Freedom Line Blog

From the Washington Post:

In the first case of its kind, the American Civil Liberties Union is charging that the state of Michigan and a Detroit area school district have failed to adequately educate children, violating their “right to learn to read” under an obscure state law.

The ACLU class-action lawsuit, to be filed Thursday, says hundreds of students in the Highland Park School District are functionally illiterate.

“None of those adults charged with the care of these children . . . have done their jobs,” said Kary L. Moss, executive director of the ACLU of Michigan. “The Highland Park School District is among the lowest-performing districts in the nation, graduating class after class of children who are not literate. Our lawsuit . . . says that if education is to mean anything, it means that children have a right to learn to read.”

Setting aside the questionable and problematic assertion that people “have a right to learn to read” – it will be interesting to see how a court tries to enforce this – the ACLU’s frustration with underperforming public schools is shared by many.  What’s missing from its complaint, however, is any mention of how teacher union policies contribute to the problem.

Later on in the article a teacher of readers below grade level is identified as “not provid[ing] instruction while students read books on their own, or in groups, or completed self-directed work on the computer…”  Is it impossible to surmise that such behavior is protected from censure by her employment contract, the one negotiated by her union?

So far, the ACLU is suing the school district and the state, but logic demands that if you’re going to allege that “none of those adults charged with the care of these children… have done their jobs,” then someone from the Michigan Education Association needs to be included in the lawsuit’s defendant caption.

I’m sure there’s plenty of blame to go around.  The ACLU should make sure that the relevant teachers union gets its fair share.

Discussed here. Here’s just a small taste:

Multitudinous other lawsuits against the law remain outstanding, and at least a few of them still could result in the court invalidating the entire law at a later date….First, the suit with the largest potential reach – the one perhaps most likely, if the plaintiffs win, to cause the whole law to be invalidated – is a case out of Arizona called Coons v. Geithner. A state think tank called the Goldwater Institute is providing the legal firepower here, while two congressmen are among the plaintiffs. While the lawsuit incorporates challenges to the law on multiple fronts, its most legally explosive issue involves whether something called the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is constitutionally permissible….In short, the suit alleges that IPAB amounts to an illegal “delegation” of legislative powers to an unaccountable board.

Quin’s right to point out Alabama’s Robert Bentley as an exception to the growing trend of conservative governors pushing education reform pointed out in my column this week. Bentley deserves every ounce of scorn he’s getting for knuckling under to the unions. And while we’re in the midst of handing out demerits, I’ll also nominate Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.

Around the same time that Bobby Jindal’s education reform package in Louisiana was doing its victory lap, Brewer vetoed a huge expansion of school vouchers in the Grand Canyon State with an explanation that defies exegesis:

… Brewer, while describing herself as a long-time advocate of school choice—citing other legislation she has signed promoting educational competition—also said “there is a careful balance we have to maintain.”

“We must enhance educational options wherever we can, but we must also ensure that government is not artificially manipulating the market through state budget or tax policy that would make an otherwise viable option so unattractive that it undermines rational choice in a competitive market,” the governor explained.

Impenetrable. This reads like a veto statement by James Joyce.

Obviously Brewer didn’t want to deal with the backlash from the educational establishment, so she sold out the members of the state legislature who were brave enough to take up the fight. How folks like Bentley and Brewer can look their state’s schoolchildren in the eyes is beyond me.

One thought on Quin and Ashton‘s back and forth on possible VP choices for the Romney campaign (a conversation I join with football pads):

I remain a firm backer of Jon Kyl (a position that seems to have attracted only Quin and Ben Domenech — it may not even carry a majority in the Kyl household), for the simple reason that I think he would make the best Vice President (see here and here for why).

That being said, Ashton is probably right that Christie is the best candidate. As you’ve probably heard ad nauseam by now (because there’s no pundit in America who has any original analysis on the mechanics of picking a number two), it often falls to the running mate to be the attack dog on the stump. And, frankly, there’s no one else in the GOP whose bite packs as many pounds per square inch as Christie’s.

