Freedom Line Blog

In the second update today on items I wrote about last week, it turns out that what I described as the “heroic organization True the Vote” was one of those conservative groups targeted by the IRS. The Washington Post, in an eye-opening report co-written by my old friend Juliet Eilperin (yes, conservatives can have liberal friends), confirmed the apparent abuse of True the Vote  while showing the IRS scandal extends well beyond “low level IRS employees in Cincinnati.”

True the Vote is dedicated to careful and fair application of voting laws. It should be praised, not targeted for abuse by rogue bureaucrats (or by the administration that employs them).

My column last week included yet another update on the long-running dispute between the oil giant Chevron and a group of apparently underhanded plaintiffs’ lawyers with regard to a rather obviously bogus lawsuit involving alleged Ecuadoran environmental damage.

Just a little update: Now Chevron isn’t just fighting back against the main plaintiffs’ lawyers and against corrupt judges in Ecuador, but also against the major DC law/lobby firm Patton-Boggs. This is serious stuff. Not to pre-judge the outcome of this counter-suit, but the very act of suing Patton-Boggs directly is a major and, I think, unusual step. Usually it’s not the firms themselves that get sued. Then again, rarely has a company been so abused as Chevron has been by the long-running lawsuit, so it should be no surprise that Chevron is looking absolutely everywhere it can to be “made whole.”

On the underlying case (not the specific claims against P-B), Chevron of course continues to prove its points, again and again and again. Chevron clearly has been wronged, and everybody, including Patton-Boggs, should acknowledge as much.

Newly installed Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint, former senator from South Carolina and favorite of conservatives just about everywhere, was in Mobile, AL last week to give  a speech for the superb Alabama Policy Institute. I wrote about it here.

But one part of my interview I did not write about last week (because it didn’t fit the main theme I was writing about) should give pause to those so-called conservatives, mostly younger ones, who seem blithely unconcerned (or at least only marginally concerned) with the continuing cutbacks in the U.S. defense budget.

I asked DeMint if he was more or less satisfied with how the battle over the budget “sequester” had played out. Frankly, I was not even thinking about defense, even though I have written that Republicans should have moved heaven and earth to protect defense from most of the effects of sequestration. When I asked the question, my assumption was that he would say he was largely satisfied with this interim step in the ongoing budget battles; my idea was to ask a follow-up question, based on the details of his response, about the bigger pictures of the larger, long-term budget problem.

I give that context only to show that I did not prompt DeMint in the slightest about defense. But here’s what he said, with his first words in response to my question:

“No, I’m not happy because so much was taken out of defense.” Then, after about three sentences to say he also didn’t think sequestration did enough to restrain spending on matters other than defense, he returned to his original point: “We do need to go back and figure out if we have enough money for modernization of our defense forces. I don’t think we do.”

This is significant. DeMint is well-known as a spending cutter, a hero to small-government advocates, a budget balancer extraordinaire. Yet, given the chance to crow about how Republicans had won a political skirmish against Obama with regard to sequestration, DeMint’s first thought instead turned toward protecting our nation from foreign threats. Tea Partiers, younger conservatives, and the increasing strain of conservatives who tend toward isolationism all should pay heed.

The fact of the matter, as Frederick W. Kagan wrote in the May 6 National Review (and as the good folks at The Weekly Standard have repeatedly argued in theme if not in the following specific examples), the sequester directly has caused “the cancellation of scheduled deployments of eight U.S. Navy ships, including an aircraft carrier destined for the Persian Gulf, and the grounding of 17 U.S. Air Force squadrons,” resulting in “a devastating blow to American global credibility just when our enemies and friends are watching most closely.” We thus have “created a window in 2013 during which the United States will have no aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf,” thus leading the Iranian Revolutionary Guard publication Mashregh to exult that this move gives the lie to any perceived threat of American military force (if Iran suddenly brings to full fruition a nuclear weapons program).

Kagan described plenty of other dangerous effects on our defense forces as a result of sequestration, and explained why it is that President Obama has far less ability to move funds among Pentagon accounts (and thus to avoid some of these ill effects) than is widely assumed.

Kagan is correct, as is DeMint. It’s long past time for conservatives to start again recalling, and acting on, those once-prominent parts of our beliefs, growing from our Goldwater-Reagan roots, that always have placed a strong national defense posture front and center among public-policy imperatives.

Sally Pipes identifies an “escape hatch” for small businesses trying to avoid the costly employer mandates threatening employers with costly insurance premiums or fines:

A RAND analysis found that a fifth of firms with 50-200 workers had self-insured by 2010, the year Obamacare became law — up from 14 percent of such companies in 2006.

A survey by Munich Health North America found that 82 percent of health insurance executives report seeing growing interest in self-funded coverage among employers. A California-based benefits consulting firm that helps companies self-insure told Kaiser Health News that its business has doubled in the past six months. And Cigna says that it saw self-coverage for small businesses grow by a fifth last year.

