Freedom Line Blog

Credit erstwhile presidential campaign failure Bob Shrum for extolling some counter-intuitive thinking in his column today.  In it, he praises President Obama for outthinking everyone inside and outside the Beltway on the economy, health care, and the Machiavellian intrigue surrounding his inner circle.

To pluck but one morsel from his witch’s brew of analysis, Shrum claims that Obama has been the tortoise to the media’s hare – patiently biding his time until history was ripe for a final push towards victory:

Obama’s strategy, partly shaped by events, also reflects the combination of qualities that brought him to the Oval Office—and makes it more than likely that he will reach the goal that has eluded the nation since Theodore Roosevelt first proposed national health care in 1912. Obama has been “a steel fist in a velvet glove”—Carl Standburg’s description of Lincoln. The president who doesn’t panic, didn’t.

There we have it.  Obama isn’t aloof, or out of his depth.  Instead, he’s a one-gloved Lincoln.  Maybe Bob can get an early start on running Obama’s reelection campaign into the ground.  Shrum in 2012!

The first time I read Frederic Bastiat’s The Law (pdf), I thought the Frenchman was a bit over the top when he described taxation as legalized plunder.  After all, the only things certain in life are death and taxes, right?  Then again, at the time I was in school and not responsible for my income.  Drawing a paycheck changes a man’s perspective.  So too will being denied a tax refund from a government that plunder’s a paycheck.

My mind turned to Bastiat’s classic when I read USA Today’s report that several states are considering delaying tax refunds to citizens who are owed the money because the government just can’t spare the coins.  Apparently, no one asked if taxpayers were in better shape than their governments.  Unlike laws allowing a state to tax income, in most cases there is no legal ability for states to withhold money to which they are not entitled.  They just do it.  Perhaps the Tea Party movement will adopt the slogan “Victims of Lawful Plunder” at an upcoming rally.  It sure would help frame the issue.

Say what you will about the 43^rd president’s public speaking skills, machismo, or ideology, but what George W. Bush lacked in “nuance” and “polish” he compensated for richly with a statesman’s adherence to protocol.  Even though the Supreme Court repeatedly invalidated carefully crafted terrorism legislation that enjoyed broad majorities in Congress, Bush never took the low and easy road of public scolding.  Nor did he allow his subordinates.

Not so with his “post-partisan” successor.  In a sophomoric move that may permanently affect the public relationship between the president and members of the Supreme Court, President Barack Obama castigated a ruling extending free speech rights to associations like labor unions and corporations.  Not only did Associate Justice Samuel Alito react at the time, now Chief Justice John Roberts is speculating that perhaps justices shouldn’t attend future joint sessions of Congress.  If that happens, it will be one more example of Obama vulgarizing our politics.  (Another is his refusal to call members of Congress by their title of Representative or Senator knowing that they will still honor the tradition of calling him “Mr. President.”)

Maybe Bush 43 played up everyman pastimes like cutting mesquite trees and exercising too much for some people’s tastes.  But when you compare his quiet class both during and after his presidency to the current occupant’s constant whining and unceremonious behavior, it’s easy to see which person is a fully formed man.

Reports are surfacing that Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Chairwoman of the House Rules Committee is preparing a rule to accompany the Senate’s version of health care “reform” when it comes to the House for approval.  Already, Democratic leaders are planning to use the budget reconciliation process to bypass a Republican filibuster threat.  But first the House must pass the Senate’s bill before reconciliation can be used.  Enter the “Slaughter Solution.”

Since Speaker Pelosi doesn’t yet have the votes to pass the Senate plan, Slaughter would present a rule “deeming” the bill passed so long as a majority of House members vote for the rule.  Got that?   The geniuses on Capitol Hill are telling themselves that members up for reelection can convince voters that voting for the rule is different than voting for the bill itself, even though voting for the rule passes the bill.

No wonder D.C. is so screwed up.  If the Democratic leadership manages to nationalize one-sixth of the economy by unconstitutionally refusing to have the same bill pass both chambers before sending it to the president, then there will be hell to pay in November.

