In over two decades, Debbie and I each have over 100,000 miles logged on our family of Harleys. We have traveled over a lot of North America: from Newport R.I. to Key West Florida and back; twice to Sturgis Bike Week in South Dakota; all over the old west in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Colorado; several trips through Yellowstone and Glacier National Park; western Canada, including the Canadian Rockies and Banff; Kingston, Ontario; and the Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.
This June we hit every state in New England while tracking what I have explained to you is a continued weak economic setting. Folk are concerned and nervous for good reason. The employment situation stinks. Even here in blue-state New England, business owners know that they have been bamboozled by the Obama administration and want him and his crowd out.
But on to some lighter news. You just cannot do better than the coast of Maine for a summer or early fall getaway. We now start our coast of Maine trip in Portland and work our way north to Camden, Lincolnville, Trenton Bridge, and Bar Harbour. We’re on the bikes, but otherwise, I suggest you fly into Portland, just minutes from the Portland Harbor Inn. Your place for oysters, lobster and red fish is the Old Port Sea Grill. We go often for lunch or dinner and always come away happy. Over a decade ago, Debbie and I started shipping caviar and scallops from Browne Trading, just down the hill from The Portland Harbor Inn. More recently we have been ordering the best swordfish in the world right off Linda Greenlaw’s boat. Places like Browne Trading and Harbor Fish Market offer tremendous displays of fish, including the increasingly rare East Coast Halibut. But the real secret of Browne Trading is its French Burgundy/Rhone Valley wine section. I’ve not encountered a better French wine selection in New England. My only other comparison is the great new wine shop next to Blue Provence restaurant in Naples, Florida. I am told that Browne Trading is working hard to get up a website and the permits required to mail their fine wines. If you live in a Burgundy wine wasteland, like most Americans do, you may soon be able to deal easily with a class A Burgundy wine source. Browne will need a copy of your driver’s license and your email to get you started. I would simply email Browne Trading and inquire how to set yourself up.
After Portland, we usually head to Camden, where, this trip, we stayed three nights as the weather inland was beastly hot, making refuge on the coast of Maine a serious winner. Lucky you if you can make it to Camden, among the most beautiful small towns in America. There is no shortage of great lodging. Two excellent inns, both with a super location right on the harbor in Camden, are the Camden Harbor Inn and Grand Harbor Inn. CHI has a great restaurant called Natalie’s, with a comfortable bar and porch dining with views of Mt. Battie that will make you happy you booked there. The Grand Harbor is just a couple of blocks down the hill directly on the harbor. The inn, a locally owned 12-room boutique inn, is a stone’s throw from the Schooner Appledore II, which resides in Key West in winter months. It was a great escape from this summer’s brutal heat to sail on this 86-foot wooden windjammer around Penobscot Bay and appreciate Camden’s magnificent coastline from the water. Atlantica, another of our favored Camden restaurants, is directly across from the Grand Harbor. A short walk from both inns is a funky looking little place with a creative French-influenced menu. Francine Bistro served up for me the best two food selections (see my photos below) of our entire trip. Be forwarned, however, at times the volume of the music can be overwhelming. 
 
  
In installment three of my Harley/travel series, I’ll fill you in on lobster/steamers heaven as we swing north on U.S. 1 out of Portland. As a point of interest, Debbie and I have been on the Harley’s to both the most northern point of the contiguous U.S. 1 (above Caribou) and the most southern point (just beyond the Green Parrot) in Key West. Click back next week as our Maine coast trip heads north.
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Your state could make history with Obamacare—the kind of history you can be proud of. Your state has so much power that the Obama regime will do whatever it can to make sure the federal government trumps it. I’m talking about control over money in the form of tax credits and outlays. For without money handouts, Obamacare will break apart like a ship hung up on the rocks in a Nor’easter.
Here’s the rub. According to Obamacare, tax credits and outlays are only available to participants in state exchanges, not federal ones. The Obama administration recognized this major oversight after the law was written. So the regime proposed an IRS rule to allow tax credits and outlays for federal exchanges.
As Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, has pointed out, it’s possible the next president could issue an executive order to forbid the IRS from offering premium assistance in federal exchanges. Mitt Romney would then leave it up to the states to determine the fate of Obamacare. For without IRS or federal assistance, the exchanges won’t have enough participants paying in. And if they’re never set up at the state level, the federal exchange will die on the limb without the lifeblood of federal money. That’s why it’s so important that Romney win.
