Freedom Line Blog

In an op-ed published yesterday on The Hill’s Congress Blog, CFIF Sr. Vice President Timothy Lee writes how legislation advancing in the House and Senate to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fail to sufficiently protect taxpayers and private investors.

Specifically, Lee focuses on the PATH Act, sponsored by Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) in the House, and the Housing Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013, sponsored by Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) in the Senate.  Not only could both pieces of legislation “end up putting taxpayers at even greater future risk,” Lee writes, but in addition:

[B]oth proposed bills fall terribly short in terms of protecting the rights of private investors in Fannie and Freddie, many of whom were actively encouraged by federal regulators to take their risk.  Not only would it be inherently unfair for the federal government to undercut their bargained-for investment rights, it would also send a terrible signal to future investors.  When even Ralph Nader laments that the federal government unfairly threatens to turn those private investors into “zombies,” the impropriety of the government’s proposed course becomes even more obvious.

Accordingly, if Congress seeks to eliminate both GSEs, then using something approximating the existing bankruptcy process would be a far better option for all involved.  Under that process, the government, taxpayers and creditors would be treated more fairly, and taxpayers would not be stuck with trillions in liability.   While not ideal, at least that would constitute an orderly and transparent process, one that more closely adhered to the rule of law on which our society is ostensibly based.

Lee concludes by warning, “unless and until the bills are significantly revised, American taxpayers and private market investors stand to lose.”

Read the entire piece here.

The U.S. House of Representatives just voted 230-189 to pass a stopgap spending bill that will fund the government for the next three months and DEFUND OBAMACARE.

The Senate will begin to take up the House bill on Monday.

Quin Hillyer, a superb writer and great friend who has served as a Senior Fellow for CFIF for the past two-plus years, is laying down his pen to run for U.S. Congress in Alabama. 

Hillyer made his intentions known yesterday to run for the seat being vacated by six-term Congressman Jo Bonner (R-AL), who announced earlier in the day that he will be leaving Congress in August to take a job with the University of Alabama.

Quin’s unwavering passion for the cause of liberty and conservative, limited government principles will be missed by all at CFIF.

Quin, we wish you all the best on your next “adventure!”

Tree farmers and small business owners have much to celebrate from a recent executive order signed by Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, which broadens the eligibility criteria for timber used in state government building projects and maintenance. 
 
The order allows a larger number of wood products from Georgia forests to be utilized in state construction and building projects, protecting jobs in the state’s timber industry and reducing costs for taxpayers by opening the market to products certified by the American Tree Farm System and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), certification programs currently not recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standards.
 
By ending USGBC’s LEED monopoly on “green” building wood certification, which effectively governs materials used in the overwhelming majority of public building projects nationwide, Georgia has rightly chosen competition and an open marketplace for forest products over monopolistic control by a non-profit environmental group that increasingly seems driven more by ideology and influence rather than sound science and economic common sense.
 
Recognizing that the “LEED rating system unfairly awards its wood certification credits only to products certified to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)” – the preferred certification program of extreme environmental groups that notoriously ignore the economic and employment impacts of their agendas – Governor Deal’s executive order officially acknowledges that “all forest certifications will equally help promote sustainable forests” and requires that “the design, construction, operation and maintenance of any new or expanded state building shall incorporate ‘Green Building’ standards that give certification credits equally to forest products grown, manufactured, and certified under the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, the American Tree Farm System and the Forest Stewardship Council.” [emphasis added]

The order comes at a time when LEED standards are becoming more closely scrutinized by elected officials and land managers.  Governor Paul LePage of Maine issued a similar executive order at the end of last year, and a growing, bipartisan group of elected officials are insisting the USGBC stop showing preference to FSC.   Environmental activist groups favor FSC over other systems, although it is questionable whether an FSC-only approach produces net environmental benefits or costs.  Economic logic and real-world practice suggests that a discriminatory FSC-only policy does hurt in terms of increased prices for consumers and forestry jobs. 

Favoring one standard over others upsets the delicate balance that must take place between sustainability and economic viability.  Georgia and Maine understand as much and have acted accordingly.   More states and the federal government should quickly follow their lead. 