Another consequence will be an unprecedented opening for a presidential candidate to run as the wise old man of Washington in 2012.  In fact, one of his campaign commercials could feature the School House Rocks version of “How a Bill Becomes a Law.”  Along with the Tea Party movement, millions more Americans would no doubt appreciate a major politician who actually reads and understands the constitutional procedure for making binding federal law.  Heaven knows, the Democrats in Congress and the White House certainly don’t.

And he didn’t do much better with viewers either.  After building up the drama for former Congressman Eric Massa’s (D-NY) appearance on his television show, Glenn Beck ended his program with an apology to those who watched ‘til the bitter end.  “This (information shared by Massa) didn’t affect you (the American people).”

Blame Massa for blowing a golden opportunity to give dates, times, and names of specific instances where politicos crossed the line into illegal or unethical behavior.  Instead, he gave bland jeremiads about the corrupting influence of money in politics, and flipped the narrative on who’s responsible for him stepping down.  Initially, it was the White House and Democratic House Leadership who “forced” his resignation.  Now, he “owns his mistakes” and accepts full responsibility for his resignation.  Huh?  The only reason this is a story is because people were led to believe a member of Congress was ousted to ease passage of health care “reform.”  Now, it is just a story of a seemingly decent guy unable to cope with the insane demands of national politics.

But blame Beck too for not getting at least one specific instance of a date, time, and name before going on the air to ensure the hour wasn’t a waste.  He won’t forget that lesson next time.  For now, it looks like the Obama Administration – and Rahm Emanuel in particular – dodged a potentially catastrophic revelation about the practice of Big Boy politics.  Like the Rod Blagojevich smoking gun that never fired, Eric Massa had his chance to establish his credibility with specifics.  His failure to do so means that his critics will be the ones taking up the lion’s share of his fifteen minutes in the spotlight.  Too bad.

Maybe it is 100 years of Progressive institution building that obscures the lessons of history, but the writers of Slate are kidding themselves if they think that just because there are no formal legal structures to handle California and Greece’s looming bankruptcies, then it must also be true that they cannot declare bankruptcy.  That view betrays the positivist’s creed that if a problem isn’t addressed in law, then it cannot be resolved by government. More likely, private creditors will get soaked while the larger governments negotiate a separate peace.

History teaches that the inability or refusal to pay sovereign debt (whether loans or tribute) typically leads to the expansion of government power.  Since both California and Greece are de facto sub-agencies of the US and EU, respectively, here’s betting that on net, the federal governments of the United States and European Union will emerge with even more power than before.

Presumptive British Tory Prime Minister, David Cameron and French “conservative” President Nicholas Sarkozy are scheduled to meet when the latter comes to London.  Both are cut from the John McCain (R-AZ) “progressive” cloth when it comes to climate change, taxes, and civil liberties.  If the GOP wants to make good on its promising electoral campaigns this year, it should steer clear of Cameron and Sarkozy versions of conservatives and go for the real thing: substantive limits on spending and taxing, coupled with the comprehensive deregulation of government’s intrusion into civil society.  Like Ronald Reagan once said, we need bold colors, not pale pastels.

Anyone watching the British Parliament’s “Question Time” over the years knows that the one issue that will be discussed no matter which party is in power: the National Health Service.  The NHS is adept at socializing medicine but precious little else.  To hear both Tories and Labour MPs tell it, the service is chronically underfunded, and hopelessly incapable of reducing waiting times for patients to see doctors.  It is precisely the kind of rationed health care that American conservatives are warning will be inflicted on United States citizens if Obamacare is passed into law.

But battling Leviathan isn’t the only consequence of nationalizing the health industry.  As the prominence of NHS during “Question Time” shows, nationalization moves a nation’s political center irrevocably to the Left.  Why?  Because putting everyone involved with medicine on a government payroll eliminates private choices for almost all voters, and with it, the ability of markets to provide competition and choices.  Thus, like roads, utilities, and garbage collection, delays in service and controlling costs become problems for politicians – not entrepreneurs – to fix.  And so, even politicians who would otherwise oppose government control are left with arguing how to manage a failed system.