Companies with younger, healthier workforces are leading the way. After all, with their population of low-risk employees, they have the most to gain. And that’s bad news for Obamacare’s exchanges.

The problem for ObamaCare is that the only way health insurance premiums will be (theoretically) affordable is if legions of young, healthy people join the exchanges’ insurance pools. That’s because they are needed to pay into the system so that older and sicker people can draw down the benefits.

But if small businesses opt to self-insure – especially if they are newer businesses more likely to employ younger and healthier workers – then that will drain the ObamaCare pools of the very people who will make them (barely) affordable.

With this in mind, don’t be surprised to see an IRS or HHS rule come down that prohibits self-insurance to prop up ObamaCare’s exchange pools.

As with the so-called “family glitch,” it’s a ploy the Obama administration will be ready to use if its slapdash law continues to produce embarrassing unintended consequences.

(Note: This is the first of either three or four blog posts coming today, on different subjects. LOTS going on. Please keep coming back to this site today and tomorrow….)

Okay, first, there are several important developments regarding Tom Perez, whose nomination for Labor Secretary is slated, after several delays, for a committee vote this week.

First, Republican opposition to Perez seems to be stiffening, with several senators coming out definitively, or in some cases more strongly than they already have, against his nomination. Most significant was the stout statement last week by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.:

“He is a committed ideologue who appears willing, quite frankly, to say or do anything to achieve his ideological ends.

“His willingness, time and again, to bend or ignore the law and to misstate the facts in order to advance his far-left ideology lead me and others to conclude that he’d continue to do so if he were confirmed to another, and much more consequential, position of public trust……

“Mr. Perez, however, does not merely push the envelope; all too often, he circumvents or ignores a law with which he disagrees.

“A few examples:

“As a member of the Montgomery County Council, Mr. Perez pushed through a county policy that encouraged the circumvention of federal immigration law. Later, as head of the federal government’s top voting-rights watchdog, he refused to protect the right to vote for Americans of all races, in violation of the very law he was charged to enforce. In the same post at the Department of Justice, Mr. Perez directed the federal government to sue against the advice of career attorneys at his own office. In another case involving a Florida woman who was lawfully exercising her First Amendment right to protest an abortion clinic, the federal judge who threw out Mr. Perez’s lawsuit said he was ‘at a loss as to why the government chose to prosecute this particular case’ in the first place.

“This is what pushing the envelope means in the case of Mr. Perez: a flippant and dismissive attitude about the boundaries that everybody else has to follow for the sake of the liberal causes he believes in.

“In short, it means a lack of respect for the rule of law – and a lack of respect for the need of those in positions of power to follow it…..

“[He is] a crusading ideologue whose conviction about his own rightness on the issues leads him to believe the law does not apply to him. Unbound by the rules that apply to everyone else, Mr. Perez seems to view himself as free to employ whatever means at his disposal, legal or otherwise, to achieve his ideological goals.

“To say this is problematic would be an understatement.

McConnell is hardly the only Republican senator to speak out. The list now includes Minority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, and Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, along with previously announced opposition by Louisiana’s David Vitter.

NOW, PLEASE NOTE THIS: The single biggest issue in the short term should be Perez’ refusal to honor valid congressional subpoenas, about actions of his that certainly appear to be flagrantly illegal. And even Democrat Elijah Cummings agrees that Perez’s refusal should not stand:

Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, top Democrat on the committee that held the hearing, yesterday joined Representative Darrell Issa of California, the committee chairman, in sending letter to Perez requesting that he provide all personal e-mails used to conduct official business that were subpoenaed by the panel last month, and respond by the end of this week.

It is illegal for bureaucrats to use private email for government business. It is illegal for bureaucrats to ignore a congressional subpoena (except in certain, severely limited circumstances when officially claiming executive privilege, which cannot be the case here). It boggles the mind that somebody could still even have a chance of confirmation who has done both (and continues to do the latter). And it is astonishing, or should be astonishing, that the establishment media hasn’t heavily criticized Perez for these violations.

Also, former whistleblower Christian Adams is out with one more good argument about the the thuggishness of Mr. Perez, who abuses his authority at every turn:

When local sheriffs made the mistake of asking for guidance from Perez about how to implement the Alabama immigration law, Perez threatened them in a meeting. Memo to state and local officials everywhere: don’t ask for guidance from the DOJ Civil Rights Division. The radicals running the place will take advantage of your good faith and make demands of you that the law does not support.

Perez has also threatened election officials in Alabama, threatening to “bury” the state ”with paper” if Alabama did not give in. This is typical of the would-be Labor secretary. Under oath before Congress, he is all smiles, sunshine, and bluebirds; behind closed doors he is a thuggish progressive bureaucrat comfortable wielding power despite what the law says.

