Freedom Line Blog

After a stunning recitation of the facts of the Bin Laden raid culled from interviews with Seal Team 6 members who participated in it, a former team leader (Pfarrer) says that the reason the Seals are breaking their customary code of silence is the gross misrepresentations propagated by the Obama Administration.

What infuriated the Seals, according to Pfarrer, was the description of the raid as a kill mission. “I’ve been a Seal for 30 years and I never heard the words ‘kill mission’,” he said. “It’s a Beltway (Washington insider’s) fantasy word. If it was a kill mission you don’t need Seal Team 6; you need a box of hand grenades.”

Add military terminology to the litany of policy subjects the president and his liberal cohort are jarringly unfamiliar with.  “Beltway fantasies,” indeed.

Note: A previous version of this post contained a broken hyperlink.  Google “Bitter Seals tell of killing ‘Bert’ Laden.”  Great stuff.

Jennifer Rubin’s interview with House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) gives more reason to surmise that a pairing of him and GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney as the 2012 Republican ticket.  Rubin says that Ryan’s response to Romney’s entitlement reform plan was “effusive” and a clear statement of support from the leading elected conservative intellectual.

With Romney mired in an electoral no-man’s land – leading all other challengers but only garnering 25% support – adding Ryan to his team sometime next year would probably be enough to get disaffected Tea Party and conservative support otherwise underwhelmed with Romney’s checkered history.

More bad news from the Tarnished State:  A memo circulated by Democratic Assembly leaders pegs California’s budget deficit for next year at $8 billion, more than double the $3.1 billion Governor Jerry Brown and legislative Democrats projected just a few months ago.  In (un?)-related news, Brown’s office shut down a transparency website from the Schwarzenegger-era that made far-flung government documents easily available.  Now, visitors are redirected to some of the relevant primary sources, but many others are not listed.

In both cases, the price of reliable information seems to be too little, too late.

Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal summarizes the winners and losers in the fight between the environmental left and blue collar union workers:

The EPA has labored over an ozone rule (estimated job losses: 7.3 million), power plant rules (1.4 million), a boiler rule (789,000), a coal-ash rule (316,00), a cement rule (23,000), and greenhouse gas rules (even Joe Biden can’t count that high). The administration blew up Louisiana’s offshore deepwater drilling industry, insisted Detroit make cars nobody wants to buy and, just to stay consistent, is moving to clamp down on the country’s one booming industry: natural gas.

Those going the way of the dodo are utility workers, pipefitters, construction guys, coal miners, factory workers, truck drivers, electrical workers and machinists. Many of these are union Democrats who don’t care if their union bosses are publicly sticking with the president. They are pessimistic about the future and increasingly angry over the president’s attack on their work.

The 2012 electorate is ripe for another GOP presidential candidate able to pick-up thousands of ‘Reagan Democrats’ in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.  The fact that all three states elected Republican governors in 2010 sets the table for a nominee able to wrap free market principles in a populist appeal.  The question is, will someone craft a message in time to take advantage of Obama’s foolishness?

First, Paul Ryan said he isn’t running for president in 2012.  Then, he said he wouldn’t close the door on being someone’s vice presidential running mate next year.  Now, he tells the Weekly Standard that Mitt Romney can be trusted to repeal Obamacare even though it bears a striking resemblance to Romneycare in Massachusetts.

Could it be that Ryan – perhaps like Chris Christie – is angling for a spot in the Romney veepstakes?

Recently, Troy wrote an excellent indictment of the latest Los Angeles boondoggle, a debt-laden deal to bring an NFL team to a city with job-killing regulations and 12.5 percent unemployment.

Now, Joel Kotkin echoes Troy’s analysis with more scathing criticisms of the regulations-for-thee-but-not-for-me pay-to-play scandal pushing a publicly financed stadium forward.

Such projects often obscure the real and more complex challenge of nurturing broad-based economic growth. This would require substantive change in a city or regional political culture. Instead the football stadium services two basic political constituencies: large unions and big-time speculators, particularly in the downtown area. The fact that the stadium will be built with union labor, for example, all but guaranteed its approval by the city’s trade union-dominated council.