Given the fragile state of the American economy, taking steps to break the LEED/FSC-monopoly will provide relief for taxpayers and landowners nationwide, who will be able to sell their goods in a larger number of markets.

The utra-liberal anchors at MSNBC, led by Chris “I-feel-thrills-up-my-leg-when-Obama-speaks” Matthews, abandoned all sense of journalistic integrity long ago.  But they’ve stooped to new lows with their coverage of the Republican convention in Tampa, where they’ve ramped up their election-year campaign to label Republicans racist.

 As Ed Morrisey put it over at Hot Air:

 The cast and management at MSNBC really, really want their viewers — all 20 of them now, I believe — to understand that the Republican Party is raaaaaaaaaaaacist, and that the GOP convention is nothing more than a bunch of white men talking and applauding.  They are so desperate to sell their meme latent Republican racism that they simply averted their eyes every time a speaker that didn’t fit their lone talking point took the stage.

Matthews, Maddow and Co. not only averted their own eyes, they blacked out (oops, too insensitive?) cut their convention coverage almost every time a prominent Republican minority took the podium.

So on the off chance that you are one of the few people tuned into MSNBC for convention coverage, we herewith present you with several of the speeches MSNBC didn’t want you to see:

Governor Mitt Romney this morning announced his choice of Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) as his Vice Presidential running mate.  It is a great pick.

There is no other public official on the planet who can better articulate conservative economic principles to the electorate – and aggressively advocate those principles to address our nation’s fiscal crisis head on – than Paul Ryan.   He is a man of strong character and deep intellect.  He is unapologetic in his defense of individual liberty and free enterprise.  And he knows that America is an exceptional nation.

Most important, Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan shows that his priority is leading and governing the nation.

Game on!

In yet another example of big labor flexing its destructive muscle to undercut American Airlines’ bankruptcy restructuring, the Allied Pilots Association this week rejected a contract offer from American that included pay raises and a 13.5 percent stake in the company, among other generous terms. 

To make matters worse, afterwards, the union board forced its president David Bates – who has a reputation for being both reasonable and pragmatic – to resign as seemingly a sole consequence of his support for American’s offer. 

It’s now beyond clear that the pilots union is going all in with US Airways CEO Doug Parker, who has made numerous promises to labor in his recent attempts to prematurely force a merger with American. This is the same CEO Parker who, since uniting America West with US Airways seven years ago,  has been unable to settle terms with the pilots of those airlines, even while he is now actively negotiating with American’s pilots. 

The fact remains that the entire airline industry was bloated during the last decade, and every legacy carrier has been forced to restructure to reduce their costs. While American – whose onerous labor costs are the highest in the industry – waited the longest to restructure, the company has recently excelled financially. To sustain its recent performance, however, there is no getting around the fact that it will need  to continue to cut costs, which means labor will have to agree to reasonable concessions.

Fortunately, a number of other unions have been more agreeable in their negotiations with American: mechanics and aircraft stock clerks represented by  the Transport Workers Union both ratified new accords this week. 

But if American’s pilots are unable to cooperate with their own labor leadership, colleagues and management to accept generous but realistic contract terms, they could effectively send their employer, or perhaps the entire airline industry, the way of the auto industry.

The difference this time being, the taxpayers won’t be there to bail them out.

Early this week, the liberal group Americans United for Change and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees launched a $280,000 ad campaign targeting some Republicans who voted to extend all of the Bush tax cuts for all Americans.  The ad charges them with voting “to give people like Donald Trump a tax break worth $150,000 a year…” [Emphasis added]

In response, the Donald took to Twitter and fired back with the following:

To the geniuses at ‘Americans United for Change’: the more you tax me the less people I employ. Get it?

That’s the problem, Mr. Trump.  They don’t get it.

“I do believe in intellectual property. I do believe you have a right to your property.”

So said Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) in response to a question following his remarks during an event last week at the Heritage Foundation titled, “Will the Real Internet Freedom Please Stand Up?”

In Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, our nation’s Founders specifically provided for the protection of intellectual property (IP) in order “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.”  While the fundamental concept of providing artisans, authors and inventors exclusive right to their respective works and discoveries has remained relatively uncontroversial for most of the nation’s history, recent debates regarding what to do about widespread infringement over the Internet have caused some to diminish IP protection by setting it aside as merely some abstract, disposable ideal.