As Mark Steyn notes:

I’ve been saying in this space for two years that the governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible. In most of the rest of the Western world, there are still nominally “conservative” parties, and they even win elections occasionally, but not to any great effect (let’s not forget that Jacques Chirac was, in French terms, a “conservative”). The result is a kind of two-party one-party state: Right-of-center parties will once in a while be in office, but never in power, merely presiding over vast left-wing bureaucracies that cruise on regardless.

This is why President Obama can push repeatedly for Democratic members of Congress to fall on their swords for a dramatically unpopular health care “reform” bill – he knows the power shift in American politics will benefit his ideology in the long run, even if it weakens his party in the short term.

For anyone looking for an excellent summary of the history, purpose, and use of the Senate’s budget reconciliation process, Newt Gingrich provides the best single source description I’ve read so far.  This analysis – supplemented with charts showing when the process has been used, by whom, and for what – will be very helpful when debating your liberal friends or trying to decipher the media’s confused coverage of the procedure.  It even discusses “the Byrd Rule” (named after its author, West Virginia Democratic Senator, Robert Byrd), and its role in stopping the Clinton White House from using reconciliation to pass HillaryCare.  With President Obama calling on congressional Democrats to use reconciliation to pass the Senate’s health care “reform” bill so they can bypass a Republican filibuster, now is the time to get your arguments down and call your members of Congress.

H/T: Human Events

Today’s Washington Times has a morosely humorous article discussing the current fetish for “jobs creation” bills in Congress.  From confiscating beachfront property to establishing a non-profit government entity to promote travel, nearly every bill in Congress is being fitted into a jobs frame that makes it difficult to oppose on its claims.  But not, of course, on the substance.

For that, we need look no farther than the end of the liberty-loving economics student’s book shelf for a copy of Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson.”  After explaining why full employment is only and always the means to achieving the proper goal of full production, Hazlitt takes aim at the predecessors of our latter day misguided politicos:

Yet our legislators do not present Full Production bills in Congress but Full Employment bills.   Even committees of businessmen recommend ‘a President’s Commission on Full Employment,’ not on Full Production, or even on Full Employment and Full Production.  Everywhere the means is erected into the end, and the end itself is forgotten.”

So too, is the credibility of any member of Congress who thinks that the answer to spurring economic growth comes from anything other than lower, simpler taxes.

Ordinarily, the term “bunker mentality” refers to an individual or group so cut off from outside opinion that they view any dissent as a threat to power.  The Obama White House is acting the part in its call for congressional Democrats to exercise the so-called “nuclear option” and pass health care “reform” through the Reconciliation process, public opinion polls be damned.  But if the president launches legislative nukes at his opponents and the American people (but I repeat myself), and then retreats back into his publicly financed bunker, how long will it be until he realizes he has to live with the fallout?  Better yet, will his agenda be so radioactive that only the most suicidal Democrats will follow him back out into the public square?

H/T: Jake Tapper at ABC News

As discussed previously by CFIF, Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) is getting some much deserved attention for his path breaking proposal, “A Roadmap for America’s Future.”  The Roadmap lays out a comprehensive vision for matching spending on federal entitlements like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security with tax receipts.  In other words, it offers specifics on the GOP’s long-stated aim to make government live within its means.

Of course, proposing an elegant, tough-minded legislative solution in an election year doesn’t win many co-sponsors.  In Ryan’s case, he’s got 9.  The folks at Newsweek noticed and are calling out Republicans for their lack of agreement on a substantive way forward.  Being a man of substance and conviction isn’t easy in Washington, D.C., especially for a member of Congress.  That Paul Ryan is willing to put his policies where his rhetoric is deserves not only a nod, but broad based conservative support as well.

If there are any camels’ backs at the breaking point, here’s a public employee union-sponsored straw.   As if daring the mainstream media to challenge his meritless assertions of bipartisanship, President Obama named SEIU leader and fellow Saul Alinsky disciple, Andy Stern, to his “Bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.”

