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Chief Justice Roberts let the Obama healthcare law stand arguing that the individual mandate for everyone to carry health insurance acted as a tax, and was on these grounds constitutional. Justice Roberts found middle ground by first rejecting the Obama's administration's argument that asking every American to buy health insurance was legal under the commerce clause, and following this with the a non partisan approach that found the mandate legal under the tax clause. Roberts was guided by the writings of an eminent legal authority, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Roberts referred to this in his opinion saying: "It is well established that if a statute has two possible meanings, one of which violates the constitution, courts should adopt the meaning that does not do so." Legal scholars speculate whether Roberts changed his vote later on or whether the Justice had used the questions in the hearings on the law to explore the idea that the law could be constitutional on different grounds. During the arguments in the hearings Roberts said: "The idea that the mandate is something separate from whether you want to call ita penalty or tax just doesn't seem to make much sense."...

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The racial polarization in the U.S. before the presidential elections of 2012 between Romney and Obama. During the 2008 elections Obama did as well as Clinton by getting 43% of the white vote, it now appears headed into the 30's. This situation is reminiscent of the one facing Mondale in the 1980 election with Reagan, when Mondale received only 35% of the white vote. Fully 91% of the support for Romney comes from white voters as he passes 50% among overall voters in a late Oct. 2012 ABC/Washington Post poll. One irony in this situation is that Obama contested the 2008 election as a person who could bridge the racial divide.

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NYT's Mokoto Rich provides this excellent report from Daegu, the fourth largest city in South Korea, where the current president's father attended teacher's college, and where she draws her base of support. Her father is the dictator president Park who ruled South Korea from 1961 to 1979, known for efforts to modernize South Korea and protect it from the Communist North.Most of the city's residents no longer support president Park Geun-hye because they say even though she herself is a good person, she had poor judgement in having a friend who they say swindled her. That friend Ms. Choo Soon-Sil won favors and contracts using the powers of the presidential office with the full knowledge of the president. This makes her incompetent for the presidential office say even conservative supporters who disagree with the opposition's protests. 

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The lack of funds at the end of the primaries and an extreme position on immigration taken to win close primary contests left Romney with serious problems as he entered the fall presidential elections in the U.S. The Obama campaign sensed the weakness, especially that Romney's new fund raising effort would leave him short of campaigning time in key midwestern states and short of funds to match an attack on his Bain Capital record. The attacks in these states in radio and television advertising created voter unease with Romney compared to Obama about caring for people like themselves. This proved a decisive factor and was hard to overcome say experts.

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Krauthammer cites Congressional Budget Office numbers that show the Obama U.S. health care law continues the spiralling costs of health care with new government mandates at a time of severe budget cuts in education and other areas- for 2013-2022 the costs come to $1.76 trillion. The initial Obama administration figures of 10 year costs of $938 billion announced in 2010 reflected the fact that the new U.S. health care law would take 4 years to fully go into effect. Costs after 2021 are shown to be $250 billion each year in the CBO figures. The law is now before the Supreme Court in 2012, which has to decide on the basis of the limits of the Commerce Clause.

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To the other reasons, callousness on social issues and towards women and immigrants, Rove adds additional ones. The lower voter turnout with ony 51.3% of voters turning out to vote in the 2012 U.S. presidential election, the poor timing of the convention when it should have been held in June, the lack of response to an ad blitz with negativity throughout the late summer that Romney lacked funds to respond to. He points to the role of the Super PAC's and the American Crossroads organization he created in preventing the Republican candidate from being strangled by a single ad blitz in the summer that spent 20% of election campaign funds of the Obama campaign.

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U.S. Senator Ben Sasse suggests an alternative approach of simply repealing the Affordable Care Act called Obamacare and replacing it at a later date. This is endorsed by president Trump. This is the new Republican strategy in July 2017. Forty nine senators voted in favor of this repeal in 2015, when president Obama vetoed this legislation. Two more senators are expected to support repeal according to Ben Sasse.

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A Peking University economics professor who believes that China should take the best of western institutions not just its technologies and management makes his views public on the internet. He will be removed form his teaching position at Peking University by the end of this year. He is offered a teaching position at Wellesley College in Massachusetts in the U.S. Other Amercan Universities with ties to Chinese Universities have remained silent on his situation, says Xia Yeliang. His wife continues to work in accounting at the University. China's leaders see it as acceptable to work within the system to make improvements but not make the views public in the western media because this creates a bad impression of the party and the country, as Xia Yeliang is told by the party chief at Peking University.