Adams will be speaking down here in Mobile next week to the local chapter of the Federalist Society. He promises to have much more to say about Perez during his remarks.

It is also worth reviewing a statement on the nomination by Judicial Watch, whose work has done so much to uncover the various examples of Perez’ perfidy.

Also, Hans von Spakovsky eviscerates Perez’ excuse for using his private emails, here.

Finally, even a youth organization is coming out against Perez, on pure policy grounds. See the statement of Generation Opportunity, here.

Benghazi…  The IRS…  The DOJ snooping on the AP…

Boy, those Second Amendment advocates and skeptics of sweeping federal background check legislation are a real bunch of paranoid nuts, eh?

Let’s see.  The federal government gathering sensitive medical and personal data, maintaining it in some vast and surely non-secure database and able to modify the definition of who is and is not allowed to purchase a firearm pursuant to the Second Amendment’s individual right to keep and bear arms.  What could ~possibly~ go wrong here?  This is one of the heretofore underemphasized aspects of the onslaught of breaking Obama Administration scandals, but a valuable one going forward in the Second Amendment debate.

On the heels of a Washington Post report that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is actively soliciting health industry executives for six- to seven-figure “donations” to help publicize ObamaCare, the New York Times reveals how much she’s netted in pledges so far: $10.5 million.

And that’s just from two groups. One is the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation which bills itself as the largest public health philanthropy. It pledged $10 million. The other is the for-profit tax preparation company H&R Block who, according to the Times, “sees a large role for itself in helping low- and middle-income people apply for tax credits that can be used to buy private health insurance.” It promised $500,000 for the propaganda outreach effort.

An unbiased observer could look at this and easily see at least the probability if not the certainty of a quid pro quo arrangement where payment to an HHS-backed initiative now means preferential treatment later.

And remember, these two transactions are only the tip of the iceberg. Once more health industry entities confirm their involvement Sebelius’ project we’ll be able to see which firms will reap the lion’s share of benefits of ObamaCare’s corrupt pay-to-play scheme.

Crony capitalism is alive and well in the Obama Administration.

Earlier this year Michael Barone catalogued a litany of abuses to the rule of law perpetuated under the Obama Administration. “Gangster Government” is the term Barone coined to describe the behavior.

As of Friday, Barone needs to update his list.

Sarah Kliff broke the news that Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, has been calling health care executives, “asking them to make large financial donations to help with the effort to implement President Obama’s landmark health-care law…”

Imagine the conversation. A health care CEO gets a personal call from the chief regulator of his business suggesting that the company and the people it employs make financial donations to promote a law administered by the regulator.

Sounds like a suggestion that can’t be refused, right?

As Barone would say, this is Gangster Government.

Republicans in Congress need to push back hard on this abuse of power by Sebelius.

The people running businesses are there to make profits, not spend precious resources on ruinous fights with thugs spending taxpayer money.

If Sebelius can get away with coercing businesses to “donate” money to promote a law that increases her power over them, an awful precedent will be set. She – and any of her successors – will be able to tax, fine and now “fundraise” the very people they regulate.

Fail to pay enough, and say goodbye to your livelihood.

Congress needs to put a stop to Sebelius’ abuse of power. Now.

For many months now, the excellent U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-VA, has been calling for the appointment of a special “select” committee to investigate all aspects of the 9/11 catastrophe in Benghazi, Libya. In the wake of this week’s explosive hearings, Wolf renewed his call today in a letter to Speaker John Boehner. His argument always had made sense: “A thorough inquiry will require witnesses from across government – including the Defense Department, State Department, Intelligence Community, Justice Department and even the White House.  Only a Select Committee would be able to bring the cross-jurisdictional expertise and subpoena authority to compel answers from these agencies.” Also: “It’s worth restating that the committee would be bipartisan, thereby putting an end to misguided criticism from some that this investigation is only being done for political reasons.”

Wolf’s arguments always have made sense. It’s not that Chairman Darrel Issa’s committee has been doing a bad job — far from it — but it is just a reality that the media has treated Issa’s inquiry as being partisan, and also that a select committee would have the advantages of sole focus and of cross-jurisdictional authority.

Today, the Wall Street Journal endorsed the idea, and it closed with a particularly strong argument:

“Mr. Boehner said on Thursday that the administration should release its email communications on Benghazi, but it won’t do so unless they are subpoenaed. Frank Wolf, one of the House’s most senior members, has it right. Benghazi’s explanation deserves the best effort elected officials can give it, and the right vehicle is a Select Committee with subpoena power and deposition authority.”