That’s right; the panel of experts tasked with finding ways to reduce the federal deficit will count among its ranks a man who agitates for expanding both the membership and compensation of government employees.  He also has tight connections with ACORN and organized intimidation campaigns against Tea Party activists.  Asking Stern to find ways to save taxpayer money is like putting a fox in charge of the bed check in a hen house: it makes sense if you don’t think about it.

Well, this isn’t too surprising.  When asked by a reporter to grade herself on the past year’s performance, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded that she’d give herself “an ‘A’ for effort.” No doubt the mother of five is the kind of helicopter parent demanding trophies for participation, and praise for people who deign to show up.  But if you can get an ‘A’ just for trying, what grade will the Speaker bestow on herself when and if the Democrats in Congress actually pass the health care “reform” bill?

Be on the lookout for another interesting congressional race, this time in Georgia.  Today’s announcement by Rep. John Linder that he won’t seek reelection is fueling speculation that former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz might be tossing his baseball cap in the political ring.  Besides throwing a wicked fastball, Smoltz is an Evangelical Christian who is a legendary competitor in everything he does.  If he does decide to run, he’ll run to win – hard.

In case you missed it, Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (Mossad) has been accused of carrying out an elaborate assassination of Hamas’ military leader in a Dubai hotel.  Though the hit was a success because the target was killed, ordinarily it is considered a failure if the perpetrators’ identities are discovered.  According to a former CIA agent writing in The Wall Street Journal, the operation was executed flawlessly save for one new wrinkle that the agents apparently didn’t anticipate: closed-circuit television (CCTV).

I can only speculate about where exactly the hit went wrong. But I would guess the assassins failed to account for the marked advance in technology. Not only were there closed-circuit TV cameras in the hotel where Mr. Mabhouh was assassinated and at the airport, but Dubai has at its fingertips the best security consultants in the world. The consultants merely had to run advanced software through all of Dubai’s digital data before, during and after the assassination to connect the assassins in time and place.

Nearly every public space in the developed world features “eyes in the sky” connected to CCTV feeds monitored by either private security personnel or government agents.  Though unpopular with citizens, governments love cameras because they increase Big Brother’s presence while reducing manpower.  Maybe that’s why Britain has more CCTV installations than China.  Usually, the primary justification for using CCTV is that it protects society from dangerous individuals.  How ironic it is that the best all this surveillance can do is identify a group after it kills an individual.  Now, with Dubai police releasing headshots of the hit squad, it looks like as many as 26 Israeli agents will need to find a new line of work.

However, Mossad shouldn’t have any problem finding replacements.  Media coverage of the assassination has touched off “Mossad mania” in Israel with the agency receiving record agent applications and stores selling out of its memorabilia.  Even when technology makes caps success at a one hit wonder, there will always be plenty of people offering themselves as the next James Bond.

Thanks to a report by Colorado’s Independence Institute based on FOIA requests, we now know that the Department of Homeland Security loses about 1,000 computers a year.  You read that right.  And DHS has absolutely no idea where they are.  Fear not, though, because a department spokesman assures an incredulous public that no one is at risk because there wasn’t any sensitive information on the lost computers.

Assuming that’s true, then why did DHS need the computers in the first place?  If there is nothing particularly important stored on the computers such that losing 1,000 of them in one year doesn’t impede DHS’s ability to secure the homeland, why spend taxpayer money on them?  Maybe that money could be better spent on other programs that help prevent another undie-bomber.  You know, something that helps the system “work.”

H/T: World Net Daily

That’s the rumor coming out of Florida Republican circles and RedState’s Erick Erickson.  Not that such a move would be too much of a surprise since Crist is still the sitting governor of Florida and is losing by 18% to former state house speaker, Marco Rubio.  He needs something to spice up his campaign, and going rogue would certainly do it.  The question is, though, what kind of voter would Crist try to attract once he became un-tethered from a political party?

