Freedom Line Blog

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.

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.

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.

In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses the president’s budget proposal and how its calls for even higher taxes, higher spending, bigger government and more empty promises will do nothing to get us out of the Obama recession.

Read all about it at The American Spectator. It comes from Obama and starts at the FAA, and then on from there.

Well, this will come as unwelcome news in the Obama White House.  Their “Blame Bush” raison detre never held merit intellectually.  Even if it did, however, someone willing to blame Bush for Obama’s failures at this point would by logic have to blame Clinton for Bush’s failures.  Now, a new poll from The Washington Post and ABC News suggests that it’s no longer a workable political strategy regardless of logic.  Specifically, almost as many people now approve of Bush’s performance as disapprove, and he now equals Obama:

The new poll found 47 percent saying they approve and 50 percent saying they disapprove. Among registered voters, his approval rating today is equal to President Obama’s, at 47 percent, according to the latest Post-ABC surveys.”

So “Blame Bush” is running on fumes, and exploiting the Newtown victims’ parents as political props failed him.  To which ploy will Obama stoop next?

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.

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.

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.

Americans might expect the U.S. government to demonstrate greater concern about who supplies resources and equipment to our men and women in uniform.  This week, however, the Obama Administration announced its decision to award a much-disputed, high-stakes Air Force light air support (LAS) contract to a Brazilian company over one based in Kansas.

The LAS contract could be worth over $950 million, so we’re irrationally sending nearly a billion American taxpayer dollars to Brazil despite the weak state of our manufacturing sector and economy more broadly.  But this is about more than the initial 20 aircraft, or the money associated with building them.  Americans should also be troubled that Embraer receives tremendous subsidies from the Brazilian government, which has been very vocal in its opposition to the War on Terror and American interests while siding with Iran and Venezuela time and again.  As one of the few nations that continues to work with the Iranian regime, Brazil and Embraer have already supplied aircraft similar to their LAS offering to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

Perhaps even more alarming, a provision woven into Embraer’s bylaws would enable the Brazilian government to halt the manufacturing or maintenance of the warplane at any given time, with no threat of repercussions from the U.S.  This could mean anything from withholding parts to complete cessation of production.  For a country so outspoken in its opposition to America’s global foreign policy objectives and our stance against governments that commit such grotesque crimes against their own citizens as well as other nations, how can we trust that they won’t disrupt the delivery of these aircraft in pursuit of their own political motives?

The Obama Administration’s decision to outsource the production of American military equipment to Brazil is not only illogical, it creates an unconscionable threat to our national security.  Embraer and Brazil have publically stated that their immense focus on this contract is motivated by their desire to secure a U.S. Air Force endorsement of their product, which in turn allows them to more effectively market it to other nations.  If history tells us anything, Embraer and the Brazilian government that controls it will have no qualms about selling our enemies the same aircraft they will be providing to our Air Force.

It is morally and economically untenable that United States government would prefer a Brazilian supplier that is publicly opposed to the very cause for which we need the equipment.  Awarding this contract to a historically unfriendly foreign sovereign suggests that the Obama Administration is not only careless in its foreign policy judgment, it’s reckless in the equipment it selects to carry out the mission.

In my weekly spot last Thursday on the terrific WKRG-TV, channel 5 news in Mobile, I explain why, just possibly, this battle over the “sequester” might end better for Republicans politically than did the Gingrich “government shutdown” battles of 1995-1996. It could be that Barack Obama has overplayed his hand, and overplayed his warnings.

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.

Earlier this week, the federal government reported that our economy contracted for the first time since the last recession.

Today it reported that unemployment rose to 7.9% last month, up from 7.8% the month before.

Analysts had expected the rate to remain at 7.8%, already a terrible number nearly four years after the last recession ended.  Moreover, the 157,000 new jobs added fell below analysts’ expectations of approximately 170,000, which itself is significantly below the 200,000 per month necessary to keep pace with population growth and substantively reduce the festering unemployment rate.  So Obama II inherits a higher unemployment rate from himself than Obama I inherited from Bush, but with the added burden of $6 trillion wasted deficit spending.

