Freedom Line Blog

After a wasted year in office during which he could have concentrated on revitalizing American employment, Barack Obama presides over a smoldering rubble that was once his electoral mandate.

Yet he and his administration label this radioactive ObamaCare ordeal a “victory?”

Obama began his self-destructive crusade last year possessing the strongest Democrat majorities in decades, but finished it with a string of jarring defeats in Virginia, New Jersey and then Massachusetts.  He entered office riding a crest of popularity and goodwill, but then saw his approval drop worse than any elected President in the history of scientific polling.  His wasted year ignited the Tea Party movement, and propelled Republicans to enormous leads on the generic ballot as November elections approach.

For such a supposedly effective leader, he could only manage to win a razor-thin victory despite enormous Democrat Congressional majorities.

And for what?  Over 90% of Americans already possessed insurance when Obama went on his hyper-partisan warpath, 90% of whom were satisfied or very satisfied with their care.  Even under the rosiest projections, ObamaCare will add only 5% to that number of insured.  Meanwhile, another $1 trillion will be piled atop the rotting federal budgetary heap, Americans will literally be compelled by law to purchase insurance that bureaucrats deem appropriate, unemployment festers at a 10% rate fully one year after Obama’s “stimulus” and Democrats may lose one or both houses of Congress.

Any more divisive, costly “victories” like this, and the term “Pyrrhic victory” will soon be renamed “Obama victory.”

Proponents of ObamaCare make the intellectually sloppy claim that health insurance is a “right.”

Simultaneously, however, they insert an individual mandate requiring American citizens to purchase that “right” as a necessary component of the bill.  A mandate enforced by none other than the IRS, and which is potentially unconstitutional, oh by the way.

But wait a moment.  How is it that one can label something a “right,” and then turn around and mandate its purchase under penalty of imprisonment and IRS persecution?  Does the Second Amendment’s individual right to keep and bear arms require that the federal government mandate firearms purchase by citizens who don’t possess them?  Does the First Amendment right to free speech require that the federal government mandate the purchase printing presses?

It’s dishonest, and it’s cognitively vapid.

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.

“A Date Which Will Live in Infirmary” — The Drudge Report

Democrats in the House of Representatives just approved the Senate-passed health care bill by a vote of 219-212.  They did so without any Republican votes and against the will of the American people. 

November can’t some soon enough.

Politico.com reports:

In a surprise move today, Democrats decided to vote on the Senate bill directly instead of using the so-called Slaughter Solution, a procedural maneuver that would have shielded them from a direct vote on the bill.”

Now it’s time to “Kill the Bill.”

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.

Apparently, if it’s good for Obamacare, “deem and pass” might become the magic maneuver that saves every controversial bill bereft of a majority.  I mean, if voters will give members of Congress a pass on a monstrously unpopular health care bill, why not on immigration?  But if Democrats in Congress never vote on any major “reform” bill, then why, pray tell, do any of them need to be reelected?

Another week, and now there are two articles dissecting Eric Holder’s tumultuous ride as United States Attorney General.  In one, Michael Gerson lists five consequential mistakes, any one of which would be enough to spur the Democratic blogosphere into a feeding frenzy had Alberto Gonzalez been the culprit.  Among his transgressions are incoherently keeping some Bush era terrorism policies while changing others.  The effect is creating a man without a constituency.  Then, there are the quickly reversed decisions to try certain terrorists in civilian court, close down the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, and give Miranda warnings to the undie-bomber.

Almost forgot; Holder’s planned indictments of John Yoo and Jay Bybee fizzled after being dismissed by the Justice Department’s top career attorney.

Not to be outdone, Massimo Calabresi attempts to explain away any threat to Holder’s job security as the product of partisan Republicans.  However, he doesn’t give one example of a major Holder decision carrying the day.

The overriding prominence of Obamacare is certainly benefiting Holder because it is shielding him from a much-deserved performance review.   Sacking him now would only add to the perception that the Obama Cabinet is staffed by people who couldn’t manage themselves out of a paper bag.

Unlike the specter of Kathleen Sebelius, Eric Holder has made his presence felt in this administration.  If President Obama ever gets a string of wins, don’t be surprised to see Holder announcing his intention to return to the private sector.

Here’s yet another reason to flay Andy Stern’s leadership of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  One of the biggest motivators behind the union’s support for Obamacare is the belief that requiring an individual mandate to buy insurance will create more health care jobs ripe for unionization.  Just in time, too, because SEIU is apparently incapable of adequately funding its own pension plans.