He also has an unusual asset for a gadfly — he’ll change some minds. There’s a certain kind of American voter — blue-collar, broad-shouldered, bearing a five o’clock shadow and calloused hands — who has a visceral hatred for the effete liberalism of Obama but won’t be much more smitten with a corporate titan like Romney. Christie will resonate with those folks. They know Chris Christie. They go to work with Chris Christies. They sit next to Chris Christies at little league games. And the Chris Christies of the world are the people they’d call to watch the kids if there was an emergency.

As for his actual usefulness in the office of the vice presidency? I don’t see it. Christie is far too strong a personality for the number two job, is doing too much useful work in New Jersey to be employed as an understudy, and — if in fact he has presidential ambitions — is probably better served by remaining a free agent than tying himself to the Romney brand.

My actual prediction? Rob Portman. And if not him, someone else who will probably make us all shrug and go on with our lives as if nothing much has happened. The Romney campaign doesn’t do excitement.

I commend Troy for his excellent column on school reforms being pushed by Republican governors.

Alas, there always seems to be one exception that proves the rule, one skunk in a beautiful garden party, one, uh, floatie in the punch bowl… and one cliche too many in an otherwise insightful blog post (meaning mine). In this case, the exception is Alabama’s Robert Bentley, elected at least in part with the help of the Alabama Education Association, who (I reported recently) had watched the defeat of what should have been a simple effort to allow charter schools, all while he provided scant leadership on the issue. Well, now Bentley has done even worse: He has announced that he will not even include a charter-school bill in his legislative package next year, despite the fact that the House and Senate leadership (Republicans all) want it.

The editorial board of the Mobile Press-Register gently chided Bentley for his abandonment of the cause. But that promises to be just the start of the reaction. Some Tea Party groups are rumbling about the abandonment, and there will surely be more public opprobrium heaped on the governor. After all, if Jindal, Christie, Daniels (and in earlier iterations, Jeb Bush, Tommy Thompson, and Lamar Alexander, among others) can push meaningful school reforms, why can’t Bentley, in a state desperately in need of them?

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 244-185 this afternoon to repeal ObamaCare. 

Five Democrats joined all Republicans in the House to support the repeal measure.  The five Democrats included:

• Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT)
• Rep. Larry Kissell (D-NC)
• Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC)
• Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR)
• Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK)

McIntyre, Ross and Boren all voted for repeal in 2011.  Matheson and Kissell, both facing tough reelection fights, voted against repeal last year and changed their votes today.

Ashton: I thought I made clear the difference between my prediction and my wishes. Who do I WANT to see chosen, based on all factors? I have two co-favorites, for different reasons: Kyl and Jindal. I think either would be an absolute home run.

Thanks, Quin, for the “clarification” on your vice presidential pick(s).  So far, I count four possible outcomes allowing you to claim Nostradamus status at the next company picnic.

Putting your competing theories and rationalizations aside for a moment, however, let me ask this: Who do you want right now?

My head tells me Romney should pick Paul Ryan because the two seem very comfortable with each other (one report says Ryan can finish Romney’s sentences and make him laugh) and because Ryan gives Mitt the disciplined, wonkish Washington veteran Romney seems to like (see Rob Portman) as well as the likeable guy-next-door demeanor Mitt needs (see Tim Pawlenty).

I also think Ryan would be a great number two to Romney without being such a second fiddle as to obscure his future presidential ambitions.  Paul Ryan: dutiful and dynamic.

But that’s my head.  My heart wants Chris Christie.  Why?  Because I want someone to articulate the anger I have for the wasted time, money, and opportunities squandered by the Obama Administration over the last three years.  America has more debt, less prestige, and bleaker prospects for the future than at any other time in the last forty years.