This has ominous broader implications, as noted by The Wall Street Journal:

The labor market looks anemic 3½ years into an economic recovery.  At last count, there are 134 million employed Americans, or four million less than the month before the recession began.  At the same point after the prior recession in the early 2000s, despite what was then called a jobless recovery, there were 5.3 million more workers…  Whether it is retirees, the unemployed, “discouraged” workers or people claiming disability that explain the difference, though, the ratio of “makers” to “takers” in society has dropped.  That has implications for tax revenue and spending and helps explain why, following weak growth data on Wednesday, this is the slowest economic recovery in modern times.”

Hardly the “Forward” that Obama promised.

Actually, if anything, Hume was too nice to her. On the Fox News Sunday show yesterday, he said she qualifies as a “competent” Secretary of State, but in no means a “great” one. It’s a segment well worth watching, because Hume makes a solid argument. That said, I think she has been only a small step above a disaster. Even acknowledging that bad things happen all over the globe that no Secretary of State can really be blamed for, the sad reality is that in almost every region of the world, American interests are now in worse shape than they were four years ago. Much of the blame should be laid at the feet of Barack Obama: After all, it is ultimately his policies, not Clinton’s, that are being pursued. But there is no evidence at all that Clinton in any way deviated, even in private, from Obama’s bad policies, and in many respects it seems obvious that Obama basically followed her lead.

So, where do we stand? In the Middle Easat, almost certainly worse than before. Turkey has gone further down the road towards open and troublesome Islamism. Egypt is a disaster. Iran is closer than ever to a nuclear weapon, and not only has failed to moved closer to the West, but has crushed a real, potentially powerful “freedom movement” while the Obama-Clinton team lifted not a finger. Libya actually might be slightly better (more US-friendly and ultimately safer) than it was under the mercurial Ghadafi, but compared to about 2005, when Ghadafi was completely cooperating with us, Libya is more dangerous to us — more unstable, more unpredictable long term. (This is completely aside from the 9/11 assault there that killed four Americans.) And even the overthrow of Ghadafi was a mess, with the US administration doing the diplomatic and military hokey-pokey — one foot in, one foot out, a foot back in and shake it all about — rather than dealing cleanly with the situation. Finally, of course, Syria is a disaster area, with more than 60,000 dead.

Most importantly in the Middle East, our ally Israel feels more isolated than ever. This is terrible.

In Africa, meanwhile, al Qaeda is resurgent. Algeria and Mali are especially worrisome.

Then there is Russia. The “re-set” failed spectacularly. Russia is more recalcitrant, less US-friendly than it has been since about 1992.

Eastern Europe? Our would-be friends there rightly feel insulted, stabbed in the back, and abandoned.  Western Europe? Well, the US image or influence there is about the same as when Hillary first walked into Foggy Bottom, but the state of Western Europe’s affairs is horrendous, with 26% unemployment in Spain and economic difficulties throughout.

The Far East? No progress against North Korea. Continuing militarily provocative actions from China.

How about the Western Hemisphere? Nothing good. Ecuador has joined Venezuela as uber-leftist anti-US agitators. Brazil has moved leftward and more corrupt, even as Obama has sucked up to it repeatedly. Argentina is again making noises about owning the Falklands (!).

Everywhere we look, the United States interests are no better off, and often worse off, than when Clinton took the reins at the State Department. As Hume rightly said, there have been no triumphs — but there have been spectacular failures, such as the murder of four Americans in Libya and the ascension of Mr. Morsi in Egypt.

Combined with Clinton’s repeated evasions of real answers, and of real responsibility, for the Benghazi fiasco, this record is one of failure. It would be a good thing if Mrs. Clinton’s retirement from State would turn into a retirement from public service altogether.

The New Republic is out with a new interview with BHO, the man in the Oval Office. It pains me too much even just to copy and paste the worst parts of it… so I won’t. But please read it yourself. The whole thrust of it is that he — yes, Mr. Obama — is the one always going the extra mile for compromise; that he and Nancy Pelosi (!) and Harry Reid (!) again and again have taken the “tough” steps toward compromise that the country needs, but that the Republicans are just so darned intransigent and a lot of them don’t even really care about what’s good for the country.

The man is either delusional or despicable dishonest, or both. Either way, his attitude is as disastrous for the country as his performance has been. He’s so sanctimonious, so solipsistic, so self-aggrandizing that it’s sickening. What a godawful creature he is.

