodology would finally provide some transparency,
  

this document provides no useful information to claimants beyond a simplistic multiplier and is based on very optimistic assumptions

• about unknown environmental and economic conditions," she said in a court filing.

A federal judge meanwhile said Mr Feinberg was not independent from BP and

• should not tell claimants that he is.

US District Judge Carl Barbier ordered that he clearly disclose in communications that he is acting for and on behalf of BP.

"The court finds that BP has created a hybrid entity, rather than one that is fully independent of BP," he said.

• Mr Feinberg, who was appointed by BP and the White House,
  

has faced repeated criticism about the time it is taking to pay out compensation, as well as the amount being handed out.

• About half of the total 485,000 claims filed have been denied because of ineligibility or lack of documentation.

Louisiana resident Mike Helmer, a fishing guide, described the proposed offer as

• "a joke".

"He's asking people to sign away their rights for basically peanuts. I don't see anyone accepting this," he said .

• "This is an insult. This is unbelievable.""...

============================

Reference: 1/26/11, "Ongoing Disaster in the Gulf," American Thinker, George Skaggs

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Florida rejects $1million from Obama to implement ObamaCare, Fla. Dem. Sen. Nelson seeks Supreme Court fast track

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2/2/11, "Florida to Barack Obama: Keep your health care reform cash," Politico

"No thanks. That’s what the state of Florida is saying to the Obama administration,

• declining a $1 million grant to implement the health law.

The move follows this week’s federal court decision declaring the law unconstitutional.

In a letter sent Tuesday and obtained by POLITICO, Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty informed the Department of Health & Human Services that the state no longer wanted a $1 million grant that

• they had applied for last year.

“The purpose of this letter is to inform you that after deliberate consideration, I hereby rescind acceptance of the above-referenced $1 million rate review grant, which occurred in a letter to you dated September 15, 2010,” McCarty wrote.

As the state tries to deal with Monday’s explosive court decision, its Democratic senator is arguing for some certainty sooner rather than later. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida is introducing a resolution asking the Supreme Court to quickly take up the health care reform lawsuits.

“Isn’t it in our interest, isn’t in the common sense interest, if we were to come here and join in a resolution to petition the Supreme Court to have an expedited review of this case,” Nelson said on the Senate floor Wednesday.

• “The vote to repeal health care is largely symbolic, because the Supreme Court is going to have to be the one to decide this matter,” said Nelson.
  

“We ought to do the right thing and ask the high court to rule quickly so we don’t keep arguing over this for the next several years.”

The Florida Department of Insurance Regulation

• was already discussing the possibility of withdrawing its grant application

prior to this week but says that the court ruling “solidified” their decision to do so, according to spokeswoman Brittany Perez.

Florida already has “prior approval” authority, to weigh in on rate hikes before they go to consumers, in the small group and individual market.

• They had planned to use the grant to build the necessary infrastructure for prior approval of the large group market.

Gov. Rick Scott told reporters Tuesday that, in the wake of the court ruling Monday, in which Judge Roger Vinson declared the health reform law unconstitutional,

• he would no longer implement the health reform law.

“We are not going to spend a lot of time and money with regard to trying to get ready to implement it,” he told reporters, according to an article in the St. Petersburg Times.

Forty-six states applied

• for HHS’s rate review grant opportunity."

via Weasel Zippers

Wise Latina Governor says New Mexico no longer a sanctuary state

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2/1/11, "New Mexico no longer a sanctuary state, Governor says, " KOAT.com, Albuquerque

"Gov. Susana Martinez said Monday that New Mexico is no longer a sanctuary state, but some call this executive order a tragedy with implications far beyond our imagination. Martinez ordered the reversal of the state's "sanctuary status,"

• which prohibited law enforcement from asking criminal suspects about their citizenship.

Now, officers will be able to ask anyone they suspect of a crime about their immigration status. Marcela Diaz, of Somos Un Pueblo Unido, an immigrant rights organization, said this will essentially turn police into immigration agents. “I think this was a knee-jerk decision that was not well thought out,” Diaz said. “Not only will this lead to increased racial profiling, it taxes resources of limited enforcement.” The new governor said allowing law enforcement to inquire into immigration status is

• a big step forward in protecting the public...

