On August 12 the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals delivered what the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel termed “a stinging blow to [President Barack] Obama’s signature achievement,” declaring the ObamaCare individual mandate unconstitutional. The court thus “sided with 26 states ... that had sued to stop the law from taking effect,” the paper said.  

Texas Governor Rick Perry announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President of the United States at a RedState bloggers gathering in Charleston, South Carolina, on Saturday. The event also featured a speech by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. The blog RedState.com describes itself as “the most widely read right of center blog on Capitol Hill” as well as "the most often cited right of center blog in the media." Perry noted at the beginning of his speech: "It is great to be at RedState. And I’ll tell you what, it’s even better to be governor of the largest red state in America." He did not mention, however, that he once worked to make Texas a blue state. In 1988, he served as Texas chairman of Democrat Al Gore's presidential bid. The following year, he joined the Republican Party. He became Lieutenant Governor of Texas in 1999 and Governor in 2000.  

Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann narrowly bested Texas Representative Ron Paul in the Iowa Straw Poll by a  margin of 152 votes out of a total of 16,892 cast in a vote that easily overshadowed establishment favorites Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Tim Pawlenty. Bachmann earned 28 percent (4,823 votes) and Paul earned 27 percent (4,671 votes) among attendees at the traditional Iowa GOP rally. None of the other candidates earned even half as many votes as Bachmann or Paul. Bachmann stressed her Iowa family roots in in her remarks at the Ames Hilton Coliseum, stating that "I tell people everything I needed to learn in life I learned in Iowa" and that "I'm a seventh generation Iowan." That certainly didn't hurt her chances, nor did her repeated talking points about "making Obama a one-term president."

Recently, Al Gore was permitted an opportunity to indulge his obsession with “global warming” at the Aspen Institute, and the former Vice President had some rather choice words for critics of his anthropogenic conception of “climate change.” They are the same people, he declared, who continue “washing back at you the same crap over and over and over again.” Yet they have become so successful at dissembling, we have reached a point where it is now unacceptable in “mixed” or “bi-partisan company to use the godd***ed word ‘climate.’” On three consecutive occasions during his speech, Gore referred to his opponents’ alternative accounts of climate change as “bull****!” Gore isn’t the first high-profile politician to curse in public.

An analysis just released by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco concludes that most of what Americans spend on consumer goods, electronics, clothing, sneakers and the like, stays in America. Surprisingly little comes from China after all. Say the authors: Goods and services from China accounted for only 2.7% of U.S. personal consumption expenditures (PCE) in 2010…Chinese imports make up only a small share of total U.S. consumer spending… Athough globalization is widely recognized these days, the U.S. economy actually remains relatively closed. The vast majority of goods and services sold in the United States is produced here. In 2010, imports were about 16% of U.S. GDP. Imports from China amounted to 2.5% of GDP.

At a time when each day seems to bring more dire news regarding the economy, Americans have one silver lining: the price at the pump is going down. According to energy experts, gas prices should fall anywhere from 30 to 50 cents per gallon over the next several weeks. Crude oil for September delivery dropped to $81.03 a barrel in New York futures trading, but later closed at $85.72 a barrel. Earlier in the week, oil was as low as $79.30 a barrel.

Should energy consumers pay extra taxes to fund government-mandated and subsidized renewable energy technologies? "Absolutely yes," says John Bryson, President Obama's nominee for Commerce Secretary. He made the remark at a meeting of the Commonwealth Club of California in 2009 and went on to extol the virtues of hidden rates in California, a state encumbered with some of the nation's highest electricity and unemployment rates. Bryson, retired CEO of the electric utility Southern California Edison (SCE) and its parent company Edison International, excused the practice, saying, "That's been a part of the regulatory environment for the investor-owned utilities for as long as I've been close to it."

The two Minnesotans in the Republican presidential primary — former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann — took aim at each other in the August 11 debate in Ames, Iowa. "It's an indisputable fact in Congress her record of accomplishment and results is nonexistent," Pawlenty said of his fellow Minnesota Republican. Bachmann replied: "Governor, when you were governor in Minnesota, you implemented cap and trade in our state. And you praised the unconstitutional individual mandate and you called for requiring all people in our state to purchase health insurance that government would mandate. Third, you said the era of small government was over. That sounds a lot more like Barack Obama, if you ask me."

The Little America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City was abuzz with activity and excitement when your reporter arrived on July 14 for the opening of the U.S. & China Trade, Culture & Education Conference 2011. Throngs of Chinese delegates and journalists packed the lobby, while still more delegates from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) disembarked from limousines and tour buses at the hotel entrance. The scene was much the same across the street at the hotel’s pricier corporate sister, the Grand America Hotel, which served as the main venue for the National Governors Association Annual Meeting and U.S.-China Governors Forum. My first order of business was to pick up my press credentials for the Trade, Culture & Education Conference, which was being sponsored by the American & Chinese Friendship Promotion Society. Unfortunately, I arrived at the credential room a few minutes too late; the man in charge had closed up and departed for the afternoon, taking the press badges with him. Mine would be available the next morning, in time for the main events, his assistant assured me. In the meantime, the assistant said, since he had seen my name on the list of officially approved journalists, I could use the press badge of Le Yeng, a Chinese journalist who had not shown up, to get into the afternoon’s remaining events.

On June 15, 1961, Walter Ulbricht, the communist ruler of East Germany (known officially as the German Democratic Republic) held a press conference in East Berlin to promote a cause he had long advocated: the signing of a treaty between the Soviet Union and Ulbricht’s German Democratic Republic (GDR) so that the East German government would control all land and air routes to Berlin, which would then be, in Ulbricht’s terms, a “Free City.” As Frederick Taylor noted in The Berlin Wall: A World Divided, 1961-1989, Ulbricht’s aides “went out of their way to invite the Western press corps.”