That’s more than a “kick in the gut”; it’s an affront to our patriotism.

I want someone who not only articulates the problems with Obamaism, I want a person who can point to the way out.  But right now, I also want someone who does this with an edge.  Not necessarily going off on a heckler while eating an ice cream cone edge, but with something more than charts, statistics, and phrases about getting hit.

I’d like someone in the Romney camp who knows how to hit back.

Strategically, my head is telling me Romney should pick Ryan, but tactically, I want Christie out there getting daily news coverage rhetorically perp-walking Obama’s bad policies out of Washington.

How about you, Quin?  Who do you want as Romney’s VP right now.  You can keep your other prognostications for future reference.  All I’m asking is for an undisputed, single name occupying your Veep choice today.

Ashton makes some interesting points. For what it’s worth, my bets are hedged all over the place. He puts me in the Jindal camp and Troy in the Kyl camp, but I actually have Jindal and Kyl as MY choices 1A and 1B. I would be thrilled with either of them, and I keep pushing them equally. (I also would be almost equally happy with Paul Ryan.)

But that’s who I myself would pick, not who I predict Romney will pick. Ashton himself urges the choice of Chris Christie. Well, while in my most recent column I don’t even mention him, because the tea leaves don’t seem to be steeping his way, I nevertheless have not withdrawn my prediction (from this column) that Romney will eventually choose Christie:

Last weekend, Andy McCarthy of National Review Online explainedcomprehensively why conservatives should see that New Jersey Gov.Chris Christie is “not one of us.” Among other factors, wrote McCarthy, “The brute fact is that, while Christie is not a hardcore statist, he is a mild progressive — which is to say, a ‘compassionate conservative’ in the Bush mold who wants to make government ‘work,’ not drastically reduce its size and scope.”

Nonetheless, Christie offers Romney a boatload of political advantages. First, he is perhaps the single most effective communicator anywhere in today’s Republican Party. He talks in ways everybody can understand. His directness is refreshing, and it can cut through every strand of Obama’s various webs of deceit. Second, Christie can excite conservatives and Tea Partiers with his in-your-face style, while providing substance that comes across to independents less as ideological than as indubitably practical. Third, he would shake up the electoral map – forcing Obama to spend far more time defending New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and probably New Hampshire, Maine, and even Connecticut than Obama otherwise would. Even if Christie doesn’t succeed in helping Romney win an otherwise unreachable northeastern state, his ability to expand the playing field by his persona alone (without adding extra GOP resources) would force Obama to dilute hisresources in a way that might hold Obama back in other swing states as well.

Meanwhile, about the only place Christie might marginally hurt the ticket is in the Deep South – but his pugnaciousness, again, can make up for some of his ideological apostasies (in the mind of many southern voters), and it’s also highly doubtful that Romney will come close to losing anywhere in the Deep South anyway.

So there: No matter how you slice it, I’ve got the bases covered! I’m in perfect agreement with both Troy and Ashton. I feel like Abe Lincoln in the apocryphal story about two haberdashers cornering him to demand that he adjudge whose hats were of finer quality. “Gentleman,” said the wily Lincoln, “these two hats mutually excel each other!”

Likewise, the picks of Kyl, Jindal, and Christie mutually excel each other (as would the choice of Kelly Ayotte).

Ha!

Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner posted an interesting chart showing the timing of vice presidential picks from 1980 to 2008.  Notice a trend?

Except for John Kerry’s selection of John Edwards nearly three weeks before the 2004 Democratic Convention, all the others picks occurred within a week of or at the respective party’s convention.

As Klein notes, as of today we’re 7 weeks / 49 days away from the Republican Convention in Tampa, so it’s probably waaaaaay too early to expect Quin (Bobby Jindal) or Troy (Jon Kyl) to collect the CFIF office pool money.

For what it’s worth, I’d like a Romney-Christie ticket just to see Chris Christie go after Joe Biden during their debate, play the attack dog on the campaign trail, and land the rhetorical blows on the Obama Administration that Mitt Romney can’t seem to muster.