Downtown developers and “rent-seeking” speculators, the other group behind the project, have siphoned hundreds of millions in tax breaks and public infrastructure in the past decade. They have done so – subsidizing companies from other parts of Los Angeles, entertainment venues and hotels — in the name of a long-held, impossible dream of turning downtown Los Angeles into a mini-Manhattan. Perhaps no company has pushed this more effectively than the stadium developer Anschutz Entertainment Group, a mass developer of generic entertainment districts around the world. AEG has expanded its influence by doling out substantial financial donations to Mayor Villaraigosa and others in the city’s economically clueless political class.

Previously, I’ve written about the need to pass the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act by Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY).  If passed, the bill would require all new bureaucratic rules costing $100 million or more to have an up-or-down, standalone vote in Congress, plus the President’s signature before going into effect.

The main purpose of the REINS Act is to give Congress a check on the administrative state so that job-killing regulations get a chance to be eliminated before going into effect.

This is yet another example giving the lie to President Obama’s charge of a do-nothing Congress, the House majority continues to move bills that will help the economy.  The House Judiciary Committee reported the bill favorably yesterday.  Here’s hoping it gets fast-tracked for a full House vote soon.

Ed O’Keefe reports on the 125^th birthday of the Statue of Liberty.  Here’s his summary of today’s festivities:

The National Park Service is hosting a series of events Friday to mark the Oct. 28, 1886 dedication of one of the nation’s most iconic landmarks. In an effort to recreate some of the original festivities (which included an appearance by President Grover Cleveland), the U.S. Coast Guard plans to sponsor a flotilla of vessels, the New York Fire Department fireboats plan to provide a water spout display and the Park Service is hosting a morning concert.

Later, in a nod to the 21st century, officials plan to unveil a new “torch webcam” providing viewers with views of New York Harbor and the statue from within Lady Liberty’s torch.

Of course, Lady Liberty has also hosted some famous speeches, including this memorable 4^th of July jewel from Ronald Reagan 25 years ago.

As the Occupy fill-in-the-blank mob-ocracy exposes our great cities to squalor, let Reagan’s speech and today’s festivities remind you there is an alternative.

Quin’s point is well taken.  Obama-era regulations and rhetoric are scaring away the kind of investment growth the country needs to get Americans back to work.  On the regulatory side, increased capital holding requirements stack dollar bills in bank vaults while small business loans dry up.  Cost-of-employment drivers like Obamacare and the EPA’s threatened regulation of carbon make any rational employer look for ways to enhance productivity and efficiency instead of staffing up.  Simply put, under President Obama it’s cheaper to do more with less to keep what you have rather than risk the money and regulatory gauntlet trying to increase market share.

On the rhetoric side, my recent column on the five most recent dumb statements by the president contains just a sample of his daily assaults on the ambition and energy of America’s job creators.  What the president fails to see is that a sustainable government depends on a vastly more prosperous private economy.  Until he learns the importance of that relationship, we’re likely doomed to being (and producing) much less than we otherwise would.

Btw, Quin: I’m sure you’ve got business contacts in the Mobile-D.C. corridor.  Are any of them looking at the current and future regulatory scene and thinking, “Gee, what a great time to expand”?

Last week, Louisiana Republican Governor Bobby Jindal coasted to an easy reelection thanks in large part to a strong record of accomplishment in reforming his state’s previously out-of-control healthcare system.  Here’s what a writer in Forbes has to say about Jindal’s version of reform:

While Jindal’s record on reducing health-care spending is impressive, even more impressive is how he stayed focused on improving the quality of Louisiana health care, putting paid to the Democratic conceit that the only way to improve health-care quality is with more government spending, and that anyone concerned about budget deficits is destined to harm those most in need.

If a Republican wins the White House in 2012, he or she will need an energetic expert running the Department of Health and Human Services in order to repeal and replace Obamacare with a free market alternative.  If records matter, Bobby Jindal should be every fiscal conservative’s choice for what may be the most consequential cabinet position over the next four years.

The Congressional Management Foundation, a non-profit entity that rates congressional websites, gave top marks to the office portals belonging to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senator Mark Begich (D-AK).  Besides artistic eye appeal, one of the key elements of a superior website is the ease with which visitors can access important information.

On that score, Ryan and Begich’s websites appear to be outliers.  According to Congressional Management, “A significant number of member websites lack basic educational and transparency features and content valuable to their constituents.”  Then again, if you’ve ever encountered the ugly unhelpfulness of most government organs, you probably already knew that.

