Another notable Dem not supporting Obama; How capitalism works; Seizing underwater mortgages in CA?; Asian carp environmental DNA in MI and OH waters; Law of the Sea Treaty defeated!; Obama's proposals once again rejected by Democrats; Blue Cross Blue Shield rates doubling under Obamacare; Fudging the numbers; Obama's love for all things Chinese; Justin Amash most influential; Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cancels planned boondoggle; Navy ship fired on a boat in Persian Gulf; Homeland Security gives illegals more privacy than Americans;

Barney Bishop, the former Executive Director of the Florida Democratic Party, has written an article detailing why he can not support Barack Obama over Mitt Romney. Bishop had this to say on the president’s policies in an op-ed posted at sunshinestatenews.com:

In every challenge that faces our nation, Obama sees a solution that can only come with another government-spending program. He fails to harness the ingenuity of entrepreneurs; instead he actually places obstacles, like burdensome regulation, in front of their path to progress.

Bishop, a local businessman, criticizes Obama’s attacks on Romney’s business record and defends Romney’s plan to revitalize the economy:
Specifically, the attacks on the work Mitt Romney did in private equity demonstrates a dangerous lack of understanding how important risk-taking investors are in the U.S. economy. … http://freebeacon.com/fla-dem-abandons-obama/
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Did Mitt Romney and Bain Capital help office-supply retailer Staples create 88,000 jobs? 43,000? 252? Actually, Staples probably destroyed 100,000 jobs while creating millions of new ones.
Since 1986, Staples has opened 2,000 stores, eliminating the jobs of distributors and brokers who charged nasty markups for paper and office supplies. But it enabled hundreds of thousands of small (and not so small) businesses to stock themselves cheaply and conveniently and expand their operations.
It's the same story elsewhere. Apple employs just 47,000 people, and Google under 25,000. Like Staples, they have destroyed many old jobs, like making paper maps and pink "While You Were Out" notepads. But by lowering the cost of doing business they've enabled innumerable entrepreneurs to start new businesses and employ hundreds of thousands, even millions, of workers world-wide—all while capital gets redeployed more effectively. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303740704577527200796292034.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
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Local officials in San Bernardino County, Calif., met last week to consider a controversial proposal to use eminent domain powers to seize and refinance underwater mortgages.
The plan, which is being championed by wealthy investors with deep ties to the Democratic Party, has drawn criticism from opponents who see it as an egregious violation of property rights and an exercise in political cronyism.
“This is a group of folks who want to come in and use the government to help acquire properties for them and provide an impressive return on their investment,” said Steven Greenhut, a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank.
The new authority would apply eminent domain power, which allows governments to forcibly acquire private property for public benefit. However, rather than seizing the physical properties in this case, the authority effectively would be purchasing the mortgages owed by the property owners, with the aim of restructuring them and selling them to investors who could then turn a profit by flipping the homes. http://freebeacon.com/democratic-domain/
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The following is a joint news release issued by the Michigan and Ohio Departments of Natural Resources:

Federal and state wildlife officials working in conjunction with academic researchers today announced six water samples taken from Sandusky and north Maumee bays tested positive for the presence of Asian carp environmental DNA in Michigan and Ohio waters.

The positive samples were among 417 taken from Lake Erie in August 2011, and more than 2,000 samples taken from the Great Lakes Basin since 2010. The Lake Erie batch was recently analyzed and test results were confirmed by eDNA researchers this week. The six positive samples represent less than 1.5 percent of the Lake Erie samples.

Four samples from Sandusky Bay, in Ohio waters, tested positive for bighead carp eDNA, while two samples from north Maumee Bay, in Michigan waters, were positive for silver carp eDNA.

In response to these findings, electro-shocking and netting began Friday in Sandusky Bay with no evidence of Asian carp found. However, additional testing and monitoring are planned by the Ohio and Michigan Departments of Natural Resources in conjunction with partner agencies.

The findings indicate the presence of genetic material left behind by the species, such as scales, excrement or mucous, but not the establishment of Asian carp in Lake Erie. Positive eDNA tests are regarded by the scientific community as an indicator of the species’ recent presence, however, positive results can occur whether the organism was alive or dead.