This isn’t the same scenario that faced Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) when he ran as an independent after losing the Connecticut Democratic primary to Ned Lamont in 2006.  There, netroots activists took over the election and alienated much of Lieberman’s comparatively moderate base.  Lieberman was also aided by some not so subtle help from the Bush Administration seeing the Iraq War supporter as an ally on foreign affairs.  Neither factor is present in this year’s Florida U.S. Senate race.  Not only is Rubio building the kind of following that could deliver a decisive victory among Republicans and Independents, there is no indication that the Obama Administration will coordinate with Crist to the detriment of the likely Democratic nominee, Kendrick Meek.

If Crist truly is considering leaving the GOP, he should instead “suspend” his campaign and concentrate on ending his one term as governor on as good a note as possible.  Otherwise, he’ll do further damage to his reputation while simultaneously wasting Floridians time and money on an ill-conceived vanity tour.

If you or someone you know has attended a public and/or secular university in the last few decades, you’ve probably heard about the leftward tilt in the academy.  Some propose an Academic Bill of Rights requiring professors and schools to teach all sides of an issue instead of whatever uniformly diverse viewpoint has been approved by ‘60s radicals masquerading as accreditation agencies.  Others – like Gary North – have a different method for overcoming liberal classroom bias: “digital kneecapping.”

As explained by North in this article, digital kneecapping is a process where a conservative or libertarian college student can use a blog, some subject matter expertise, and a little community organizing to turn the tables on a holier-than-thou professor.

1. Set up a blog site that allows interaction (a forum).

2. Post key questions on the blog. Refer to your confusion. “If he is saying that, then how can we explain this?” Provide the summary of your position. Provide links to supporting data. Do not attack him. Undermine confidence in him.

3. Once you have a few questions posted, hand out a card before class begins. Have the site’s address on the card. Invite others to share their views.

4. Position this blog as a discussion group in which each person helps the others to do better in class. It’s a joint effort to pass the course.

5. If he is forcing mindless regurgitation on exams, ask if others have experienced lower grades for not doing this. Ask what the best way is to give him what he wants, even though what he is saying seems so one-sided. (The phrase one-sided is a killer in academia, where one-sidedness is universally practiced, and is also universally disparaged as not conforming to the search for truth.)

6. If word gets out to the department chairman that he is not playing fair, he has a big problem — not because he is not playing fair, but because he has been caught and is being exposed where the Administration can see this. The Administration worries about alumni, who might quit donating if the media find out. This is kneecapping.

7. He can respond on the forum. He then deals with you as the top gun; it’s your forum, not his. He comes to it on your terms. He has never had to do this with students. He has played the toady with his superiors to get where he is. He has never had to do this with mere students. This puts him on the defensive. It forces him to defend his ideas and his behavior. You cannot believe the pain this inflicts.

8. If he ignores your site, you can slice him up, piece by piece, day by day, after each lecture. This is not kneecapping. This is death by a thousand cuts.

For my part, I’ll take North’s approach over a legally imposed “Academic Bill of Rights” any day.  The spring semester is still young, so get those blogs rolling!

One of my favorite scenes in the movie Broadcast News has a news executive sarcastically telling Holly Hunter’s character that it must be great being the smartest person in the room. On the brink of tears, Hunter confesses the truth: “No; it’s terrible!”

Such is the fate of Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States and occasional scold of congressional Republicans. In case you missed it, President Obama hosted handpicked members of representatives and senators at Blair House today to discuss health care “reform.” After watching the morning session of the seven-hour long affair, Yuval Levin offered this observation about the president’s most recent foray into legislative deliberation.

But he doesn’t seem like the President of the United States—more like a slightly cranky committee chairman or a patronizing professor who thinks that saying something is “a legitimate argument” is a way to avoid having an argument. He is diminished by the circumstances, he’s cranky and prickly when challenged, and he’s got no one to help him. The other Democrats around the table have been worse than unimpressive.

Among other things that could be said, the president doesn’t come across as the kind of guy anyone would want to have a beer with. Coupled with his condescending use of other people’s first names when they would not dare break protocol to call him Barry, the president increasingly looks like what he may very well be: a smarter-than-everyone-else-in-the-room jerk.