Freedom Line Blog

A judge has ordered former John Edwards aide Andrew Young to turn over all copies of an alleged John Ewards/Rielle Hunter sex tape to the court.  As the story goes, Young found the tape in a Hunter hatbox, and Hunter wants it back.

In the public interest (of course), we think all copies should be turned over to the Newseum (preferably the National Enquirer wing) to remind the mainstream media of the story they missed, to remind John Edwards to just go away and to remind the rest of us to always be wary of the personal character of those who seek to lead us.

At a Democratic National Committee fundraiser late last week, speaking about his stalled health care “reform,” President Obama said, “…if Congress decides we’re not going to do it, even after all the facts are laid out, all the options are clear, then the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right for them or not.  And that’s how democracy works.  There will be elections coming up, and they’ll be able to make a determination and register their concerns.”

Translation:  My term’s not up until 2012.  Yours are up, oh goodness, this year.  Rahm, how many people can we throw under one bus?  Need to make sure we have enough.

To read, hear and watch mockers of Tea Party Conventioners, one might conclude that none of those worthies ever observed a Democratic or Republican convention – local, state or national.  Likewise, they all seemed to have missed that one journalism school lecture on “context.”

What can you expect, though?  Sweet tea really is quite deliciously quaint, and there were no faux-Greek columns to fawn upon.

For her Tea Party Convention speech, Sarah Palin wore a small lapel pin with two flags – that of the U.S. and that of Israel.

Call us the next time you see a liberal wearing one of those.

The next time you hear a politician wax about the virtues of tax credits and special deals to lure in businesses, think about this home state businessman’s frustration with the practice in Michigan.

“Our legislators are busy voting on tax credits to a myriad of targeted industries, hoping that one of these ‘new-economy’ firms will save our state from collapse,” protests Bill Jackson of the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce. “Isn’t it time government puts an end to picking winners and losers and gives every Michigan job provider a ‘tax credit’?”

Indeed.  The logic is undeniable.  If lower taxes are good for one business, why aren’t they good for all?  They are, but that isn’t the point.  For progressives like Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and her colleagues in the Democratic Party, legislating through the tax code is business as usual; especially if it allows them to prop up companies and industries that align with progressive dogma of a “green” economy.  In reality, the kinds of tax incentives aren’t breaks; they’re exercises in fiscal discrimination.   Once again, when it comes to finance and the economy, progressives have positions, free marketers have principles.  It really is that simple.

H/T: National Review Online

The Associated Press reported a remarkable story this week:  The five American Muslims arrested in Pakistan, accused of plotting terrorist attacks, have accused the FBI of torturing them.  The accusation was written on tissue paper and tossed to reporters.  It plaintively read:  “Since our arrest, the U.S. FBI and Pakistani police have tortured us.  They are trying to set us up.  We are innocent.  They are trying to keep up away from public, media and families and lawyers.  Help us.”

A U.S. Embassy spokesman said the accusations aren’t true.  Well, he would, wouldn’t he?

Still, with regard to U.S. torture of terrorist suspects, an allegation laid has been an allegation played, at least against the previous administration.

Where are the Congressional calls for investigation of this one?  If nothing else,  just consider the absolute outrage of giving alleged terrorist suspects nothing more than “tissue paper” to complain with.

Is Al Gore in Washington, D.C. this weekend?

That would only be fitting, given Mother Nature’s gesture of laughter toward the global warming hysteria industry in the form of potentially record snowfall for the DC/Baltimore area.  Meteorologists are predicting between 20 and 30 inches of snowfall in Washington, which could surpass the record 28 inches the nation’s capital received in the 1928 “Knickerbocker Storm.”

Notably, this forecast doesn’t come in isolation.  Rather, it follows by approximately one month a similarly paralyzing December snowstorm whose rock-solid remnants hadn’t yet disappeared from DC landscapes.

All of this begs the question:  Where in the world is Al Gore this weekend?

It’s not merely the delicious thought of Gore snowed inside his house, either.  There he’d sit, pathetically gazing out his window at the frigid snowfall, unable to expand his already-gigantic carbon footprint by galavanting in his private jet or SUV convoy to his latest Chicken Little global warming speech.  It goes beyond that wonderful irony.

Believe it or not, this storm actually presents a novel fundraising opportunity for him and his increasingly-discredited movement.