Of course, those reasons – coupled with Christie’s propensity to be baited into a confrontation – are probably the same reasons Romney won’t pick him.

But if history is any guide, there’s still time for Mitt to get warm to the idea.

With President Obama making a public pitch yesterday to raise taxes on millions of Americans (the boldest election-year tax increase pledge since Walter Mondale in 1984), the White House is facing a bit of a cognitive dissonance. After all, Obama signed legislation keeping all of the Bush tax cuts in place only 18 months ago. Good for that ailing economy but not this one? White House Press Secretary Jay Carney (whose podium may as well be mounted above a dunk tank these days) is having a hard time sorting it out. Here’s how Charlie Spiering reports it at the Washington Examiner‘s “Beltway Confidential” blog:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney admitted [yesterday] that the extension of the Bush Tax cuts signed by President Obama in 2010 helped the United States economy at a critical time.

“At the time that you question there was a package of proposals that passed that helped the economy at a time it was very vulnerable, and that the president signed into law.” Carney admitted.

… When pressed by [CBS News’ Norah] O’Donnell to explain what had changed between now and 2010, Carney accused her of buying into a faulty argument.

“You’re buying into a red herring argument that just isn’t true,” he insisted.

Translation: “I don’t have a rejoinder ready that won’t get me laughed out of this room.” So the economy was vulnerable in December 2010, when Obama renewed the cuts and unemployment was at 9.8 percent, but we’re in the sunlit uplands of recovery now that unemployment is at 8.2 percent?

An increase in taxes leads to a decrease in economic activity. Period. Full stop.

There’s never really a good time for a tax increase. But there are few times that are this bad.

Troy and I  have been having an interesting discussion of how it is not at all implausible (or, to avoid the double negative, it is definitely plausible) for the presidential election to end in a 269-269 tie, thus throwing the election to the House of Representatives, which only narrowly would be likely to favor Romney. Now comes Eric McPike at Real Clear Politics to lay out a few other scenarios for a tie — in other words, further supporting the theory Troy and I have been touting.

Interestingly, though, two of McPike’s various scenarios would envision one of Nebraska’s Electoral votes to go to Obama again: “But then subtract from the Republican ticket the single electoral vote Obama won in Nebraska due to the anamolous way the Cornhusker State allocates its five electoral votes, and there would be a rare electoral tie that would send the election to the House of Representatives.”

To me, that seems highly unlikely. That vote was surely an anomaly, due to a bizarrely Democratic year. I wonder if anybody has any polling data suggesting that that congressional district would even be close. I doubt it.

Nonetheless, the fact remains that there are so many different ways to reach a tie that it behooves both sides to start dossiers on every House member to figure if any of them might be moved, under certain circumstances, to vote against their party, or to abstain. In the House, the vote is done not by individual member, but by state delegation.  A state like Minnesota, with four Republicans and four Democrats, would presumably vote “present” unless a member didn’t vote for his/her own party’s nominee. By my armchair projections, Romney would probably win the support of about 28 delegations (26 are needed to win) — but several of those delegations would be by one-vote margins, meaning that if my projection is slightly off, or if a Member could be convinced to switch parties or to abstain, the margin would be even smaller.

How could this happen? Well, imagine a 269-269 Electoral College tie, but with Obama building up such large margins in populous states like New York and California that he wins a clear popular-vote margin. Cue the Occupy movement to protest in favor of the House voting to ratify the popular vote rather than by party. Cue the media to overwhelmingly push that same notion. Now look at a few GOP House members who won by only narrow margins, but in districts carried by Obama, where the media message would be that they have a duty to vote with the majority of their constituents. Obviously, all of this could get very dicey indeed.