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Kim Kyung-jae, aide to former president Kim Dae Jung, and reconciliation with the daughter of military backed president Park Chung Hee who ruled in the 1970's and suppressed dissent. Presidential candidate, Ms. Park Geun-hye, is reaching out to dissenters who suffered during her father's military regime. Much of the industrialized part of S. Korea is in the southeastern provinces, and Ms. Park's father pushed development in this region. There is a development gap with the southwestern provinces where much of the dissent to the military regime took place. The gap is still being healed many years later. Ms. Park's conservative party hopes to get 20% of the vote from the southwestern provinces with her efforts at reconciliation, up from the current conservative party president Lee Myung-bak who won 9% of the vote there. Moon Jae-in, the liberal candidate for president, is from the city of Busan in the southeastern provinces and hopes to increase his vote in the southeast to 40%.

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Fannie Mae will make a payment of $59.4 billion to the U.S.Treasury as a result of improvement of conditions in the housing markets that enable Fannie to writeup the value of devalued assets on its balance sheet. Fannie showed a profit of $8.1 billion for the first quarter of 2013 from its activities of guaranteeing and investing in home loans in the U.S. In 2008 the U.S. government bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the agencies received $117 billion in government assistance since then. With this $59.4 billion about $95 billion has been paid back to the U.S. Treasury. This also delays the debt ceiling deadline to Oct. 1, 2013 by generating more revenues for the U.S. Treasury in addition to higher tax revenues.

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A new study by the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation shows partisan politics will affect the new president in the U.S. in 2013, to the point of making it difficult to govern.

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This report by Martin in the NYT points out that Ohio no longer plays a critical role in U.S. presidential elections. It was critical for a Bush win over Gore, and president Obama carried it by 2 points against Romney in 2012. It is critical for Trump to win. For Hillary Clinton other states are gaining importance as they better reflect the demographic changes in the U.S. and the mix with minorities- states such as Georgia, N. Carolina, Colorado and Florida. Ohio has not seen an influx of Hispanics as other states, and is now more white, more evangelical voters, and reflects a mix that was prevalent earlier. 

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NBC News division brings back Andrew Lack 20 years later to run the division. Lack had success at NBC News during the days of Tom Brokaw at the news division. He faces a different situation now with the rise of digital media, the decline in ratings of MSNBC, and other problems including the Brian Williams episode. Lack worked at Sony Music, Bloomberg, and Voice of America, but was never at home the way he was at NBC News. At Bloomberg his goal of increasing viewership was never realized, and Bloomberg remains a small television channel.

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During the primaries Trump appealed to blue collar voters of a white working class that felt neglected by leaders and policies of both parties that did not seem to work for ordinary people. Having caught onto this early long before Republican candidates, Trump registered a series of wins in the Republican primaries. He continued this theme in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016, saying- "The forgotten men and women of our country- people who work but no longer have a voice: I am your voice." The idea was to couple this with the theme of law and order and put perception of Hillary Clinton as part of the rigged system of the past that Trump would change, with Clinton's legacy described in terms of "death, destruction, terrorism and weakness." As a change agent Trump described his entering the political arena in terms of coming into this election only to help blue collar people "so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves." The two themes for the rest of the election season- law and order, and blue collar lives- and who can best defend them a traditional Democratic politician with a fighting spirit for traditional Democratic values, or a blustery newcomer adept with slogans and the public mood and ironically representing the Democratic values of representing the working class to become the  Republican nominee, with the law and order theme thrown in. The voter or independent listening in to all this will hopefully ask what all this means. As the WSJ, July 19, 2016, pointed out in a recent look at economc policies under the two candidates- on Glass Steagall Act being reinstated to increase safety of the banking system that caused many of today's problems through the 2008 financial crisis both Trump and Clinton are similiar, on opposing trade agreements similiar except that Trump's bluster is a riskier approach, on infrastructure building similiar with Clinton's $275 billion plan spelled out out for source of financing and Trump's unclear as to source of financing. On immigration the candidates are different, on the minimum wage which impacts low income people Clinton supports $15 minimum wage and Trump has not taken a stand. On ISIS and the Middle East Clinton is in reality a hawk and not much difference in the candidates, on law and order more chance of divisions in the country with Trump than Clinton. Overall for the working class and blue collar voter his life will take a decade or more to rebuild, with both candidates commiting to go in that direction. And the bluster and ads to come- just that.  ...

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An average of major opinion polls compiled by Real Clear Politics website shows 50.5% of Americans opposed to the Obama U.S. health care law.