Archive

Archive for September, 2010
September 17th, 2010 at 8:28 am
Podcast: Campaign to Stop ‘Net Neutrality,’ Internet Regulation Heats Up

Interview with Seton Motley, Editor in Chief of CFIF’s StopNetRegulation.org, regarding the ongoing efforts to stop the Obama Administration’s attempt to regulate the Internet.

Listen to the interview here.

September 16th, 2010 at 10:11 am
Video – Driving the Car Into the Ditch: Obama Can’t Keep His Hands off the Auto Industry
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President Obama has claimed time and again that he doesn’t want to run the auto industry. But his actions tell a very different story…


September 14th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Liberals Larding Up Defense Bill with Illegal Immigrant Giveaways
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Proving, even in the midst of election season, that there’s no depths to which Harry Reid won’t sink, CNN reports:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday he will add the DREAM Act, a controversial immigration measure, to a defense policy bill the Senate will take up next week.

The decision means the defense bill, which often passes with bipartisan support, will be home to two major, thorny political issues – the other being the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Reid called the DREAM Act “really important” and said it should be passed because it provides a path to citizenship for young illegal immigrants who go to college or serve in the military. DREAM is an acronym for Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act.

So, let’s get this straight: at a time when illegal immigration has become such an epidemic that portions of Arizona have basically ceded their sovereignty — and at a time when federal entitlements are hemorrhaging out of control — the Senate Majority Leader wants to prioritize honor roll amnesty and a new entitlement for those who are here illegally (the DREAM Act allows illegal immigrants in American colleges to receive student loans and work study money)? And he’s willing to hold funding the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan hostage to it? The DREAM Act may be “really important” to Reid. To the rest of us, it looks “really irrelevant” and “really destructive”.

September 14th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
French Ban Islamic Burqas: Where’s Obama’s Outrage?
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So how do liberals pick and choose which French ideals they wish to impose on America, anyway?  Redistributionist economics?  Oui!  Reliance on nuclear power?  Heavens, no!

Now, America’s Sanctifier in Chief Barack Obama has another dilemma on his hands.  Mere days ago, Obama lectured Americans to accept on First Amendment grounds a mosque on real estate literally impacted by the 9/11 attacks.  Soon thereafter, Obama disregarded those supposed First Amendment non-negotiables in admonishing some rogue pastor against what he labeled the “stunt” of burning a Quran.  So what will this “citizen of the world” do now that the French Senate has voted 246-1 to outlaw Islamic veils in public?  Will his teleprompter side with the effete Europeans, or the always-combustible Islamic agitants he constantly seeks to placate?

September 13th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
9/11 Truther Plays Important Role in Ground Zero Mosque
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Over at the Investigate Project on Terrorism, an extensive investigative study has revealed that a close associate of Imam Faizal Abdul Rauf (the Muslim leader spearheading the Ground Zero Mosque project) has openly and aggressively claimed that the United States secretly perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on its own people.

Faiz Kahn, who helped found the American Society for Muslim Advancement (one of the groups pushing the mosque), and lead prayers at Imam Rauf’s mosque at least as recently as December, is a radical even by the exalted standards of the 9/11 truthers:

On June 3, 2006, Khan spoke at a 9/11 truth summit called “Revealing the Truth/Reclaiming our Future” in Chicago. In his remarks, he acknowledged that there is a militant Islamist movement, but “the most logical explanation” for 9/11 is that the hijackers were “working for us” in furtherance of a corporate-controlled schemes involving gigantic stock trades, billions of dollars in heroin sales and interest in Caspian Sea resources.

See the website for video that includes some of the most despicable lies you’ve yet heard about what really happened nine years ago.

September 13th, 2010 at 10:06 am
Kathleen Sebelius as Soviet Commissar?
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In Friday’s Liberty Update commentary “The ObamaCare Fit Hits the Shan,” we noted how quickly the negative consequences of ObamaCare are arriving in the form of higher health care spending and insurance rates.

Well, Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama’s Health and Human Services Secretary, seems to believe that she can terrify the economic laws of supply and demand into deference.  Attacking private health insurers for doing nothing more than adjusting their bottom lines to meet business realities imposed by ObamaCare mandates, Sebelius ordained:

There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases.  We will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes and increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections.”

Karen Ignagni, who leads America’s Health Insurance Plans, provided an Economics 101 primer that Sebelius should have received in college by saying, “It’s a basic law of economics that additional benefits incur additional costs, and the impact on premiums depends on the type and amount coverage policyholders had before.”

Simple economics aside, who does Sebelius think she is?  A Soviet-era commissar who can cow American citizens and businesses by thundering such threats?  Ms. Sebelius, you’re about to receive a true lesson in “zero tolerance” when Americans head to the ballots in November.