Tim is right that today’s DC Circuit Court ruling on the NLRB appointments is “a humiliating rebuke for [Barack] Obama.” It also reads well, with solid textual analysis supporting its interpretation of the “Recess Clause.” That said, its holdings are so sweeping — both as to what constitutes “the Recess” of the Senate and as to what it means that a vacancy can be filled by such appointment (only) if it “happen[s]” during the Recess — that while they certainly make sense in law and logic, they may go so far as to violate enough existing practice as to make the full circuit en banc or the Supreme Court to reject the full scope of the ruling. Being a realist, I can certainly see a final result that narrows the scope of this ruling (and of it definition of “Recess” and “happen”), but that still throws out Obama’s appointments and still upholds the main thrust of today’s ruling, which is that there are serious limits to the “Recess appointment” power.

But allow just a little further prediction. When the high court so rules, and Obama’s “humiliation” is confirmed, The One in the Oval Office will have a conniption fit. As it so happens, such a high court ruling will probably be just one in a series of about five or six key decisions in the next 18-24 months that will go directly against Obama administration arguments, actions, and abuses. Look, therefore, for Obama to resurrect his constitutionally dangerous, full-frontal assault against the Supreme Court and the courts in general, trying to undermine their very legitimacy. In fact, so unhinged may be Obama’s power lust that he might even try to openly defy an explicit Supreme Court ruling, maybe even citing Andrew Jackson’s infamous (perhaps apocryphal) statement from Worcester v. Georgia that the chief justice “has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”

In short, I see in this and other developing cases the potential for serious constitutional crisis, brought on by Obama’s authoritarian impulses. I hope I’m wrong.

It’s sad commentary on our current political state that the Obama Administration must be reminded that the Senate has to actually be in recess for it to attempt a “recess” appointment.  One would expect a former law professor to possess a better working knowledge of the Constitution, but alas.

In a welcome and important ruling this morning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit – effectively the nation’s second-highest court – held that the Obama Administration acted illegally when it attempted to place three new members on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) without Senate consent.  Under Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, a President may appoint “Officers of the United States” subject to “Advice and Consent of the Senate.”  It adds, however, that, “The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”

Here’s the problem.  In a scheme to avoid confirmation hearings and votes, Obama attempted to place three members on the NLRB while “the Senate was operating pursuant to a unanimous consent agreement, which provided that the Senate would meet in pro forma sessions every three business days from December 20, 2011, through January 23, 2012.”  Thus, the Senate wasn’t in “recess.”  In fact, other acts by the Obama Administration acknowledge that fact.  As just one example, that period is when the reduced payroll tax was extended with Obama’s approval.

Accordingly, the Court didn’t take kindly to Obama’s maneuver:

An interpretation of ‘the Recess’ that permits the President to decide when the Senate is in recess would demolish the checks and balances inherent in the advice-and-consent requirement, giving the President free rein to appoint his desired nominees at any time he pleases, whether that time be a weekend, lunch, or even when the Senate is in session and he is merely displeased with its inaction.  This cannot be the law.”

This is a humiliating rebuke for Obama, and it invalidates all NLRB actions dependent upon those illegal appointments.  Moreover, it effectively invalidates actions by other administrative agencies similarly dependent upon such appointments.  The concept of “a nation of laws, and not of men” has been vindicated today.

The thrill is gone, apparently.

According to a Gallup poll released today, fewer Americans watched yesterday’s inaugural ceremony or news coverage of it than they did George W. Bush’s second inaugural in 2005.  Only 38% said that they watched yesterday’s ceremony, down from 40% in 2005, and only 27% “watched, listened to, or read news reports about the inauguration ceremonies” yesterday versus 33% in 2005.  Moreover, Americans are less hopeful based on what they read or heard about Obama’s second inauguration than they were after Bush’s.  Just “37% of Americans said they are now more hopeful about the next four years after Monday’s presidential inauguration ceremonies,” compared to 43% in 2005.  Some 27% said that yesterday’s inauguration made them “less hopeful,” two points worse than in 2005.

The change he brought turned out to be less hope.

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.

This really isn’t a big deal, but it still rankles. Today, Barack Obama included a line in his speech that was almost a direct quotation from Ronald Reagan, but he gave no attribution. When Reagan uttered it, it was an original and interesting turn of phrase.

Here:

“Whether we come from poverty or wealth; whether we are Afro-American or Irish-American; Christian or Jewish, from big cities or small towns, we are all equal in the eyes of God. But as Americans, that is not enough, we must be equal in the eyes of each other.”

Obama today: “We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American, she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.“