As it could well get dicey in the other direction if Romney wins the popular vote but the GOP loses more House seats than expected (via lots of people voting just to defeat Obama but then failing to vote in down-ballot races), and Democrats actually find they control a plurality of House delegations (with several tied).

All of which means that both campaigns ought to know darn well what makes each individual Member tick — what motivates each one, what pressures they succumb to. They should start the research now, just in case… because if indeed an Electoral College tie occurs, some Members might be moved to announce their positions quickly, and so both campaigns need to be able to contact all of the possible “swing” votes ASAP.

All of this could make the Bush-Gore fight appear, in retrospect, to have been child’s play.

And that is a very sobering thought.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Last Friday, the Obama Administration announced that Wisconsin and Washington joined 24 other states as recipients of No Child Left Behind waivers.

The Department of Education claims that Congress’ repeated failure to reauthorize NCLB since it became due in 2007 empowers it to exempt petitioning states from certain requirements in exchange for accepting new rules and policies dictated by the White House.

This links to a chart from Governing.com identifying each state’s waiver status.

Writing in an email commentary about the waivers, Lindsey Burke of the Heritage Foundation summarizes President Barack Obama’s justification of the waiver system as “necessary to provide relief to states that fear drowning in a cascade of sanctions that are forthcoming in 2014,” such as 100 percent of students being proficient in reading and math.

While I agree with Burke that states “should demand genuine relief from NCLB through congressionally approved options that fundamentally reduce federal intervention in education,” her summary of Obama’s justification for waivers got me thinking.

If Mitt Romney gets elected president with less than full (or consistent) control of Congress and can’t repeal ObamaCare, would he resort to granting waivers from its penalties “to provide relief to” individuals “that fear drowning in a cascade of sanctions”?

I certainly hope so.

David Harsanyi points out:

According to the Congressional Budget Office—which can only calculate the narrow data it’s given—the non-tax penalty on Obamacare’s non-mandate will affect 4 million people by the year 2016. Of those paying this ‘untax,’ 75 percent will make less than $120,000—breaking the president’s promise that those making under $250,000 would not have to pay a “penny” more in taxes, which, presumably, includes “shared responsibility payments.”

Anticipating Romney’s inauguration, I’ll go ahead and get in line to ask, “Mr. President, can I have a lifetime waiver from my ‘shared responsibility payment?’”

I think there’s a precedent…

I was intrigued by Quin’s post late last week about the potential for a tie between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in the Electoral College — because I had recently run the numbers and come up with the exact same outcome.

Our analyses are very similar, though not exactly the same. Here’s the way I broke it down:

Safe Obama States — California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Minnesota, Illinois, Maryland, Delaware, Washington D.C. (which, don’t forget, has 3 electoral votes), New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine (all votes — Maine is proportional). Grand total of 196 electoral votes

Safe Romney States — Alaska, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska (all votes — Nebraska is proportional as well), Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, West Virginia. Grand total of 170 Electoral votes.

Toss-Ups I Give to Obama: Colorado, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, Virginia, Pennsylvania. Grand total of 73 electoral votes

Toss-Ups I Give to Romney: Nevada, Iowa, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, New Hampshire. Total of 99 electoral votes.

The end result: 269-269. The same logjam that Quin reported, with each candidate a single vote shy of victory.

A few thoughts on the toss-ups: I give Colorado and New Mexico to Obama because the growing Hispanic demographic in both of those states is bolstering Democrats and diluting those states’ former allegiance to Mountain West libertarianism (Democrats have also done a bang-up job of organizing Colorado). Wisconsin will be close and I can see it flipping, but — unlike a lot of the conservative commentariat — I don’t necessarily believe that the Walker recall election presages a Romney win; Badger State voters may be compartmentalizing more than the pundits give them credit for (something the exit polling seemed to suggest).

