Freedom Line Blog

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.

During today’s White House Health Care Summit, President Obama continues to insist that his plan to reform the nation’s health care system is not a government takeover of health care. 

Countering the president’s claim, the Senate Republican Policy Committee released a list of 159 new boards, bureaucracies and programs created in the Senate-passed bill, which serves as the framework for President Obama’s “new” health care proposal, a summary of which was released earlier this week.

View the entire RPC list here.

As President Obama and certain Members of Congress continue with their health care dog-and-pony show today, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey is out confirming what should already be obvious to all politicians in Washington:  The health care bills under current consideration are about as popular as Congress itself.

As CNN reports it:

Twenty-five percent of people questioned in the poll say Congress should pass legislation similar to the bills passed by both chambers, with 48 percent saying lawmakers should work on an entirely new bill and a quarter saying Congress should stop all work on health care reform.”

In politics, those numbers amount to near universal opposition.   But we digress.

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.

The Associated Press reports:

The lone Republican lawmaker to support Democratic health care legislation has seen his fundraising drop by nearly 40 percent since his vote, and he is quickly burning through a dwindling bank account after resorting to a costly national fundraising operation.”

That “lone Republican lawmaker” is Joseph Cao of Louisiana.  Obama won Cao’s district in 2008 with 75% of the vote.

Hey all you so-called “moderate” Dems seeking reelection in November:  Still think it’s a good idea to vote “Yes” on ObamaCare?

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.

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.

The more things change, the more they stay the same…

The White House this morning released a summary of President Obama’s latest proposal to reform the U.S. health care system.  Billed by the administration as an “opening bid” for discussion at the president’s so-called “Bipartisan Health Care Summit” later this week, the new plan closely mirrors the Senate-passed legislation. 

In other words, ObamaCare 2.0 3.0 … 12.0 (sorry, we lost count) is filled with the same tired proposals that the American people have already overwhelmingly rejected:  an individual mandate, drastic cuts to Medicare Advantage, taxes on so-called “Cadillac” insurance plans, etc., etc., etc. 

The release of the administration’s latest proposal comes on the heels of reports that Congressional Democrats are leaning heavily towards passing ObamaCare via reconciliation, a procedural trick enabling them to circumvent a filibuster of the legislation in the Senate.  Indeed, according to White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, Obama’s latest health care plan was carefully crafted with that in mind.

The proposal is designed to provide “maximum flexibility to ensure that we can get an up or down vote if the opposition decides to take the extraordinary step of filibustering health reform,” Pfeiffer said on a conference call with reporters this morning. 

Will someone please remind us again what opponents of ObamaCare stand to gain by participating in the sham that is Obama’s “Bipartisan” Summit on Thursday?

Over 90 percent of doctors admit to practicing defensive medicine – focusing just as much on preventing lawsuits as on preventing disease.  In last week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discussed the dire need for meaningful medical liability reform to reduce U.S. health care costs.

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:

Alert:  Join the Fight to Stop the Government Takeover of the Internet
Lee:  “From Keynesian to Ponzian” – Obama’s Stimulus One Year Later
Senik:  The Age of Obama 2009-2010
CFIF Staff:  Al Gore Pivots to the Bottom Line
Ellis:  Executive Orders Reveal Executive Weakness

Freedom Minute Video:  Real Health Care Reform Means More Doctors, Less Trial Lawyers
Podcast:  First Amendment Lawyer Discusses Citizens United v. FEC
Jester’s Courtroom:  Not the Smartest Escape Plan

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 Center for Individual Freedom (“CFIF”) this week unveiled a national grassroots campaign to rally conservatives in opposition to the Obama Administration’s efforts to impose onerous “Net Neutrality” rules on the Internet. The ‘Stop Net Regulation’ campaign, launched during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., encourages Americans to get active online through a national petition and by contacting their elected officials in opposition to a government takeover of the Internet.

Join the fight by signing the online petition here.

Read CFIF’s media release here.

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.

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:

Lee:  Global Warming Dead-Enders Imitate Gilligan’s Island
CFIF Staff:  Will President Obama Make Recess Appointments?
Ellis:  If It’s Broke, Fix It: Paul Ryan’s Plan to Make Government Programs Sustainable
Senik:  Diary of a Conservative

Freedom Minute Video:  Forget Green – We’ll Take Jobs of Any Color
Podcast:  John Yoo Provides An Historical Perspective on Today’s Controversies Over Executive Power
Jester’s Courtroom:  Debtor Sues to Hang Up Student Loan Company’s Debt Collection Practices

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.