That mindset is dangerous, both in theory and in practice.

First and foremost, intellectual property is vital to free enterprise and drives economic growth. According to a recent study by the Global Intellectual Property Center, IP-intensive industries currently employ more than 55 million Americans and account for 74% of all U.S. exports and $5.8 trillion in GDP.  Without strong IP protections, the incentive to innovate is removed, drying up investment, stalling growth and progress, and thus undercutting the entire economy.

Little if any incentive would exist for an author to write the next great novel, Hollywood to produce the next cinema blockbuster or a pharmaceutical company to develop a cure for cancer if none of them are able to benefit economically from their works.

Moreover, when the importance of IP is diminished or dismissed altogether, its protection is afforded different levels of enforcement not on par with that of physical property.  But the concept of property should not be rooted in its physical existence.  Owning property is a contract that provides the title-holder specific rights that lead to economic benefits, not simply a plot of land. In that way, intellectual property is no different than any other form of property. 

Senator Paul gets it. In his remarks – previewed as “what could be the most significant talk on Internet freedom this year” by the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Bluey – Paul declared, “There are some libertarians who don’t believe in copyright. I am not one of them. I think you have to protect intellectual property.”

Senator Paul’s comments reveal that not only do some libertarians get IP wrong, but that all property needs protection and enforcement thereof. As evidenced by over 200 years of practice, patent, trademark and copyright protections promote the general welfare and lead to great economic advantages by driving innovation and developing capital. The end result comes in the form of countless benefits from millions of IP-intensive jobs, billions in exports and trillions in GDP spilling over to the rest of society.

Property, including intellectual property, is preeminent and deserves strong protections.

Yesterday, the Center for Individual Freedom (“CFIF”) launched a State Sovereignty Project devoted to persuading all 50 states to aggressively exercise their authority to serve as a check on the ever-growing and often extra-constitutional power of the federal government.

The project, which builds on CFIF’s existing work over the last several years in this area, focuses a grassroots-driven approach to encourage governmental authorities closest to the people – governors, state and local legislatures, state attorneys general and other state constitutional officers – to reclaim and exercise the structural powers granted to them by the U.S. Constitution as a bulwark against federal encroachments on state sovereignty and erosion of the individual liberties of the people they serve.  Specifically, CFIF will employ and enhance its numerous forms of paid advertising, earned media, social media and editorial materials, among other methods, as part of an ongoing broad education effort to promote localized grassroots activism.

Read the press release here.

Below is a sampling of CFIF’s recent work in support of the project’s goals:

• Supreme Court: Diminished Standing
• Podcast: Florida Secretary of State Defends Effort to Crack Down on Voter Fraud
• Conservative Governors Are Right to Resist Medicaid Expansion
• Governors Leading Nationwide Charge on Education Reform
• Obama Team Hijacks Schools’ Core Standards
• Podcast: Reining In Regulatory Power Grabs
• For Voting Rights, Don’t Keep Section 5 Alive
• Podcast: SCOTUS and Arizona’s Illegal Immigration Law
• Podcast: The Administration’s Education Power Grab

Tom Goldstein, who has argued 25 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, bucks conventional wisdom with his latest prediction regarding the High Court’s ObamaCare ruling tomorrow. 

Over at SCOTUSblog, a site he co-founded, Goldstein writes:

[I]n the end, based on the entire mix of information I have, I think the mandate will not be struck down tomorrow.  (Neither I, nor anyone else, has any inside information.)  My prediction includes the possibility that there will not be a single majority opinion for the theory on which the mandate is upheld, and even the thin possibility that the Court will not have a majority to find the mandate constitutional.

As to the other major ObamaCare questions before the Court, Goldstein predicts:

Far less important, I expect the principal opinion will be written by the Chief Justice; a majority of the Court will find it has jurisdiction; and the challenge to the Medicaid expansion will be rejected.

Goldstein does acknowledge that most Supreme Court observers disagree with his prediction and that his own confidence in it “isn’t overwhelming.”  Coming from such a well-respected and brilliant legal mind, Goldstein’s prediction isn’t reassuring either. 

Here’s to hoping that Goldstein is misreading this one.