Stop cooperating with the enemy! These governors are taking a stand.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal:
We’re not expanding Medicaid. We’re not implementing the health exchange. Instead we’re going to do everything we can to elect Mitt Romney to repeal this bad law and replace it.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker:
We’re going to wait. For people here in Wisconsin and plenty of other states across the country, we want to put the power back in the hands of the people at the state and the local level, not be driven by a federal mandate.
And in Florida:
Florida Won’t Implement Optional Portions of Obamacare
On July 1, 2012
After reviewing the impact of the Supreme Court ruling that gave Florida the flexibility to legally opt out of implementing one of the costliest provisions of the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as “ObamaCare,” Governor Rick Scott has decided two major provisions in the law are inconsistent with his mission to grow jobs for Floridians, make sure there is adequate funding for education, and to keep the cost of living as low as possible.
The Affordable Care Act does not require states to take any action before the 2012 general election, and the full law does not take effect until January 1, 2014, provided it is not repealed before that date. Governor Scott, like other state governors, has made it clear that even though Florida will opt out of implementing two major, yet optional, provisions, should there be any legal obligation to implement ObamaCare, the state will follow the law, and if ObamaCare is not repealed by January 1, 2014, Florida will implement and comply with required sections of the Affordable Care Act.
Florida will opt out of spending approximately $1.9 billion more taxpayer dollars required to implement a massive entitlement expansion of the Medicaid program. A second provision in the Affordable Care Act gives Governor Scott the flexibility to opt out of building insurance “exchanges.”
“Floridians are interested in jobs and economic growth, a quality education for their children, and keeping the cost of living low,” Governor Scott said. “Neither of these major provisions in ObamaCare will achieve those goals, and since Florida is legally allowed to opt out, that’s the right decision for our citizens.”
It is important to note that Florida already has health care safety net programs for those with the greatest need, including assistance for families with incomes up to 133% of the poverty line, and Florida KidCare to ensure no child goes without health care in Florida.
But even though the federal government has promised to initially pay 100% of the increase in Medicaid payments for the first three years of ObamaCare, the burden increasingly shifts to Florida taxpayers in future years. Medicaid, which has been growing for years at three-and-a-half times as fast as Florida’s general revenue, will soon grow even faster under ObamaCare, and education funding will be adversely impaired if we do not control the growth in Medicaid spending.
Another provision in the Affordable Care Act gives Governor Scott the flexibility to opt out of building insurance “exchanges” that will result in higher insurance premium costs – more money out of the pockets of Florida’s families and businesses. The Congressional Budget Office has said that insurance premiums available on state exchanges will rise another 10-13% under the rules of ObamaCare. In states already operating insurance exchanges set up under similar rules, health care premiums are substantially more expensive.
“The real problem with health care is that costs continue to rise. That’s why I believe we need more choice for patients, more free-market competition, increased accountability for providers, and incentives for personal responsibility,” said Governor Scott. “These are the things we can do that will hold down health care costs and make it affordable for more people. Unfortunately, ObamaCare care doesn’t do any of those things. In Florida, we are focused on becoming the number one place for businesses so that Floridians have more jobs.”
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 Of the many names being paraded before the American public as possible vice presidential nominees for the GOP ticket, none is better than Governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal of Louisiana. Jindal is a proven executive who has implemented real reform in Louisiana.
Grover Norquist, in an op-ed on Politico.com, made a strong case for Jindal by passionately promoting Jindal’s success in education reform.
When it comes to education reform, Obama has offered gimmickry, with contests and calls to throw more money at the problem, lest he upset the teachers union bosses who help bankroll Democratic campaigns.
Jindal, in stark contrast, last month signed one of the most significant school choice bills in U.S. history. It allows 380,000 students from low- and middle-income households across Louisiana to escape substandard schools. Sadly, Obama’s 2013 budget would trap 1,600 low-income Washington, D.C., children in failing schools by ending the District’s successful and popular school voucher program. Students in the D.C. voucher program have a 91 percent graduation rate, compared with 55 percent for union-run D.C. public schools. Meanwhile, Jindal just created the nation’s second-largest school voucher program, second only to the one Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels signed last year.
While Obama has doomed the future of children from some of the District’s poorest sections, Jindal has offered hope and opportunity to hundreds of thousands of families — empowering parents, rewarding success and instituting accountability.