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.

In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses why another taxpayer-funded stimulus package and government “investments” in so-called green jobs are not the answers to the nation’s future prosperity.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s senior health care advisor said this week that Democratic leadership has settled on a procedural strategy to pass ObamaCare. 

The story was first reported by Congress Daily (which can only be accessed with a subscription).  Here’s how LifeNews.com reported it:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s top health care aide Wendell Primus admitted top Democrats have already decided on the strategy to pass the Senate’s government-run health care bill…

Primus explained that the Senate will use the controversial reconciliation strategy that will have the House approve the Senate bill and both the House and Senate okaying changes to the bill that the Senate will sign off on by preventing Republicans from filibustering.

“The trick in all of this is that the president would have to sign the Senate bill first, then the reconciliation bill second, and the reconciliation bill would trump the Senate bill,” Primus said at the National Health Policy Conference hosted by Academy Health and Health Affairs.

 “There’s a certain skill, there’s a trick, but I think we’ll get it done,” he said.

The news had The Washington Examiner’s Mark Tapscott pondering, “[W]hy call a health care summit and challenge congressional Republicans to come with their best ideas when the plan is already in place to use legislative trickery to pass Obamacare?”

Good question.  One that Tapscott himself answered very adequately by writing:

The most logical answer would seem to be that the summit is part and parcel of a White House/congressional Democratic strategy to distract attention from what is about to happen on the Hill. It’s the classic magician’s trick of distracting you with the left hand while the right hand does the “trick.”

The Associated Press reports:

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The New York Senate has passed a resolution opposing trials of terrorists being held in New York City.

The resolution passed Tuesday urges President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to move trials of those linked to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks back to the military tribunal system.

President Obama and Attorney General Holder are reportedly considering alternative venues for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s trial.  But both still believe it best to try the 9-11 mastermind in a civilian court.  They may be the only two people left in America who feel that way.

That’s the question Congressman Darrell  Issa (R-CA) is hoping to get answered with regard to President Obama’s promise, made during a speech before a joint session of Congress last September, to consider medical malpractice reform as a means of lowering U.S. health care costs.

During his nationally-televised September speech, Obama said:

Now, finally, many in this chamber – particularly on the Republican side of the aisle – have long insisted that reforming our medical malpractice laws can help bring down the cost of health care. … Now, I don’t believe malpractice reform is a silver bullet, but I’ve talked to enough doctors to know that defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs. So I’m proposing that we move forward on a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first and let doctors focus on practicing medicine. I know that the Bush Administration considered authorizing demonstration projects in individual states to test these ideas. I think it’s a good idea, and I’m directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative today.”

However, according to a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report on the benefits of capping non-economic damages and passing other tort reform measures released last week, it appears the President wasn’t being sincere when he made that directive.  The report, on page 4, reads:

Committee staff inquired of HHS whether they had an updated figure [on how much the federal government spends annually for malpractice coverage and the costs of defensive medicine], but staff was told by personnel of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation that the report in question involved medical litigation which ‘is not a priority for this Administration.’”  

“The first question I have for President Obama is if he still stands by his call for tort reform or was he just lying to Congress when he directed Secretary [Kathleen] Sebelius to pursue an initiative addressing the costs of defensive medicine,” Issa, who is the ranking Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a statement released Monday. 

With all due respect Congressman, do you even have to ask?  The President’s commitment to meaningful tort reform is about as sincere as his commitment to bipartisanship.  Both are simply “not a priority for this Administration.”

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:

Lee:  Obama Blames His Record Deficits On Bush. He’s Not Being Honest.
Humber:  In Praise of James O’Keefe
Senik:  When Man Looked Up

Freedom Minute Video:  KSM Plan Should be DOA
Podcast:  Steve Forbes Discusses How Capitalism Will Save Us
Jester’s Courtroom:  Fine Imposed for Filing Frivolous 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, sign up here.

In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses the Obama Administration’s plan to give the mastermind of the 9-11 attacks a civilian trial in NYC and how it’s past time for our nation to get serious about winning the War on Terror.