Diaz said immigrant rights activists, hoping for a reevaluation of the executive order, will be protesting at the roundhouse Wednesday at noon."

via Weasel Zippers

ObamaCare likely at the Supreme Court in middle of 2012 elections. Justice Kagan's ethical unsuitability to sit on ObamaCare decisions

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A commentator this evening said word is ObamaCare will be at the Supremes in the middle of the 2012 elections. A RedState contributor recalls this 7/13/10 WSJ editorial about Justice Kagan's ethical unsuitability to sit on ObamaCare decisions. It was written before she was finally approved.

7/13/10, "Kagan and ObamaCare," WSJ editorial

"Elena Kagan breezed through her recent confirmation hearings, but there's some crucial unfinished business the Senate should insist on before voting on her nomination to the Supreme Court. To wit, she ought to recuse herself from participating as a Justice in the looming legal challenges to ObamaCare.

In response to Senate queries, Ms. Kagan has said she'll recuse herself from participating in 11 cases on which she represented the government in her current job as Solicitor General. The challenge to ObamaCare isn't one of them, though the (ObamaCare) cases brought by Florida and 20 other states were filed in March, well before President Obama announced her nomination on May 10.

Ms. Kagan was never asked directly at her hearings about her role as SG regarding the health-care lawsuits. The closest anyone came was this question from Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn: "Was there at any time—and I'm not asking what you expressed or anything else—was there at any time you were asked in your present position to express an opinion on the merits of the health-care bill?"

• Ms. Kagan: "There was not."

Regarding a potential recusal, that's not the right question. Ms. Kagan was unlikely to have been consulted on the merits of health-care policy, and even if she did express an opinion on policy this would not be grounds for recusal. The legal precedents on that are clear.

Recusal arises as a matter of judicial ethics if as a government official she expressed an opinion on the merits of the health-care litigation. This is what she would have to render a judgment on were she to be confirmed for the High Court. It is also the question on which she is likely to have participated

• given her role at the Justice Department.

The SG is the third ranking official at Justice, and its senior expert on Constitutional issues, so it's hard to believe she wouldn't have been asked at least in passing about a Constitutional challenge brought by so many states.

• The debate about the suit was well underway in the papers and on TV. The matter surely must have come up at Attorney General Eric Holder's senior staff meetings, which the SG typically attends.

We doubt Ms. Kagan would have stayed mum about the cases in internal Justice councils on grounds that Mr. Obama might later nominate her to the Court. At the time the Florida suit was filed on March 23, she was only one of several potential nominees whose names were being floated by the White House.

Under federal law (28 U.S.C., 455(b)(3)), judges who have served in government must recuse themselves when they have "participated as counsel, adviser or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the

• particular case in controversy."

Though their public chance has passed, Senators can still submit written questions to Ms. Kagan for the record. We hope someone asks her directly whether the legal challenges to ObamaCare ever arose in her presence at Justice, whether she was ever asked her views, and what she said or wrote about the cases.

We also think there are grounds for recusal based on her response during her Senate hearings on the substance of the state legal challenge. The Florida case boils down to whether Congress can compel individuals to buy health insurance under the Commerce Clause.

Ms. Kagan danced around the history of Commerce Clause jurisprudence, but in one response to Senator Coburn she did betray

• a bias for a very expansive reading of Congress's power.

The Commerce Clause has "been interpreted to apply to regulation of any instruments or instrumentalities or channels of commerce," she said, "but it's also been applied to anything that would substantially affect interstate commerce." Anything? This is the core question in the Florida case. If she already believes that the Commerce Clause justifies anything that substantially affects interstate commerce,

• then she has all but prejudged the individual mandate question.

A federal judge is required by law to recuse himself "in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned." This has been interpreted to mean that the mere public expression of a legal opinion isn't disqualifying.

• But this is no routine case.

Ms. Kagan would sit as Mr. Obama's nominee on the nation's highest Court on a case of momentous Constitutional importance. If there is any chance that the public will perceive her to have prejudged the case, or rubber-stamped the views of the President who appointed her, she will damage her own credibility as a Justice

• and that of the entire Court."...

Judge cites Obama Interior Dept. for Contempt over Gulf drilling ban, but does not say it now has to move quickly

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Interior Dept. has to pay attorney fees, which I guess means taxpayers are two time losers since we pay all Obama's bills.

2/2/11, "Judge Holds Interior Dept. in Contempt Over Ban," AP, ABC News

"The federal judge who struck down the Obama administration's moratorium on deepwater drilling after the Gulf oil spill held the Interior Department in contempt Wednesday,

• and ordered the federal agency to pay attorneys' fees for several offshore oil companies.

