Video: ObamaCare may fund abortions

Obama promises: I won’t sign any health-care bill that adds to the deficit

That’s how the Times is spinning it, but read the fine print. What he actually says is he won’t sign any bill that adds to our deficits over the next decade. The One knows this is a sinkhole in the long run even if it isn’t in the short run — which, per the CBO, it almost certainly is. No worries, though: “I don’t believe that government can or should run health care,” he assures us, ignoring the fact that he once famously said he doesn’t want to run the auto companies … a month after he forced the chairman of GM into early retirement. No wonder some prominent Democrats now want to, um, run the auto companies.

Oh, and he’s still lying about letting you keep your current insurance if you like it, oblivious to the reality of what’ll happen to private insurers forced to compete with a program backed by the Treasury Department’s printing presses. But then, as he candidly says here, “I … don’t think insurance companies should have free reign to do as they please.” That’s Obamanomics in a nutshell. Make sure to read Betsy McCaughey’s rejoinder in today’s New York Post about the difference between your current health plan, the “qualified plan” you’ll be forced to choose under ObamaCare, and the penalties you’ll pay if you prefer not to “qualify.” Should be a fun presser on Wednesday night.

With Congress dashing to overhaul a health care system representing 17% of the economy and affecting the life of every American man, woman and child, respondents to our latest IBD/TIPP Poll are far from a consensus on the path those reforms should take and clearly confused about the options before them.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee is conducting hearings this week on Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's Supreme Court nominee.

Yesterday's hearings included questions about her views on the role of judges and the Constitution. She explained that her use of the expression "wise Latina" was intended to inspire, not to indicate that her heritage would bias her rulings. Judge Sotomayor also told Senators that the controversial 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade is "settled law" and based on a Constitutionally-defined "right to privacy."

The Heritage Foundation continues to educate lawmakers and the public about why it's important that judges remain faithful to the Constitution.

For example, thanks to the generous support of Heritage members this week, we will be distributing copies of the Heritage Guide to the Constitution to every Senator. This is a complement to our ongoing efforts to educate members of Congress on their proper role in judicial confirmations.

In addition, we're reaching out to the public to make clear the important issues at stake. For example, Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner reminds the nominee that the job of a Justice is "to consult [the Constitution] for guidance, not foreign laws or policies." He explains that "U.S. citizens are subject only to laws made by American legislators -- not foreigners at the United Nations, in Europe or in Zimbabwe."

CBS: Obama dropped six points in a month

The lock-up-your-opponents bills of 2009?

Would Congress ever pass legislation that would allow the executive to determine at its own discretion whether political opponents had crossed the line into domestic terrorists and build camps in which to keep them?  Sounds like something out of 20th-century totalitarian systems or dystopian fiction.  Mark Tapscott says it’s not fiction, and he warns readers about an effort by Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) to do just that:

Rep. Alcee Hastings - the impeached Florida judge Nancy Pelosi tried to install as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee until her own party members rebelled - introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill that gives Attorney General Eric Holder sole discretion to label groups that oppose government policy on guns, abortion, immigration, states’ rights, or a host of other issues. In a June 25 speech on the House floor, Rep. Trent Franks, R-AZ, blasted the idea: “This sounds an alarm for many of us because of the recent shocking and offensive report released by the Department of Homeland Security which labeled, arguably, a majority of Americans as ‘extremists.’”

Another Hastings bill (HR 645) authorizes $360 million in 2009 and 2010 to set up “not fewer than six national emergency centers on military installations” capable of housing “a large number of individuals affected by an emergency or major disaster.” But Section 2 (b) 4 allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to use the camps “to meet other appropriate needs” - none of which are specified. This is the kind of blank check that Congress should never, ever sign.

It’s not paranoid to be extremely wary of legislation that would give two unelected government officials power to legally declare someone a “domestic terrorist” and send them to a government-run camp.

Video: Bernie Sanders says gov’t plan should frighten health insurers

New York Daily News blames “gun culture” for McNair murder

For the record, the murder of a boyfriend, as this appears to be, is slightly more likely to happen by knife instead of gun.  Statistics from the DoJ on murders of intimates from 1990-2005 show that 47% of murdered boyfriends get stabbed to death, while 45% of them get killed by guns.  Would Lupica attribute that to a “knife culture”?  Would the plurality of knife murders be “progress” for Lupica?

Had Lupica paused long enough to do some actual research, he would have found that murders of intimates have dropped over the last 30 years, and that the use of guns as the weapons had declined even faster than the overall drop:

But why let facts get in the way of accusing every gun owner in America of McNair’s murder?