Three days, two speeches, one important difference.

When Vice President Joe Biden spoke at the University of Pennsylvania on Wednesday, he said that opponents of the president’s jobs bill were okay that, as a result of blocking the bill, “murder will continue to rise, rape will continue to rise, all crimes will continue to rise.” Nary a peep was heard from the Occupy Philadelphia crowd.

By contrast, just the mere mention that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) would speak at Penn today brought on threats from Occupy Philadelphia to disrupt his speech.  Cantor rightly canceled his appearance at the last minute in order to avoid the kind of heckling for which liberal activists are notorious.

Biden argued that federal spending on state union members would somehow reduce murders and rapes.  Cantor was expected to speak on how to ease income inequalities.  If anyone needed more proof who these hooligans support and why, here it is.

Our friends at Human Events confirm the money trail between Leftist billionaire George Soros and the Occupy Wall Street movement attracting communists, socialists and anarchists to its ranks.

The nonprofit organization at the receiving end of Soros’ largesse, Alliance for Global Justice, is managing donations benefiting the communists, socialists, anarchists and hippies now occupying Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan.  As of Oct. 19, OWS had taken in a grand total of $435,000 from all sources, including donations made by individuals online and in person, according to reports.

And how’s this for a business model?

Alliance for Global Justice is a “fiscal sponsor,” which means that it serves as a financial clearinghouse for radical causes that haven’t filed papers to incorporate themselves as nonprofit organizations.  Donors give money to the Alliance and are then able to deduct the donations from their income tax even though the cause they are funding isn’t recognized as tax-exempt by the IRS.  Fiscal sponsors take a percentage of donations as management fees, and then pass on the rest to the cause favored by the donor.

As with all things Soros, the irony here is rich.  A Hungarian who fled Nazism and communism sets up a “shadow party” to move America closer to a state-run tyranny.  A decrier of capitalism’s excesses, he made his name manipulating England’s currency and imperiled a nation through an act verging on financial terrorism.  Now, he’s a billionaire hedge fund manager who props up a nationwide anti-Wall Street protest.

However her presidential campaign turns out, Michele Bachmann deserves continued credit for speaking the truth no matter what the forum.  During question time after a speech in the liberal haven of San Francisco, the conservative firebrand made these distinctions between the “occupy” movement and the Tea Party:

“The tea party picks up its trash after it has a demonstration, so there’s a difference,” the Minnesota congresswoman quipped during a question-and-answer period after her speech to the Commonwealth Club of California.

On a more serious note, the two movements have “two different views of how to solve the problems” our nation faces, she said. Occupy activists believe in “government-directed solutions based on temporary gimmicks,” she said, while tea partyers believe in “permanent solutions driven from the private sector.”

Amen, sister.

H/T: San Jose Mercury-News

One way to think of a presidential campaign is as a nationally followed negotiation.  Each political party provides players who in turn generate ideas for public consumption.  Some proposals change the national consensus (e.g. Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts), while others fall flat (Walter Mondale’s “I will raise your taxes” pledge). 

If we look at what leading Republicans have proposed this cycle, it’s an impressive range of serious fiscal ideas.  Paul Ryan has his “Path to Prosperity” budget, Rick Santorum his tax cuts. Mitt Romney has 59 points to get America working, and Herman Cain has “9-9-9”.  Now, Ron Paul says we should cut $1 trillion dollars by eliminating entire federal cabinet departments and going back to 2006 funding levels for those that survive. 

My suspicion is that Paul’s plan will get the most criticism because it is the most radical.  But might it also be the most helpful in a sense, since it probably represents the least government that any major Republican will put his or her name to this year?  And if that’s the case, then isn’t Paul doing the electorate a favor by clearly articulating what the most radical version of reform would look like so voters can weigh the differences fully? 

If Quin, Tim, or Troy has anything to add, I’d like to read it.  Is Ron Paul’s plan bold, crazy, or something in between?

Once upon a time, candidate Obama promised to participate in the federal campaign finance program in a sop to free speech restrictionists.  Of course, he reneged as soon as he could, claiming that since the system is “broken” it was his right to collect as much money as he could  from willing donors.