In a letter delivered on Friday, a coalition of 14 free market organizations, including the Center for Individual Freedom (“CFIF”), urged the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) to approve a private deal between Verizon and cable companies that will free currently unused spectrum to help alleviate the growing “spectrum crunch” that many wireless consumers – particularly those in densely populated areas of the country – are already feeling.

The letter, which was organized by ATR’s Digital Liberty, reads in part:

Demand for wireless broadband is more than doubling annually, but vast swaths of valuable spectrum – the lifeblood of mobile communications – remain unavailable to wireless carriers. Consumers in densely populated urban areas are already suffering from inadequate wireless capacity. While meeting this robust demand will require wireless carriers to adopt an ‘all-of-the-above’ approach, increasing spectrum availability is unquestionably the most fundamental and cost-effective means to meet wireless demand.

Unfortunately, spectrum auctions that will enable wireless carriers to bid on additional spectrum remain years away. Verizon Wireless’s proposed transfer presents a rare and crucial opportunity to deploy currently unused spectrum for wireless broadband. The spectrum at issue is ideally situated in the 1700/2100 MHz AWS bands, covering over 80 percent of the U.S. population (259 million POPs). Consumers will see substantial net benefits from expanded coverage enabled by additional spectrum, especially compared to more costly and time-consuming undertakings such as cell splitting.

With demand for wireless broadband more than doubling annually, the FCC’s own estimates predict that demand for wireless spectrum will exceed supply in 2013.  Yet Obama’s FCC has done little if anything at all to make additional and much-needed spectrum available to wireless network operators. 

In fact, under the Obama Administration the FCC has worked to delay and outright block private-sector deals to alleviate the growing spectrum crunch.  Last year, the FCC took unprecedented steps to block the then-pending AT&T-T-Mobile merger, going so far as to publicly release a biased draft staff report in opposition to the merger that the commissioners themselves never approved and quite  possibly didn’t even read.  Had that merger been approved, AT&T was promising to deploy high-speed mobile broadband to 95 percent of all Americans.  And the FCC has been over-scrutinizing and slow-walking approval of the Verizon-SpectrumCo deal since December.

Read the full coalition letter to the FCC here.

The Center for Individual Freedom (“CFIF”) this week joined a coalition of leading free market organizations opposing the federal Black Box Mandate, a provision included in the Senate version of the Highway Bill (SEC. 31406 of S. 1813) that would require all passenger motor vehicles in the United States, beginning with model year 2015, to be fitted with event data recorders (EDRs) that would collect all driving habits of consumers. 

The provision, which is currently being contemplated in a House-Senate conference committee on the Highway Bill, threatens to violate the privacy rights of consumers and burdens manufactures and small businesses with yet another costly, misguided and unnecessary federal mandate.

CFIF is encouraging all of our supporters and activists to visit the coalition website and sign the pledge to their Members of Congress and President Obama “to oppose any federal action to mandate the use of black box data recorders in personal vehicles.”  The pledge goes on to state that the Black Box Mandate:

1. Is an infringement on personal privacy and freedoms. 
2. Would be a slippery slope for Government to track citizen’s transportation habits and location. 
3. Is both an unnecessary expansion of government police power and an undue mandate on consumers and business.

Visit http://www.blackboxmandate.org to sign the pledge now.

In a stinging op-ed published yesterday in the LA Times, CFIF senior fellow Troy Senik focuses the blame for California’s failing public education system squarely where it belongs: the California Teachers Association (“CTA”).  Senik writes:

California’s education tailspin has been blamed on class sizes, on the property tax restrictions enforced by Proposition 13, on an influx of Spanish-speaking students. But no portrait of the schools’ downfall would be complete without mention of the California Teachers Assn., or CTA, arguably the state’s most powerful union and a political behemoth that has blocked meaningful education reform, protected failing and even criminal educators, and pushed for pay raises and benefits that have reached unsustainable levels.

Senik goes on to explain how the CTA is using its “fat bank account fed by mandatory dues that can run to more than $1,000 per member” to maintain and build its political dominance in the state.  In the past decade alone, Senik notes, “the CTA had spent more than $210 million…on political campaigning — more than any other donor in the state.”