Think about it…  Imagine the enormous number of dollars Gore could collect by agreeing to publicly shovel snow for amused “climate criminals” who dared question his ludicrous warming admonitions or fail to drive automobiles powered by vegetable oil.  Perhaps he could even drive a snowplow, sprinkle some salt on roads and walkways or build snowmen in the yards of climate realists.  All on camera for posterity, of course.

As a charitable gesture, we could even allow him and fellow liberals to claim the thousands of neighborhood kids shoveling snow for $20 per driveway as jobs “saved or created.”

Don’t think of it as a rebuke, Mr. Gore.  Think of it as a fun little opportunity that could erase memories of your “no controlling legal authority” fundraising embarrassment from the 1990s.

The chief knock on President Obama’s congressional management style is that he doesn’t have one. From the stimulus bill to health care “reform,” The One and advisors like David Axelrod are amazingly “aloof,” “disengaged,” or as Senator Al Franken (D-MN) put it in a closed door session this week, unwilling to provide leadership on how to close a deal. Franken was responding to Obama’s call to “finish the job” after which the latter gave no indication how to do it. According to reports, Franken’s frustration was shared by other senators.

The president’s hands-off approach seems odd for two reasons. First, it’s unusual for any politician to deflect an opportunity to take center stage, especially when the praise of passage would accrue to him. The other reason is that Obama is a Saul Alinsky disciple well versed in the master community organizer’s chief work, “Rules for Radicals.” One of the tenets of the book is “never go outside the experience of your people.” For a Democratic Senate without the presence of the late Ted Kennedy, that means don’t bank on any of the remaining 59 senators being able to negotiate and pass landmark legislation. None of them have a track record for doing it.

Then again, neither does Obama. The cold reality for activists like Franken is that those put in charge by the Left don’t have the experience, and frankly the ability, to get major legislation passed. That Ted Kennedy did so for decades without inspiring any of his fellow Democrats to take notes speaks to the single-minded emphasis of progressive strategists on getting power instead of figuring out how to use it. Republicans should take heed: it’s not enough to win because thereafter, you have to govern.

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.

Not that many moons ago, Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana was haughtily correcting reporters that the price tag for the so-called “Louisiana Purchase” of her vote for the now-stalled health care reform bill was not the early-reported $100 million, but closer to $300 million (there are estimates approaching $400 million).

Yesterday, Miss Piggy Landrieu took to the Senate floor to whine about the attacks on her resulting, well, for her pigginess.  Among her remarks, “I know what I am inside.  I don’t need anyone to remind me of the goodness I have inside…”

We must have missed all those stories that attempted to remind her of the goodness she has inside.

From Josh Kraushaar, politico.com: 

On the same day Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn officially claimed the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, he found out that his newly-minted running mate has a rap sheet that includes alleged domestic battery and tax evasion.  The revelation has shocked Democrats, leading to worries that his presence could taint the entire statewide ticket.

“According to court records obtained by the Chicago Tribune, Scott Lee Cohen, a millionaire pawnbroker who prevailed with a narrow plurality in the crowded primary for lieutenant governor, was accused by his ex-girlfriend, a prostitute, of holding a knife to her neck in a 2005 domestic dispute.”

Read the whole story 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.

If the rumors are true and Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsberg wind up stepping down from the bench in tandem, President Obama could throw a bone to Republicans and nominate one of their choices.  That would almost assure both nominees of confirmation.  But since that isn’t likely to happen, it will be interesting to see which Democratic identity group is first in line to claim the seat(s).

But wouldn’t it be nice if interpretive method were the controlling factor?  No matter who is on the current shortlist, it isn’t complete unless it includes Yale law professor Akhil Amar, the prolific author of Originalist constitutional works from a progressive viewpoint.  Though I don’t share all of Amar’s interpretations, I welcome the chance to have a brilliant jurist of the Left that agrees with Justices Scalia and Thomas that constitutional interpretation should begin with the text and its meaning at the time it was ratified.  Already, Amar is the most cited constitutional law scholar of his generation.  It would be nice to see such achievement rewarded with a position where he could put his theories into practice – and do battle with Scalia and Thomas.