Fast-forward to today, and it looks like President Obama has long forgotten his former aversion to privately financed campaigns:

[The President] can also raise large contributions for the Democratic National Committee — topping out at $30,800 per donor rather than the $5,000 limit on contributions to candidates — that are helping finance the party’s broader efforts to help Democrats up and down the ballot. During the last three months, the committee has already transferred funds totaling more than $1.3 million to Democratic organizations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to the party’s filings.

I don’t begrudge any candidate for choosing a free(r) market approach to campaign finance.  What’s galling in Obama’s case, though, is that once again we have an example of how brazenly opportunistic he is when it comes to basic principles.  Whether it’s promising people they can keep their health insurance after Obamacare or campaigning as a post-partisan then saying Republicans want folks to drink dirty water, the man seems incapable of keeping his word. 

The joke on some politicians is a truth applied to the president: you know he’s lying when his lips are moving.

Aside from being unconstitutional, Obamacare is also financially unsustainable.  Of course, everyone except the White House and their drones at HHS acknowledged this when the law passed.  Now, fiscal reality has forced the Obama Administration to scrap a program that was supposed to provide half of the fallacious budget savings from passing Obamacare.  Per Phillip Klein of the DC Examiner:

As Obamacare’s critics noted at the time, Democrats’ deficit reduction claims were based on a series of accounting gimmicks. One of the most obvious was the inclusion of the Community Living Assistance and Support Services Act, a program that was slated to collect five years of premiums before paying out any benefits. Though it was unsustainable over time, on paper it produced surpluses during the Congressional Budget Office’s 10-year budget window.

At the time of final passage, the CBO found that the health care law would reduce deficits by $143 billion, and $70 billion of that was attributable to the CLASS program.

Earlier, I noted a new HHS report recomending against implementing the program. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has now sent a letter to Congress conceding that there’s no path forward.

Republicans are still rightly moving to formally repeal the CLASS Act from federal law.  Let’s hope they keep pressing for a complete elimination.

Perhaps a head nod to Hot Shots fans will lessen the depressing (but by no means surprising) analysis from the Sacramento Bee’s Alan Autry on the dismal failure of Jerry Brown’s resurrected governorship:

The governor has signed nearly 745 bills, most aimed at yet more micromanagement of every aspect of our lives from Sacramento or at satisfying the interests of the organizations that funded his election. The Los Angeles Times said, “When the dust settled on Gov. Brown’s first legislative session in nearly three decades, no group had won more than organized labor.”

There you have it, the product of Brown’s first year in office: signing off on campaign payoff obligations, more Sacramento micromanagement, vetoing of bipartisan common sense reforms to increase government efficiency and effectiveness, procrastinating on regulatory reforms to help job creation, and signing a gut-and-amend bill that will ensure even more partisan gridlock – this from the man who ran on breaking the “morass of poisonous partisanship.”

The canary is dead and the coalmine is collapsing.  If you run a business and you have an option outside of California – take it.

The hits just keep on coming at Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry.  The governor of Texas is in increasingly hot water as he tries to parry away charges that he’s soft on illegal immigration and insider tax breaks for friendly corporations.

In Texas, Tea Party activists are demanding that Perry sign an executive order or call a special session of the state legislature to pass an Arizona-style law authorizing state police to check a person’s immigration status.  On the business front, Perry’s use of a governor-controlled “emerging technology fund” is drawing criticism for producing more misses than hits for taxpayers told that tax holidays for some would create jobs for many others.

Perry can’t run away from his record.  He can, however, enhance it with better defenses of it.

We’ll see if he’s up to the challenge.

On yesterday’s Meet the Press, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) demonstrated how to reframe quickly just about any debate on taxes or the economy into one that favors free markets and opportunities for everyone:

“I don’t worry about people who are already rich. I worry about getting people to become successful,” Ryan said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Removing those barriers so that people who have never seen success before can actually become successful. … This redistribution idea of pinning people against each other does not work. It’s divisive, and it hardly gives us the kind of attitude we want for businesses to take risks so we can succeed in the future.”

Conservatives need more of this kind of rhetoric from leading politicians.  Let’s hope the eventual GOP nominee lifts Ryan’s lines to give an inspirational lift to what will surely be a withering attack on the failed Obama economy.