Those emails, by the way, are almost certainly the key. Boehner has been right to focus on them. As Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said in the past 24 hours, what really is important is not just whether there was a cover-up, but what was being covered up. What more can we learn about the State Department refusing multiple requests for added security in the months before the assault, and was the White House involved in those decisions. And, with what is more likely to have White House involvement, what about the now-confirmed story that rescuers were ready to at least try to fly to Benghazi, but were told to stand down? Who told them to stand down, and why? And where was Obama during all of this? Sleeping? Planning his fund-raising remarks for his trip to Las Vegas?

Anyway, a select committee can best look into all of this. As usual, Frank Wolf is right.

In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses the loopholes and false promises in the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill and why the politicians in Washington are not and should not be trusted on border security.

A new Gallup poll provides more proof that the liberal fixation on gun control and immigration reform isn’t even on the Top Ten list of the most important issues for Americans:

This suggests to me that one way to inject issues 1-10 into the deliberations about gun control and immigration is for Republicans in Congress to ask rhetorically, “Why are we discussing restricting guns and legalizing illegal immigrants when 1) 86 percent of Americans want us help create jobs and help the economy grow, 2) 81 percent want us to make the government work more efficiently and fix our schools, and 3) 77 percent want us to address the financial problems with Social Security and Medicare?”

Rather than letting Democrats pick the two issues that most divide Republicans, GOP members of Congress should be picking issues that divide the opposition. Any of Gallup’s Top Ten are natural strong points for Republicans, and especially conservatives. All they need to do is pick one and start reframing the debate.

Now.

Setting aside the horrendously bad policy outcomes embedded in the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill, some elite Republicans still support the measure because they think voting in favor of mass legalization will help the GOP win over enough Hispanic voters to reclaim the White House in 2016.

Alas, it just isn’t so.

Using an innovative electoral calculator created by polling expert Nate Silver, Byron York shows that Mitt Romney “would have had to win 73 percent of the Hispanic vote to prevail in 2012.”

For comparison, Barack Obama won 71 percent.

In 2004, George W. Bush, to date the Republican presidential candidate with the highest ever Hispanic vote share, netted only 44 percent.

It’s simply not reasonable to argue, as some Republican supporters of the Gang’s bill do, that a vote for this proposal will make enough of a difference in Hispanic vote preference to change any upcoming election.

Instead, what’s far more likely is that Republican support will give the legislation the veneer of bipartisanship while paving the way for an 11 million person increase in Democratic voters.

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.

Labor Secretary Thomas Perez is, as I have reported here before, a radical’s radical. Now a large group of the heroic firefighters of New York City are taking him on. The head of the group, Paul Mannix, blasted Perez conduct on multiple fronts  – and then, in opposing a favorite, radical political theory of Perez, Mannix put it plainly: “Disparate impact and [racial and gender] proportionalism for its own sake is going to get people killed.” Perez, however, has shown repeatedly he thinks public safety should take a back seat to his favorite racial spoils system. Senators might want to take note.

Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CST to 6:00 p.m. CST (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EST) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her radio show, “Your Turn: Meeting Nonsense with Commonsense.”  Today’s guest lineup includes:

4:00 CDT/5:00 pm EDT:  Dr. David Muhlhausen, Research Fellow in Empirical Policy Analysis for The Heritage Foundation — Government Waste;

4:30 CDT/5:30 pm EDT:  Dennis Lynch, Founder and CEO of TV360Media — “They Come to America II: The Cost of Amnesty” and Immigration Reform;

5:00 CDT/6:00 pm EDT:  Sam Kazman, General Counsel, Competitive Enterprise Institute — Small Business Owners Sue Over IRS ObamaCare Power Grab; and

5:30 CDT/6:30 pm EDT:  Timothy Lee, Senior Vice President at CFIF — Current Events at Home (Internet Taxation) and Abroad (Benghazi News and Syria/Israel).

Listen live on the Internet here.   Call in to share your comments or ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

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.

With the first half of President Barack Obama’s regulatory legacy behind us, the folks at Heritage tallied up the cost thus far – 131 new major regulations totaling $70 billion.

Major regulations are those imposing a cost on the economy of at least $100 million or more each year.

In 2012, the two biggest profit-killers were (1) a joint EPA-Dept. of Transportation rule to boost fuel-economy standards that will result in an average new price increase of $1,800.00, and (2) an EPA Utility MACT regulation designed to shut down coal plants by making it cost prohibitive to meet new emissions standards.

On deck are the literally hundreds of regulations spawned by ObamaCare and the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. Since those are still working their way through the bureaucracy, it’s too early to estimate what their financial impact will be. One this is certain, though; they won’t be cheap.

Get a copy of the entire report, Red Tape Rising, here.

In an interview with CFIF, Phil Kerpen, president of American Commitment, discusses a bombshell report that reveals several instances of federal tax dollars illegally funding lobbying activities for tax hikes and anti-obesity measures.

Listen to the interview here.