Privacy advocates should be excused if for the last few days they’ve been trudging about in sackcloth and ashes mourning the integration of tech and state. After all, Phil did see his shadow. On the heels of a report that there is a growing movement towards creating a national network for police at all levels to electronically request and receive information from internet service providers, today it is announced that Google is negotiating with the National Security Agency (NSA). The deal would somehow allow the NSA to analyze and advise Google on how to avoid high level hacking while shielding Gmail and other users from Big Brother’s watchful eye.

Good luck. While I would hope NSA employs some of the best and brightest cyber security minds available, I’d be surprised if Google couldn’t hire them away. Moreover, why does Google see the need to “partner” with governments in areas where the probability of losing its independence is extremely high? First, it was gulping back China’s human rights record and censorship practices. Now, the most influential tech company in the world is asking Uncle Sam to set up shop in its control room.

Be on the lookout for that national police network. With partners in the permanent government, it may not be long until Google gets asked to help usher in a British-style CCTV (closed circuit television) monitoring program. All for the good of the country, of course.

As the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter memorably put it, the free market is about “creative destruction” —  rank, privilege, and status mean nothing if you can’t compete in the marketplace. Bad companies and products wilt under competition from more capable rivals.

Applying these kinds of first principles to policy debates can be unwieldy at times, however, if they don’t exactly square with your political coalition. Republicans have been wed to the business establishment for decades on the notion that those who philosophically support the free market and those who actually grind the gears of commerce on a daily basis are natural allies. Not necessarily, says Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan in an interview with RealClearPolitics. When asked about the current state of the economy:

Republicans messed this up too. We have to remember that we’re also to blame for having practiced crony capitalism. But where we are right now — it’s a systematic expansion of this doctrine. For us, it’s easier to fix because we just have to rededicate ourselves to our principles. For Democrats, they would have to repudiate theirs, because crony capitalism sits nicely with their philosophy. You can sort of see an alignment here where big business and big government find a common agreement and that is a very big danger to our free market system. So we need to go back to being pro-market, instead of just pro-business. And there is a difference.

Ryan is one of the brightest members of Congress around (his comprehensive plan for restoring America’s economic health is referenced extensively in the interview and can be found here) and it’s nice to see an elected official finally making this too-oft ignored distinction.

…so go aslyums masquerading as state governments throughout the nation. Despite the fact that the Golden State is staring a $20 billion budget deficit in the face (and facing the prospect of cutting off much of the revenue they’ll need to get out of the hole thanks to a Byzantine global warming law), policy entreprenuership is alive and well in Sacramento. The latest big idea:

California is going to be first state in the nation to monitor cow gas emission. The state plans to install a network of computerized devices to measure methane gas emissions in places where there are lots of dairy ranches and landfills.

Sounds like the state’s bureaucrats are competing with the bovines to see who can produce the most … waste.

Who knew White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has a foul mouth and a penchant for insulting people?  Apparently, after hearing that liberal activists were planning to shame moderate Democrats critical of ObamaCare with television ads, “Rahm-bo” told them they were “f—ing retarded.”  This all came to light because thereafter he called to apologize.  To the activists?  No; the head of the Special Olympics.

The reasoning makes a lot of sense if you subscribe to this tenet of political correctness: If an insult is uttered yet the group most likely to be offended isn’t around to hear it, an apology is warranted because eventually they will.  Unfortunately for Emanuel, the Special Olympics is on a campaign to end the practice of using the word “retarded” as an insult.  Thus, the need to apologize to an organization that he was not even thinking about when he said the word.  Curiously, it’s unclear if the Special Olympics is equally as interested in promoting more civil discourse by ending all insults, whether or not the offending words specifically relate to the group’s core constituency.

All of this A insults B, so A apologizes to C silliness makes one wonder what public figures would do if they had no readily identifiable group to turn to and say I’m sorry.  Perhaps then they’d be forced to mend fences with the people they actually offended, instead of getting a get-out-of-jail free card from a group claiming to represent the emotions of all those conceivably covered by its mission statement.

It must have been Groundhog Day yesterday, because another major Democratic politician was accused of severely damaging the profitability of an American industry. This time it was President Barack Obama, who said at a New Hampshire town hall meeting:

“When times are tough, you tighten your belts,” the president said. “You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”

Not much to quibble with there – unless you happen to live and work in Las Vegas. The president’s sensible remarks (which would be totally un-remarkable if not said by a major politician) didn’t sit well with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which claimed that a previous critical statement about corporations using bailout money for Vegas junkets cost the city millions in cancelled trips.