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman chided the department for its "dismissive conduct" after he overturned the agency's decision to halt any new permits for deepwater projects and suspend drilling on 33 exploratory wells after the Deepwater Horizon blast, which killed 11 workers and triggered the massive spill.

After Feldman overturned the government's moratorium in June,

• the agency issued a second nearly identical suspension.

"Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the reimposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium and in light of the national importance of this case, provide

• this court with clear and convincing evidence
  

of the government's contempt of this court's preliminary injunction order," he wrote.

• A magistrate will consider how much the companies' attorneys should get.

An Interior Department spokeswoman wouldn't comment. A lawyer for the companies hailed the ruling.

"We're obviously delighted with the court's recognition of the government's manipulation of the judicial review process," said Carl Rosenblum, an attorney for Hornbeck Offshore Services and other companies that sued over the first moratorium.

• Rosenblum said the companies haven't asked for a specific amount and aren't trying to profit.

"The end game has always been to put people back to work," he said.

Feldman also is presiding over a separate case challenging the Interior Department's second drilling moratorium. That suspension was lifted in October, but

• the agency was sued by other offshore oil companies that want the permitting process to be quickened.

Last month, however, Feldman refused to order the government to move faster. The judge said it's unclear whether the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management must approve or reject drilling permit applications within a specific time."

via Lucianne.com

Obama EPA chief ignores that Nobel climate scientist told BBC no global warming since 1995

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EPA Chief refuses to acknowledge that Nobel Prize climate scientist told BBC no global warming since 1995. Jackson doesn't affirm that US citizens are to blame for sinking islands, famine, etc., crimes said to be the basis for demanding transfer of billions of US taxpayer dollars to the UN. She just says we need to clean up carbon, pass legislation, and man is somewhat responsible for changes.

2/2/11, "EPA Administrator Won't Say If She Agrees With Climate Scientist Who Says There's Been No Statistically Significant Global Warming Since 1995," CNS News, Matt Cover

"Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson has again evaded answering a question about whether she agrees with one of the world's most prominent climate scientists that there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995.

On Capitol Hill today, CNSNews.com asked Jackson,

• “Do you agree with Phil Jones of East Anglia University that there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995?”

Jackson said, “I agree with the scientists who have reviewed and re-reviewed the e-mails and data and made a determination--several well-respected bodies, including the national academies, including independent groups--[and] put together that the information that came to be known as Climate Gate has not changed the fact that man-made emissions are changing and degrading our atmosphere,

• piling up carbon in our atmosphere,
  

and if left unaddressed leaves us--

• endangers public health and welfare--

and puts us, once again, behind the ball in trying to deal with, in

• trying to move into the clean energy economy.”

When CNSNews.com tried to tell Jackson that Jones was one of those scientists she claimed to support, her press attaché interjected, announcing that the impromptu appearance was over and asking if any other reporters had questions.

• “Last question, someone who hasn’t asked a question,” she said.

Phil Jones, who heads the East Anglia University Climate Research Unit and was one of the scientists at the center of the Climate Gate controversy,

told the BBC in February 2010 that there had been

• no statistically significant warming since 1995.

“Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?” the BBC asked Jones on Feb. 13, 2010.

“Yes, but only just,” said Jones. “I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.”

This was not the first time Jackson has dodged the question. CNSNews.com correspondent Karen Schuberg asked Jackson about Jones’s statement to the BBC on Feb. 23, 2010.

“Do you agree with Dr. Phil Jones, the former head of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995?” CNSNews.com asked Jackson.

“I believe all the new information we have doesn’t lead to any different conclusion than what we reached in the Endangerment Finding,” said Jackson. “And that is that climate is changing and that mankind is responsible in part for that change, and that we need to move aggressively.”

“We need to move clean energy legislation,” Jackson added at the time. “We need to move to addressing carbon and putting a price on carbon emissions.”

Statistical significance is the measurement scientists use to determine the likelihood that their findings could not have occurred at random. If a measurement, such as the change in global temperature, is

• found to be statistically significant,
  

• then scientists can say that it is unlikely to have been a random occurrence.

Administrator Jackson’s office did not respond to requests to clarify her response

• at press time."

via Tom Nelson

Average Michigan state employee earns twice that of private sector worker, 2009 graph

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2/2/11, 2/2/11, "Chris Christie of Michigan just published a devastating report on public sector pay," BusinessInsider.com, via Ben Howe at RedState.com
.


"Average wages of state employees increased 19%, while private wages

• decreased

• 13% over the decade"...

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