Freedom Line Blog

In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses the temper tantrum being thrown by the City of Los Angeles over Arizona’s new immigration law and the idea of taking border security seriously.

This week’s edition of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out.  Below is a summary of its contents:

Senik:  Five Good Ideas from Conservative U.S. Senate Candidates
Lee:  “Net Neutrality” Regulation: Obama’s Imperious FCC Shifts to Plan B  
Ellis:  The Facts About the Failed Times Square Bomber: Why the Liberal Establishment Can’t Face Reality
CFIF Staff:  I Read the News Today, Oh Boy!

Freedom Minute Video:  Then They Came for the Internet
Podcast:  Author Discusses How Afghan President Hamid Karzai Came to Power
Jester’s Courtroom:  Man Sues Goldman Sachs for Giving Good Advice

Editorial Cartoons:  Latest Cartoons of Michael Ramirez
Quiz:  Question of the Week
Notable Quotes:  Quotes of the Week

If you are not already signed up to receive CFIF’s Liberty Update by e-mail, sign up here.

In this week’s Freedom Minute video, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses the latest scheme by Obama’s Federal Communications Commission to circumvent a federal court ruling in an effort to regulate the Internet.

This week’s edition of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out.  Below is a summary of its contents:

Lee:  Democrats Exempt Big Labor Benefactors from Legislation Abridging Freedom of Speech
Ellis:  Who Is Kris Kobach and Why Should Proponents of Illegal Immigration Fear Him? 
Senik:  The Country – Not the GOP – is Moving to the Right
Groff:  The Government War on the American Diet

Freedom Minute Video:  Ten Lessons From the Age of Obama
Podcast:  Florida Attorney General on the Legal Battle Over Health Care Reform
Jester’s Courtroom:  Message in a Bottle: Don’t File Phony Lawsuits

Editorial Cartoons:  Latest Cartoons of Michael Ramirez
Quiz:  Question of the Week
Notable Quotes:  Quotes of the Week

If you are not already signed up to receive CFIF’s Liberty Update by e-mail, sign up here.

In an interview with CFIF, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum discusses the lawsuit brought by at least 20 states challenging the constitutionality of ObamaCare and why the new law’s unprecedented mandates are an affront to individual freedom.

Listen to the interview here.

This week’s edition of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out.  Below is a summary of its contents:

Lee:  Obama’s Big Fat Greek Bailout
Senik:  The Long, Silent Surrender to Radical Islam
Ellis:  Crony Capitalism Looms Large Over Pennsylvania Special Election to Replace John Murtha
CFIF Staff:  Praising Arizona

Freedom Minute Video:  Washington’s Fiscal Shell Game
Podcast:  Justice Stevens’ Retirement
Jester’s Courtroom:  High Standard of Care Expected from Lawyers as Well as Doctors

Editorial Cartoons:  Latest Cartoons of Michael Ramirez
Quiz:  Question of the Week
Notable Quotes:  Quotes of the Week

If you are not already signed up to receive CFIF’s Liberty Update by e-mail, sign up here.

In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses the fiscal shell game being played by Washington politicians and how they must come clean on how our taxpayer dollars are being spent.

In this week’s Freedom Minute video, CFIF’s Renee Giachino dispels the myths perpetrated by the left and the mainstream media about the Tea Party movement. 

Watch the video below:

Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had some big news to announce yesterday.  So in typical Washington fashion, she did what any politician would do.  Pelosi called a press conference.  Her big news?  With the Capitol Hill press corps huddled before her, the Speaker announced that she had spent $140,000 in taxpayer money on new “energy efficient” light fixtures and window shades for the House cafeteria.

But that’s not all.  The fancy new light fixtures and window shades, which automatically raise and lower based on the amount of sunlight that shines through, were a bargain, according to Pelosi and Stephen Ayers, the Architect of the Capitol.  Indeed, Ayers bragged:

I think this fixture was $800 a year ago, and it’s now just over $300, so in one year that’s a pretty significant savings – which allows us to begin using this kind of equipment and technology, because we’re able to get a good return on investment.  At $800 a fixture we can’t get a good return on investment, but when it gets down to $300 – and I’m sure it will go even lower – we’re able to get a good return on investment.”