Even if that’s true, though, is the president wrong? Trips to Vegas – or Disney World, a Red Sox game, or an evening at the movies – are luxuries that (should) depend on disposable income. If you can’t pay your mortgage, or in the case of bailed out companies, your debts, you shouldn’t be jetting off to expensive locales at taxpayer expense. The same holds true for a family on a budget.  Isn’t this the paradigmatic “kitchen table conversation”?

Nonetheless, Nevada’s senators responded with bipartisan denunciation, and extracted a written apology from the president. One hopes it was delivered in the form of an IOU.

Ironically, the president’s truth telling about where Sin City fits on the priority list did a lot less verifiable damage than Senator Harry Reid’s cryptic comments about a “major American insurer” “whose name is familiar to everyone” last October. After pairing those talismanic phrases with a statement that the mystery company was about to go bankrupt, MetLife, The Hartford, and Prudential all lost between 11 and 32% of their stock value within a day. Other than backtracking a bit, Senator Reid apparently didn’t feel the need to write a public apology to these companies. Maybe they’d prefer he save the stationary and pass some regulatory relief instead.

The president is wrong about a lot of issues, but using Vegas as an example of how not to spend your nest egg isn’t one of them. America isn’t going to get its savings rate and overall economy back on track by spending more money at casinos. Then again, his insightful criticism not to spend gobs of credit card money on fleeting emotional experiences probably won’t migrate into the president’s thinking on how best to structure his deficit-exploding progressive agenda.

Fresh off his famous catastrophes on the healthcare and deficit reduction fronts, Barack Obama momentarily shifted his bumbling gaze yesterday to Net Neutrality.

What exactly is Net Neutrality, you ask?

Well, think of it as ObamaCare for the Internet, and you get the essential idea.  Net Neutrality would federally bureaucratize Internet service by dictating rigid price controls and traffic surge management to providers, among other toxic provisions.  The Internet seemed to be doing just fine so far, what with the ongoing explosion of content delivery and devices like the iPhone.  But why should that stop Obama from “fixing” something that isn’t broken?

In an unintentionally amusing commentary entitled “President Obama Hearts Net Neutrality,” Stacey Higginbotham praises Obama, who appears to be shifting his Midas-in-reverse focus to this dangerous campaign.  When asked about Net Neutrality, Obama responded:

I’m a big believer in Net Neutrality.  I campaigned on this.  I continue to be a strong supporter of it.  My FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has indicated that he shares the view that we’ve got to keep the Internet open, that we don’t want to create a bunch of gateways that prevent somebody who doesn’t have a lot of money but has a good idea from being able to start their next YouTube or their next Google on the Internet.  So this is something we’re committed to.

Consider the absurdity of Obama’s comment.  He curiously demands that we “keep the Internet open,” even though it has somehow managed to remain open all this time without the need for crippling Net Neutrality regulations.  And he suggests that Net Neutrality is necessary to allow innovators to “start their next YouTube or their next Google,” leaving one to wonder how anyone ever managed to start YouTube or Google in the first place without Net Neutrality.

Net Neutrality advocates dishonestly concoct the bogeyman of sinister Internet service providers blocking web content, but the reality is that America faces a continuing exponential increase in Internet traffic.  This rapid growth will require innovations and investment by Internet service providers to carry it, just as they have done to date.  Obama wrongly alleges that Net Neutrality is somehow necessary to allow the next YouTube or Google, but the truth is that the next YouTube or Google will be impossible if network providers are prohibited by bureaucratic Net Neutrality regulations from managing the surge in data traffic.

The need for freedom and flexibility of network providers to innovate will become even more critical as Americans increasingly shift to smart phones.

As noted by a report in today’s Wall Street Journal, “carriers are already running at over 80% capacity,” and “are scrambling to build out next-generation networks that promise higher bandwidth and faster speeds.”  If Obama and his FCC succeed in imposing suffocating Net Neutrality regulations that they recently proposed, however, service providers’ difficulties will only increase as Obama bureaucratizes the Internet in the same way that he attempted to bureaucratize healthcare.

Americans concerned about the future of Internet growth and innovation must therefore act quickly to stop Obama’s reverse-Midas Net Neutrality scheme.  Please contact your Senators and Representative immediately and demand a stop to this destructive scheme before it’s too late.

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.