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[CONGRATULATIONS, REPUBLICANS!!!!!]  The Law of the Sea Treaty now has 34 senators opposed and thus will not have the Senate votes for ratification, a key opponent of the treaty announced Monday.
Critics of the treaty had argued that LOST would require the U.S. to subject its sovereignty to an international body, require U.S. businesses to pay royalties for resource exploitation, and subject the U.S. to unwieldy environmental regulations as defined in the treaty. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/16/demint-says-law-sea-treaty-now-dead/
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Remember earlier this year when exactly zero Democrats voted for President Obama’s FY2013 budget? The House voted 414-0 and the Senate voted 99-0 against the President’s budget. This was the second year in a row the Senate unanimously rejected the President’s budget.

And it’s happening again.
Another of the President’s proposals will not be accepted by Senate Democrats. Two weeks ago, President Obama laid out his tax “plan” that would hike taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year – his definition of rich. He also, in his FY2013 budget, proposed hiking the tax rate on dividends, which is the money paid out to investors when a company does well.
Despite reports to the contrary, Senate Democrats have their own plan and will not introduce the plan being touted by the President and left-leaning pundits. Instead, their plan sets the top tax rate for dividends at 23.8%, nearly 20 percentage points lower than what President Obama sought, though a substantial increase from the current rate of 15%. The Senate plan also includes a top estate tax rate of 45% and a one-year alternative minimum tax (AMT) patch to prevent the tax from crushing middle-class families. And yes, they do include the tax hike on those making over $250,000 a year. http://heritageaction.com/2012/07/another-obama-plan-receives-no-democrat-support/
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Medicare Monthly fee more than doubling by 2014 because of Obamacare.

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Democratic Governors Association Chairman Caught Falsifying Data on State Website

Maryland’s governor Martin O’Malley, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, was caught posting false data to his state’s website this week in response to a story about the wealthy fleeing Maryland to escape the state’s rising taxes. The Examiner posted the story on July 7, 2012:

“In 2007, Maryland passed some of the largest tax increases in history, and I believe a lot of the exodus of taxpayers out of the state has to do with the tax burden,” said Larry Hogan, founder of Change Maryland and a former member of Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich’s administration.
The continuous tax increases proposed by Gov. Martin O’Malley won’t help the situation, Hogan said. http://www.libertynews.com/2012/07/16/democratic-governors-association-chairman-caught-falsifying-data-on-state-website/

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The next time you hear Barack Obama praise China as being vastly superior to America - think of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjcoICbnwFY

Obama, as a campaign stop in Virginia, said in no particular order:

1) We used to have the best stuff, used to be the best in the world. 

2) China has invested so much in their infrastructure and now their ports, trains, schools and airports are all vastly superior to ours.  

3) If you are thinking of starting a business, Bejing looks like a pretty good option.

Of course, he leaves out the fact that China is highly polluted (I can personally attest to that), they force children by the millions into child labor, their are scant civil rights and they do not attempt at all to prevent environmental damage.

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The District of Columbia’s Republican Committee has named first-term MI U.S. Rep. Justin Amash as one of party’s most influential 35 people under the age of 35.
Amash, 32, of Cascade Township, was honored for serving “as a leading advocate for government restraint” and maintaining a perfect roll call voting record during his freshman year. http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2012/07/justin_amash_among_most_influe.html
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Under pressure from Republican senators over its upcoming conference in Hawaii, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has canceled next year's scheduled meeting in Monterey, citing budget constraints.
The court, which covers California and eight other Western states, has held annual meetings of judges, lawyers and staff since 1944, with three of the past 10 meetings in Hawaii. Long a target of Republican criticism for its liberal rulings, the court has come under attack from Sens. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Jeff Sessions of Alabama for scheduling next month's conference in Maui.
Citing the $1 million-plus travel cost of the last Maui conference in 2010 http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/9th-U-S-court-cancels-2013-conference-3708614.php
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An American Navy ship fired on a boat in the Persian Gulf [yesterday], killing one person and injuring three others aboard the craft, U.S. naval officials told ABC News.
Lt. Greg Raelson, a spokesperson for the Navy's 5th Fleet, which is based in nearby Bahrain, said that a security team aboard the oil supply ship U.S.N.S. Rappahannock fired a .50 caliber machine gun at a "small motor vessel after it disregarded warnings and rapidly approached the U.S. ship" off the coast of Jebel Ali, a city approximately 30 miles from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-navy-fires-ship-persian-gulf-dead/story?id=16787035#.UASeQ_WWiCk
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Department of Homeland Security officials (DHS) rejected an official request for information about illegal immigrants arrested and deported in California, citing the privacy rights of the deportees, even though that information would be publicly available if the criminals were American citizens. http://washingtonexaminer.com/issa-dhs-gives-criminal-illegal-aliens-privacy-rights-even-americans-dont-have/article/2502248
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