And just how “good” will that “return on investment” be?  So “good” that Ayers and Pelosi believe that, based on estimates of what will be saved in energy costs, it will only take, well, a mere decade for the light fixtures and window shades to pay for themselves. 

Okay, okay.   What’s $140,000 in the grand scheme of things?  Especially when you consider the federal deficit will exceed $1.5 trillion this year alone.  But that’s not the point.

At a time when millions of Americans are out of work, and millions more are taking to the streets to protest excessive government spending, including the Speaker’s push to cripple the U.S. economy with a “climate change” bill complete with a job-killing Cap-and-Trade scheme, it’s the symbolism of it all.

We’re sure there are many Americans who would love to replace the light fixtures and window treatments in their homes.  But times are tough.  Just as the average American family has been forced to do without new luxuries for their house, with record deficits strangling the federal budget, the time has long passed for Pelosi to do without in hers too!

Perhaps U.S. Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) should have checked with his constituents before publicly announcing his intention to inflict economic hardship on his own state in response to the immigration enforcement bill recently passed by the Arizona legislature.

According to Rasmussen Reports, “70% of likely voters in Arizona approve of the legislation, while just 23% oppose it.” 

On the issue of amnesty for illegal aliens, for which Grijalva is a strong proponent, “73% of voters in Arizona now say gaining control of the border is more important than legalizing the status of these undocumented workers.” And, “[e]ighty-three percent (83%) of Arizona voters say a candidate’s position on immigration is an important factor in how they will vote, including 51% who say it’s very important.”

The Arizona legislature recently made national news by passing a tough immigration enforcement bill aimed at addressing the increasing violence along its border with Mexico and the state’s growing illegal immigration problem.  Unhappy with the legislation, two Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, including one from Arizona, are now calling for tough “economic sanctions” against the state.

According to The Hill newspaper, Representatives Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) have asked President Obama to lean on Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican who reportedly has not taken a formal position on the bill, to veto the immigration enforcement measure, “either by warning of federal pre-emption of the law itself or by threatening Arizona’s federal funding.”

In addition to wanting the president to withhold federal funds, Grijalva is threatening to take matters into his own hands should the bill become state law.  (Did we mention that he represents a district in Arizona?) 

The Hill reports:

Grijalva warned Brewer that the law, if enacted, could lead to other negative consequences for the state — in the form of what he called ‘economic sanctions.’

‘We are going to be urging national organizations — religious, civic, labor, Latino, of color — to refrain from spending their dollars on conventions and in national activities in the state of Arizona,’ Grijalva said. ‘There have to be hard economic sanctions for this.’

Both Representatives Gutierrez and Grijalva are strong proponents of “comprehensive immigration reform” (aka Amnesty for Illegal Aliens) and appear to be using the immigration enforcement measure passed by the Arizona legislature as a means to that end. 

Regardless, in our two-and-a-half-minute Google search, we couldn’t find one other example of a Member of Congress working to inflict economic hardship on his own state, for any reason.  Is this guy serious?

This week’s edition of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out.  Below is a summary of its contents:

Senik:  Nukes Have Kept America Safe; Obama Hasn’t
Ellis:  The Corruption Stops Here: Darrell Issa’s War on Democratic Overreach
Lee:  New Obama Administration Rule Greases Union Wheels, But Runs Over Taxpayers
CFIF Staff:  Charles Krauthammer Is a Great American, and That’s a True Fact

Freedom Minute Video:  The Return of Amnesty
Podcast:  U.S. Chamber’s Randel K. Johnson duscusses Obama’s Controversial Recess Appointment to the NLRB
Jester’s Courtroom:  Fighting Frivolous Lawsuits with Facebook

Editorial Cartoons:  Latest Cartoons of Michael Ramirez
Quiz:  Question of the Week
Notable Quotes:  Quotes of the Week

If you are not already signed up to receive CFIF’s Liberty Update by e-mail, sign up here.