I think Obama takes Michigan because Romney’s rather thin biographical attachment to the state won’t be able to trump Obama’s relentless touting of all he did for Detroit with the auto bailout. Virginia stays close, but goes to Obama because the army of government employees now calling D.C.’s Northern Virginia suburbs home gives him the margin of victory. Pennsylvania is always overrated as a swing state. It’s been reliable for Democrats in presidential elections for decades and the fact that it elected a Republican governor and senator in 2010 has no more bearing on the electoral vote than does the election of statewide Democrats in Montana or West Virginia, two states that will still reliably go for Romney.

I think Romney will generally perform well in the Midwest. The combination of the Obama Administration’s poor economic record and its limousine liberalism (neither of which have anything to offer to the sorts of blue-collar voters who are key in the region) may have a catalytic effect on swing voters, giving Romney Indiana (which, unlike 2008, I don’t anticipate being close), Iowa, and Missouri. Ohio promises to be very close, but I think those same factors may give him a slight edge there. The biggest factor Romney needs to guard against in this part of the country is the Obama campaign’s relentless attempts to use his work at Bain to characterize him as an enemy of lunchbucket workers.

Unlike Virginia (where the D.C. suburbs are, in cultural terms, essentially another state), North Carolina still has all the cultural markings of a Southern electorate. Obama squeaked by there last time under the best of circumstances. I doubt he’ll be able to repeat that feat with his record in tow. Nevada shares demographic factors with New Mexico and Colorado (it also boasts a large union presence because of the abundance of service employees in Las Vegas). But there’s a big Mormon contingent in the state that will be characteristically well-organized and may be able to push Romney over the edge.

Finally, Florida and New Hampshire. These two are the toughest. Florida comes down to a gut check on my part. It is, in many respects, the ultimate swing state. Here, the fact that a Republican governor and senator were elected in 2010 is relevant. This one could be incredibly tight, but I’m inclined to give ties to Romney given the unhappiness with Obama’s performance. As for New Hampshire, its libertarian political culture couldn’t be more different from the rest of New England. That, combined with the fact that Romney was the governor of a neighboring state (part of southern New Hampshire is in the Boston media market) and has a home in Wolfeboro are salient. Republicans have been rolling in New Hampshire of late and I can see Romney picking this one up on election day.

Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CDT to 6:00 p.m. CDT (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EDT) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her radio show, “Your Turn: Meeting Nonsense with Commonsense.”  Today’s guest lineup includes:

4:00 (CDT)/5:00 pm (EDT):  Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Professor University of Tennessee:  “The Higher Education Bubble;”

4:30 (CDT)/5:30 pm (EDT):  Jim Phillips, Senior Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at Heritage Foundation:  Foreign Policy;

5:00 (CDT)/6:00 pm (EDT):  Timothy Lee, Vice President of Legal and Public Affairs at CFIF:  Supreme Court October 2011 Term Roundup;  and

5:30 (CDT)/6:30 pm (EDT):  Peter Ferrara, Carleson Center for Public Policy Fellow:  Obamacare Repeal and Replacement.

Listen live on the Internet here.   Call in to share your comments or ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

Wesley J. Smith reminds us why with ObamaCare’s individual mandate safe for now, conservative litigators should focus on striking down the Independent Payment Advisory Board, the unelected, unaccountable group of “experts” charged with controlling costs under ObamaCare.

There’s not much time left:

According to the terms of the Affordable Care Act, IPAB must submit its first draft recommendations to the health and human services secretary by September 1, 2013. Its first Medicare cost-cutting goals must become law by August 15, 2014.

Why did I write “must” become law” instead of “may”? IPAB’s unique “fast track” authority divests Congress of discretion regarding the amount of money to be cut from Medicare once IPAB has submitted its “advice.” Get a load of these legislative handcuffs:

• By January 15, 2014, IPAB must submit a proposal to Congress and the president for reaching Medicare savings targets in the coming year.

• The majority leaders in the House and Senate must introduce bills incorporating the board’s proposal the day they receive it.