Fortunately, there are signs of hope to help counter the CTA’s political stranglehold that has enabled it to prop up its own interests over that of students: Parents are starting to revolt against the union’s orthodoxy.  And  “unlike elected officials, parents are hard for the union to demonize.”

Read the entire piece here.

When it comes to highlighting federal inanity, Holman Jenkins hits a home run with his take in a Wall Street Journal article on the current FCC’s bureaucratic approach to the wireless industry.

As Jenkins describes the situation, “Like food rotting on a dock, only politics and policy prevents spectrum from getting where it’s needed.”

Jenkins goes on to articulate the point by aptly noting that wireless companies are “being starved of spectrum [their] customers would willingly pay for because of an archaic government allocation system in which economic logic does not penetrate.”

So why care?  Primarily because the wireless industry’s massive investment involved in developing spectrum for the public’s use is one of the few unmitigated bright spots in the US economy. Wireless carriers delivered approximately $27 billion in investment in U.S. mobile networks last year alone.  And continued wireless investment holds the potential to revolutionize our nation’s educational system, healthcare and so much more.

In employment terms, a Deloitte study last fall pegged 4G wireless investment as creating between 371,000 and 771,000 new jobs.  That includes the teams that deploy new cell towers, engineers and software developers, among others.

But the government’s dithering threatens to sideline billions in new investment that would otherwise be pumped into the economy and drive these benefits for consumers.

What’s especially ironic about the delays is that Obama’s FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has repeatedly sounded the alarm about the “looming spectrum crisis” that threatens “continued innovation in broadband wireless.”  Similar acknowledgements continually have been made directly from the White House.  Yet, when it comes to spectrum policy, the FCC and the Obama Administration have been driven by politics and ideology instead of sound economics and logic — a mindset that not only exacerbates the spectrum problem, but threatens (if not stops cold) private investment to deal with the problem.

Indeed, when wireless providers seek to overcome government obstacles to spectrum and move to address the crunch on their respective networks, they are met with hostility.  Jenkins points to the two obvious examples:

To meet demand of its customers for more and more bandwidth, AT&T laid out $39 billion for T-Mobile, a retreating, second-rank player, only to have the proposal nixed by Washington after many months of torture.

Verizon has been undergoing months of torture over its proposal to buy, for $3.9 billion, several blocks of spectrum sitting idle in the hands of cable TV companies.

That, coupled with the FCC’s counterproductive obsession with putting use conditions on auctioned spectrum to the point of rendering it less desirable or frankly, economically unfeasible, is only making the spectrum problem worse.

Everyone, including the FCC and the Obama Administration, agrees that the spectrum crunch must be resolved… and fast.  “The solution,” as Jenkins points out, “is to permit any spectrum that’s immediately deployable to be immediately deployed by those who can make use of it.”  And it must be deployed without burdensome government conditions and discriminatory bidder qualifications to ensure its most efficient use.

In other words, the FCC and Obama Administration must set aside politics and ideology, stop trying to pick winners and losers in an effort to shape some utopian vision of perfect competition in an already ultra-competitive market and allocate more spectrum for consumer use… now.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) this morning is releasing the House GOP budget proposal.  Ryan previews his budget in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal here, and outlines the “choice of two futures” — the status quo of more debt and greater decline vs. a path to prosperity that includes less debt, lower taxes and inidividual opportunity — in the web video posted below.

Newsmax.com reports:

The gross costs of the national healthcare law rammed through Congress by President Barack Obama will reach an estimated $1.76 trillion over 10 years – nearly twice the amount originally projected.

The figure, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) revealed on Wednesday, is bound to cause embarrassment to the administration as it comes just as debate on ‘Obamacare’ is starting to heat up again, two weeks before the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on whether the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.

Truth be told, nearly everyone already knew that the cost estimates used to sell ObamaCare to the American people were part of the White House shell game to get it passed.  That much is understood by both supporters and opponents of ObamaCare.  What is embarrassing is the administration’s response to the latest CBO estimate.

‘The bottom line is clear: the Affordable Care Act will reduce our deficit, control health costs and make health care more affordable,’ Jeanne Lambrew, deputy director of the White House office of Health Reform, wrote on the White House blog.