Remember when both Candidate Obama and President Obama promised (on more than one occasion) that no family making less than $250,000 per year would see any of their taxes increase – not “one single dime?”

Well, that promise held true for a little while… yeah… for about the political equivalent of five minutes.

Indeed, according to House Way & Means Committee Ranking Member Dave Camp (R-MI):

Since January of 2009, President Obama and Congressional Democrats have enacted into law gross tax increases totaling more than $670 billion, or more than $2,100 for every man, woman and child in the United States.  The list of tax increases includes at least 14 violations of the President’s pledge not to raise taxes on Americans earning less than $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples.” [emphasis added]

Rep. Camp has compiled all the tax increases in a nice and easy to read chart.  Check it out here.  It will come in handy the next time your liberal neighbor suggests that President Obama is actually working to reduce taxes on middle class families.

Merely weeks after the passage of ObamaCare, experts are already sounding the alarm:  The nation doesn’t have enough doctors!

Suzanne Sataline and Shirley S. Wang of The Wall Street Journal report:

At current graduation and training rates, the nation could face a shortage of as many as 150,000 doctors in the next 15 years, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. …

“The greatest demand will be for primary-care physicians. These general practitioners, internists, family physicians and pediatricians will have a larger role under the new law, coordinating care for each patient. …

“A shortage of primary-care and other physicians could mean more-limited access to health care and longer wait times for patients.”

Read the full piece here.

In these week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses the Obama Administration’s education policy.  While the president has taken some steps in the right direction, there are still other, more troubling aspects of the policy that need to be addressed.

This week’s edition of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out.  For those readers who don’t receive it in their e-mail inboxes or if you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, below is a summary of its contents:

CFIF Staff:  Here Come the VAT, the Mother of All Taxes
Ellis:  The GOP’s ‘Doc Fix’ to ObamaCare: Doctors as Congressional Candidates
Lee:  Thwarting the Aggressive Obama Agenda: Appellate Court Quashes FCC’s “Net Neutrality” Scheme
Senik:  Deconstructing America, One Industry at a Time

Freedom Minute Video:  Professor Obama in the Classroom
Podcast:  Florida Senate President Discusses Need for Federal Balanced Budget
Jester’s Courtroom:  Can You Hear Me Now?

Editorial Cartoons:  Latest Cartoons of Michael Ramirez
Quiz:  Question of the Week
Notable Quotes:  Quotes of the Week

If you are not already signed up to receive CFIF’s Liberty Update, sign up here.

The Washington Times today published an op-ed authored by Timothy Lee, CFIF’s VP of Legal and Public Affairs, on the coming Internet tax and other efforts by President Obama’s FCC to over-regulate the world wide web.

Lee writes:

The Obama Era has become a protracted, nightmarish Whack-A-Mole game of tax increases and bureaucratic self-enlargement. In sector after sector of American life, another scheme to expand government and wrench more earnings from Americans’ pockets pops up.

“Its next targeted sector?  The Internet.”

Read the entire piece on the Times’ website here.

FoxNews.com reports:

The 11 House Democrats led by Rep. Bart Stupak who dropped their opposition to health care reform legislation mere hours before the final vote have requested $3.4 billion in earmarks — and one watchdog group wants to know whether the money represents business as usual or political payoffs. 

“The Sunlight Foundation says it plans to track the earmark requests, which were put in one day after health care reform cleared Congress, to see whether they’re approved and whether it appears lawmakers are being rewarded for their vote. “

Of course, Stupak’s office claims there is no link between the earmarks and health care votes.   But if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

Are you curious to know when your taxes will spike?  When one of approximately 17,000 new IRS agents will come knocking for failure to have government-approved insurance?  When senior citizens can expect to see those massive cuts to their Medicare Advantage plans?

Congressman Dave Camp, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee, has put together a handy timeline outlining when all the major provisions of ObamaCare are set to kick in.

Check it out here (.pdf).