September 13th, 2010 at 9:14 am
Ramirez Cartoon: Speaking of Book Burning…
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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.

September 11th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Obama More Hoover Than Carter?

National Review’s Jonah Goldberg makes a good case that the real analogue to President Barack Obama’s increasingly inept tenure in office is Herbert Hoover.  As political scientist Gordon Lloyd makes clear in his anthology, The Two Faces of Liberalism, Hoover was not the ‘market fundamentalist’ FDR and other liberals like to claim.  He, like Obama, meddled relentlessly in the market causing it to stagnate.  When FDR’s frenetic policymaking was mistaken for good economics, Hoover got the blame while his successor got the credit.

Goldberg sees a similarity in the offing:

For reasons fair and unfair, the Great Depression discredited laissez-faire economics for a generation or more. Hoover, who was hardly the “market fundamentalist” FDR made him out to be, suffered largely from the (bad) luck of the draw, giving Democrats a chance to argue for a new deal of the cards. For reasons fair and unfair, Obama, who inherited a bad recession and made it worse, every day looks more like a modern-day Hoover, whining about his problems, rather than an FDR cheerily getting things done. Inadequate to the task, Obama is discrediting the statism he was elected to restore.

The punch line? When the economy finally rebounds, it might be just in time for Obama’s replacement to get all the credit.

September 11th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Ground Zero Imam Threatens Violence If Opposed

In a Wednesday night interview with CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf engaged in the following exchange:

Asked if it’s really a good idea to go ahead with his plans to build a mosque and Islamic center at an address so close to Ground Zero that it has become a flash point, Rauf gave a reply that boils down to a threat. Rauf said that if his Cordoba House does not get built on his chosen site near Ground Zero, “The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack.”

Citing Muslim attacks on Danish embassies during the riots in 2006 over Mohamed cartoons Rauf went on to say that the result of this current “crisis” could be that “anger will explode in the Muslim world.” That, he said, could lead to “something which could really become very, very, very dangerous indeed.”

Forbes columnist Claudia Rosett rightfully argues that Rauf’s position amounts to blackmail: either let me build my $100 million mosque at Ground Zero or risk other attacks.

A lot of hand wringing has been indulged making this decision primarily one about prudence instead of law.  That’s silly.  The Ground Zero mosque isn’t about the First Amendment; it’s about national security.  Rauf just admitted as much with his threat of violence.

The U.S. Constitution requires the U.S. government to protect citizens from enemies; both foreign and domestic.  It’s time to stop acting like the Constitution handcuffs America into ceding our land to a man fronting a group – Cordoba House – whose name recalls the farthest Islamic expansion in European territory.

We’re better than that.

September 10th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
The Capitalist Parable

Here’s another proof that the most insightful thinking on the Right usually comes from those outside the political establishment.  Fr. James Schall, a political science professor at Georgetown University, draws out an important lesson from a familiar story in the Gospel of Matthew.  Known as “The Workers in the Vineyard,” this narrative of Jesus’s shows the owner of the vineyard paying the same daily wage to laborers who worked different amounts of hours.  When the workers who had labored the longest complained to the owner – a symbol of God – he asks the grumblers why they think he shouldn’t be generous.  Per Schall:

Modern theories of society hesitate to allow room for generosity. The owner’s property does not belong to him; it belongs to the community. Here, everyone gets only what is just. No room for generosity is allowed. All ownership that would allow for generosity is unjust. The early workers were deprived of what was rightfully theirs, even if they agreed on a set wage for the day.

In a state built on “rights” and “justice,” we find little room for generosity and abundance. Everything is controlled by the state. No one receives more than others. Envy rules. The capitalist parable, as I call it, when spelled out, deals with God’s ways with us. We can save our souls to the very end, even the worst of us. What is it to me, who have borne the heat of the day? In the divine owner’s contract with us, we must accept one condition, namely, His generosity. Many a just man refuses it. He will work forever only on his own terms.

Conservatives often intone the superior virtue of the private sector in healing the ills of society.  How refreshing to read an interpretation of Scripture that evidences the claim’s truth.

H/T: Jared Watson

September 10th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Right Network Steps Forward

Television star Kelsey Grammer is headlining a new entertainment project.  For those looking for a witty, assertive voice to propel the conservative movement into the 21st century, Right Network is worth a watch:

September 10th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Video: Remembering 9-11 from the Perspective of 9-12
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As Americans commemorate the anniversary 9-11, CFIF’s Renee Giachino stresses the need to remember more than the agony of that dreadful day nine years ago.  In this week’s Freedom Minute, Giachino expresses the need to remember the defiance and sense of purpose that we found on September 12.