Here’s how David Frum at CNN describes Jindal: “A brilliant policy mind with an inspirational life story who has run an effective government in corruption-tainted Louisiana. He can talk data with Romney and credibly sit at the kitchen tables of the struggling middle class.”
In Running Mate Revelation on The American Spectator, Quin Hillyer lists a panoply of Jindal attributes that make him a great choice for VP.
No single person better combines the ability to excite the Republican “base” with the breadth of resumé experience, the reformist record, and the proven ability of crisis management than does Jindal. At age 25 he rescued Louisiana’s state health-care system from Medicaid-induced collapse; he helped forge a national Medicare solution (along Paul Ryan’s later lines) that won over Democratic moderates like John Breaux and Bob Kerrey but fell short when Bill Clinton pulled the plug during the Lewinsky mess; he ran Louisiana’s second-largest system of colleges; he served as the number two guy at the federal Department of Health and Human Services; he served three years in Congress and emerged from Hurricane Katrina as the only Louisiana politician with his stature enhanced by his highly effective responses; and he has been the most successful conservative reformer (and the only re-elected one) ever to serve as Louisiana’s governor. As governor he pushed through some needed ethics reformed, pared state government, kept taxes low, handled the BP oil spill superbly, and pushed through (partly in his first term, partly in his second) a series of education reforms (expanding choice and improving accountability) that, combined, probably outstrip even those of Florida’s Jeb Bush and Wisconsin’s Tommy Thompson as the boldest and best school improvements in modern American history.
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 The M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System (SASS) is the U.S. Army’s latest medium caliber sniper rifle. The 7.62mm SASS delivers a new level of long range precision rapid fire that enables execution of operational missions not possible using manually operated weapon systems.
High capacity, quick change magazines enable ammo selection optimization in both the suppressed and unsuppressed firing modes. The semi-automatic firing M110 has increased sniper rate of fire, precision and lethality against personnel and light material targets, especially in target rich environments and scenarios requiring multiple follow-up shots. The SASS is also the first U.S. Army weapon system that integrates an optimized quick attach/detach sound suppressor to aid with Warfighter survivability by reducing weapon firing signature.
Specifications:
M110 SASS- P/N: 24123
CALIBER-7.62 x 51mm
RATE OF FIRE-Semi-Auto
VELOCITY-2,571 fps (175 gr. M118LR) 784 meters p/ second
MAGAZINE TYPE / CAP.-Standard 10/20 Rounds
WEIGHT (w/o MAGAZINE)-16 lbs / 7 Kgs
LENGTH w/ STOCK RET.-46 3/4″ / 119 cm
LENGTH w/ STOCK EXT.-47 1/4″ / 120 cm
BBL LENGTH-20″ / 51 cm
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Of all possible outcomes in the Obamacare case, a ruling that found the law constitutional based on congressional Commerce Clause power would have been the worst. This was the approach the four left leaning justices would have preferred, but Chief Justice Roberts, who chose to expand Congress’s power in a different direction, prevented such a ruling.
Rather than grant Congress blanket control over every American via the Commerce Clause, Chief Justice Roberts bestowed on Congress the power to punish Americans for bad behavior. By actively rewriting Congress’s law as a tax, Roberts saved Obamacare from the quick death it rightly deserved and expanded the scope of congressional taxing power infinitely. Congress can now tax anything it likes, or doesn’t like, for that matter.
Some apologists on the right have promoted the idea that Roberts protected the Constitution by writing his decision narrowly, blocking further abuses of the Commerce Clause. This seems to miss the point. By drawing a line in the sand on the Commerce Clause, Roberts has tacitly validated all previous Commerce Clause abuses. And by creating a new precedent for the taxing power, Roberts has unleashed a Pandora’s box of potential constitutional distortions.
By attempting to “split-the-baby,” Roberts has given the left a new precedent for federal power with which to burden Americans. In the past, every attempt to compromise with big government proponents has left small government types with a headache. The perfect example is Senator Orrin Hatch’s belief that he “rolled Ted Kennedy” on negotiations for SCHIP. Hatch called SCHIP a success because it didn’t have everything the left wanted. Talk about not seeing the forest through the trees. Hatch stamped his approval on a massive expansion of government and was foolish enough to think he won. Apologists for Chief Justice Roberts are echoing Hatch’s ignorance today.
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