Remember, this is the same White House trying to convince you that algae is the answer to rising gas prices.

For the past three years, those of us who eat, sleep and breathe the principles of limited government and free enterprise have been banging our heads against the wall because of the devastating and rampant overreach of executive departments and agencies in the Obama Administration.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)… the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)… the Department of Justice (DOJ)… Enough said.

But perhaps there has been no agency more guilty of abusing its power and imposing its regulatory overreach than the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).  After all, it is the FCC that unilaterally – by a 3-2 party-line vote – imposed so-called “Net Neutrality” regulations against a bipartisan majority in Congress, a unanimous federal court of appeals and 2-1 public opinion.  It is the FCC that, despite acknowledging a national spectrum crisis as more and more consumers use smart phones and tablet computers, continually works to block any and all productive efforts to relieve said crisis.

So it was refreshing to read earlier today that AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson is calling out the FCC’s overreach, charging that the Commission is “intent on picking winners and losers rather than letting these markets work.” 

For too long the FCC has interfered with the free market, which has created an unlevel playing field that unfairly props up politically-favored companies less likely to invest their own capital in new job-creating and economy-enhancing infrastructure at the expense of others that will. 

And, that’s precisely why Congress must act, not only to refrain from granting the FCC’s request for additional flexibility on spectrum auction authority, but also to tighten the reins on the FCC in order to prevent it from further skewing the wireless market. 

Instead of permitting the FCC to, by definition, pick “winners and losers” in the wireless marketplace by unfairly limiting and excluding certain companies from participating in spectrum auctions, Congress must pass legislation that that will facilitate the proper and fair functioning of spectrum auctions that are open to all willing buyers. 

That the FCC thinks otherwise, coupled with its recent history of abusive regulatory overreach, should spark a long overdue and serious discussion about clearly defining its proper authority once and for all.

CFIF Senior Fellow Quin Hillyer on Sunday appeared on Fox News  to discuss the extremely ideological and partisan hiring practices for career positions within the Obama Justice Department and the mainstream media’s virtual silence (read: hypocrisy) on the issue. 

In interviews with Fox News’ Shannon Bream (first on the America’s News Headquarters program, then during an extended discussion on Fox News’ Power Play), Hillyer recounted how the media, especially The New York Times and Washington Post,  relentlessly pursued allegations of conservative hiring practices in President George W. Bush’s Justice Department as an earth-shattering scandal, despite the fact that the Civil Rights Division of Bush’s DOJ  hired as many as two dozen known liberals for career positions.  But now, as Hillyer wrote in a piece on the issue several weeks ago, “Neither they nor any other establishment news organ seems the slightest bit perturbed now that, thanks to Pajamas Media, it is abundantly clear that the Obama Justice Department’s liberal hiring is far more politicized than anything the Bushies even dreamed of.”

Just how flagrant are the hiring practices in Obama’s DOJ?  As Hillyer wrote last month:

Now Pajamas Media has analyzed the hiring in five – count them, five – different sections of DoJ. So far, those five sections in the Civil Rights Division have hired 70 lawyers. According to Pajamas, every single one – every single one, every single one, every single one – has boasted a resume full of ideologically leftist connections.

These people were members of groups like ‘Queer Resistance Front,’ ‘Intersex Society of North America,’ and of course People for the American Way.  Their published essays focused on issues such as ‘Genital Normalizing Surgery on Intersexed Infants’ and on arguing that providing material support for terrorism isn’t a war crime.  They, or those promoted, have histories of extracurricular activities that include getting arrested at a World Bank protest, going on a hunger strike while chaining oneself to an oak tree and doing advocacy work for ‘the rights of incarcerated native Hawaiians to dance the hula and perform Hawaiian chants and rituals in privately owned prisons in Arizona.’ A large number of them have donated significant campaign funds to Barack Obama, and some to other liberal candidates.

Not a single one has a single affiliation with any group seen as right of center. Actually, according to Pajamas, none is even apolitical. Instead, all are definitively liberal.

Hillyer goes on to point out that the issue isn’t merely a political matter, but one that has real-world policy consequences. 

Watch the FoxNews.com Power Play interview here. 

Watch the the America’s News Headquarters interview, care of our friends at Media Research Center, here.