 

September 10th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
This Week’s Liberty Update
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September 10th, 2010 at 11:59 am
JFK vs. Obama on Tax Cuts
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Remember how two years ago, Barack Obama was the most exciting, intellectually inventive president since John F. Kennedy? Maybe it’s time for 44 to compare his tax policies to 35:

 

September 10th, 2010 at 10:15 am
CBO: 2010 Deficit Already Reaches $1.3 Trillion
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This week, the Congressional Budget Office announced that the nation’s budget deficit has already reached $1.3 trillion, with another month to go in the 2010 fiscal year.  At 9.1% of gross domestic product (GDP), that makes it the second-largest deficit outside the World War II years, second only to last year’s deficit that reached 9.9% of GDP (mainly because GDP was lower in 2009 than 2010).  In a generous act of understatement, the CBO attributed this mind-boggling amount to lower revenues and “elevated spending associated with the economic downturn and the policies implemented in response to it.”  Another round of “stimulus,” anyone?

To put that in perspective, take a look at this straightforward bar graph.  President Bush’s final deficit was approximately $450 billion, which Obama tripled in his first year alone.  Now, Obama’s second deficit continues that unbearable amount.  Furthermore, efforts to scapegoat Bush for Obama’s first deficit fail, because such things as the $800 billion “stimulus” was Obama’s initiative, not Bush’s.

September 10th, 2010 at 9:17 am
Ramirez Cartoon: Having the Right Doesn’t Make It Right
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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.

September 10th, 2010 at 8:28 am
Podcast: Former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Discusses National Security Implications of the WikiLeaks Controversy
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In a recent interview with CFIF, Jed Babbin, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush and author of several bestselling books, discusses the national security implications of the WikiLeaks controversy and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s offer to meet with President Obama.

Listen to the interview here.

September 9th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
How Greeks Killed Their Own Civil Society

It isn’t often that we in America get reminded about the importance of reasonably enforcing tax laws.  Thanks to the Greek experiment in systematic tax evasion that undergirded that country’s financial collapse, we can all rest assured that a sustained culture of lying leads to the death of civil society.

The Greek state was not just corrupt but also corrupting. Once you saw how it worked you could understand a phenomenon which otherwise made no sense at all: the difficulty Greek people have saying a kind word about one another. Individual Greeks are delightful: funny, warm, smart, and good company. I left two dozen interviews saying to myself, “What great people!” They do not share the sentiment about one another: the hardest thing to do in Greece is to get one Greek to compliment another behind his back. No success of any kind is regarded without suspicion. Everyone is pretty sure everyone is cheating on his taxes, or bribing politicians, or taking bribes, or lying about the value of his real estate. And this total absence of faith in one another is self-reinforcing. The epidemic of lying and cheating and stealing makes any sort of civic life impossible; the collapse of civic life only encourages more lying, cheating, and stealing. Lacking faith in one another, they fall back on themselves and their families.

To read more about the fantastical confluence of events that bankrupted Greece, read Michael Lewis’s Vanity Fair article here.

September 9th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Barack Obama, Anticolonialist

Best-selling author Dinesh D’Souza has an eye-popping theory that tries to explain President Barack Obama’s approaches to domestic and foreign policy.  In short, Obama appropriated a dream from his father that America – and the business leaders that make it prosperous – are to blame for the world’s problems.  And thus, they should be brought down a peg (or ten) to equalize the global ledger.

It may seem incredible to suggest that the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. is espoused by his son, the President of the United States. That is what I am saying. From a very young age and through his formative years, Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction. He came to view America’s military as an instrument of neocolonial occupation. He adopted his father’s position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder. Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America. In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America’s power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe’s resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet.

For Obama, the solutions are simple. He must work to wring the neocolonialism out of America and the West. And here is where our anticolonial understanding of Obama really takes off, because it provides a vital key to explaining not only his major policy actions but also the little details that no other theory can adequately account for.

Click here to read the entire article.

September 9th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
So Now Obama Recognizes the Value of Propriety and Accommodating Others’ Sensibilities?
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Regardless of one’s opinions toward the Ground Zero mosque or the Florida pastor’s on-again/off-again Quran roast, one must be impressed by the speed at which President Obama and mosque supporters suddenly discovered the value of propriety, discretion and accommodating others’ sensibilities.

As we’ve said here all along, having the right to do something doesn’t necessarily make it the right thing to do.  Obama, however, could hardly contain himself from endorsing the Ground Zero mosque simply because people have a First Amendment right to build it.  Now, however, Obama flip-flops and emphasizes in an ABC interview that the Florida pastor should stifle his First Amendment right to burn Qurans in the name of respect for others.  You certainly possess a wonderful sense of consistency, Mr. President.