• Congress cannot “consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report … that would repeal or otherwise change the recommendations of the board” if such changes fail to meet the board’s budgetary target.

• By April 1, all legislative committees must complete their evaluation. Any committee that fails to meet the deadline is barred from further consideration of the bill.

• If Congress does not pass the proposal or a substitute plan meeting the IPAB’s financial target before August 15, or if the president vetoes the proposal passed by Congress, the original Independent Payment Advisory Board recommendations automatically take effect.

Not only that, but Congress cannot consider any bill or amendment that would repeal or change this fast-track congressional consideration process without a three-fifths vote in the Senate. And to put the icing on the autocratic cake, implementation of the board’s policy is exempted from administrative or judicial review.

Unlike the rest of ObamaCare, IPAB cannot be repealed easily because its enabling statute “entrenches” it from being altered by later Congresses.  Thus, banking on a President Romney and a Republican Congress to get rid of it won’t work.

I’ve written before about the federal case in Arizona challenging IPAB.  It was on hold awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision on the individual mandate.  With the mandate redefined as a tax, the IPAB litigation will proceed, perhaps with a Supreme Court hearing as early as spring 2013.

Keep an eye on this one.  It’s easy to see how an unaccountable board of bureaucrats empowered to control costs could morph into a health care rationing board.

At National Review Online, Deroy Murdock urges us not to forget all the Mexicans killed as a result of Operation Fast and Furious. The estimate: 300 of them.

If The Obama administration wants to politicize immigration policy in order to gain Hispanic votes, somebody might wonder why the Romney campaign wouldn’t fight back by demanding why the Obamites are apparently so unconcerned or unapologetic about these dead Mexicans — especially when the administration falls all over itself apologizing multiple times to Pakistan for airstrikes gone wrong in that country, where unlike in Mexico) at least we have a decent reason (targeting terrorists) to be operating. The administration compounds the sin by stonewalling multiple legitimate requests for further information on this program gone wrong. One would think Hispanic voters would take offense at all this.

So here’s the deal: Dead Mexicans, killed by American guns deliberately allowed to “walk” by the U.S. government, are no concern of the Obama Administration. But if those same Mexicans come into the United States illegally, the administration will refuse to impose any sanction against them, plus will in many cases provide them with government assistance — all while those who DID come legally are left to wonder why they even bothered doing it all by the book.

So, says the administration: Come here illegally, please. Because if you stay on your side of the border and get in the way of one of our guns, well, you’re just unimportant collateral damage to our effort-gone-wrong to make a case against Second Amendment gun rights. Come, and live well. Stay, and die. It’s your choice, sucka.

This is a surprisingly likely scenario: Give Obama the entire Northeast plus the Rust Belt except for Indiana. Give Romney the entire South, Plains, and inland West except for New Mexico. Give Obama all the Pacific states except for Alaska. Result: a 269-269 Electoral College tie.

The contest would then go to the House, where the House would vote not by member, but state by state. Twenty-six states would be required to win. By my early guestimates, Republicans would be likely to have majorities in between 26 and 28 states, with a few other states with evenly split delegations. This would mean an extremely narrow Romney win, but only after, probably, some major civil unrets led by Occupiers, etcetera.

Now, imagine that Romney does better than I expect with his Rust Belt strategy, and grabs both Ohio and his birth state of Michigan. But imagine that the liberal DC suburbs of Virginia turn out heavily for Obama while Appalachia and the Blue Ridge voters stay home rather than vote for Richie Rich Romney — and that Obama takes that state, plus Colorado, Nevada and Iowa (all of which I originally gave to Romney). Again, the result is 269-269. Again, well within the bounds of possibility.

Which leaves us where? Well, it means that New Hampshire could really be important. If Romney can also pull the Granite State, where he has a vacation home, back to the GOP, it would give him enough breathing room to avoid having the contest go to the House.

Lotsa interesting scenarios, I’d say.