What’s the connection? The SEIU needs more new dues-paying members to pay for the retirement of current members if it is to rescue its pension plans from subpar performance. It’s a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud. With many of its members employed in health care, the union believes – not illogically – that if more Americans have health insurance, the demand for health care will expand and so will employment in the health sector.

Who says the Democrats aren’t focusing on job creation?

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:

CFIF Staff:  ObamaCare: It’s Law When the President Signs It, but What Is “It?”
Senik:  From “Yes We Can” to “No Means No” – How Health Care Is Destroying the Obama Presidency
Lee:  Surprise: FCC Quietly Proposes Nationwide Internet Tax, Says it Will “Reduce Uncertainty”
Interview:  CFIF’s Timothy Lee Discusses Next Gov’t Takeover Plan on Lars Larson Radio Show

Freedom Minute Video:  Comprehensive Health Care Corruption
Podcast:  Lessons Learned from California
Jester’s Courtroom:  Robbery 101: What Not to Do

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.

According to Gallup:

President Barack Obama’s job approval is the worst of his presidency to date, with 46% of Americans approving and 48% disapproving of the job he is doing as president in the latest Gallup Daily three-day average. …

“Americans hold Congress in far less esteem than they do the president — 16% approve and 80% disapprove of the job Congress is doing.”

High unemployment and the struggling economy are without a doubt a major source of the American people’s frustration.  But it is no coincidence that the president’s job approval numbers have toppled to a record low during the same week, as Gallup reports it, “in which the White House and Democratic congressional leaders are working to convince wavering House Democrats to support healthcare reform, which they hope to pass using a series of parliamentary maneuvers in the House of Representatives and Senate.”

Yet, with two out of every three Americans opposed to ObamaCare, the Associated Press informs us that the president is telling fence-sitting House Democrats that “their political fates are linked to the bill’s passage.”

Huh?

Ask anyone on your local street corner if they think politicians in Washington are out of touch with the people they claim to represent.  Nine times out of ten (if not 10 out of 10) you’ll get the obvious answer, “Yes!”   But simply being “out of touch” doesn’t even begin to describe the audacity of this president.

The ongoing, excruciating, resource-draining attempt by Democrats to foist ObamaCare upon an unwilling American public (what ever happened to their promise to “focus on jobs” in 2010, anyway?) by any means necessary, legal or illegal, will obviously cause deafening reverberations in November’s Congressional elections.  With each passing day, scientific polling suggests that a Republican takeover is more and more likely.

In a brilliant commentary in today’s Wall Street Journal, however, Michael Solon points out that ObamaCare’s impact may be even more dramatic than Congressional midterms, or even the 1994 Congressional elections that vaulted Republicans to majorities in both houses for the first time since the 1950s.  This is because not only are Nancy Pelosi’s and Harry Reid’s majorities in jeopardy, but so are Democrat seats in governors’ mansions and state legislatures, which control Congressional district realignment following the 2010 census.  As stated by Solon:

Of all the political consequences that could flow from the national healthcare effort in 2010, the potential of the fall elections to shift 2011 redistricting to the Republicans’ advantage may be the most important.  That puts the long-term viability of the president’s healthcare reform in serious jeopardy, no matter the outcome of the 2012 elections.  While the election of 1994 did signal a political realignment, none of that alignment translated into the much more permanent benefit that redistricting could provide in 2010 if the GOP takes over state legislatures across the country…  As Democratic legislators consider their choices, many are missing the impact of an electoral wipeout in 2010 on the redistricting of Congressional seats as well as those in the state legislatures.  The electoral advantage gained from 2011 redistricting would extend the short-term pain of 2010 at least through the redistricting of 2021.”

The late Thomas “Tip” O’Neil once said that “all politics is local.” But the Democrats’ suicide mission in trying to pass ObamaCare may turn O’Neil’s observation on its head and prove that not only are local politics sometimes national, but also enduring.

In these week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses how President Obama and his allies have sacrificed both sound policy and basic ethics in their push for government-controlled health care.

Americans who love the IRS are giddy with excitement over the pending Sunday House vote on ObamaCare, because enforcement of its mandates will be delegated to the agency. 

Don’t have government-approved health insurance?  The IRS will help you get some.  Now. 

Not paying your fine for not having government-approved health insurance?  The IRS will take it.  Don’t have it?  Hey, the IRS knows how to seize assets and sell them.  What do you mean you “need your car to get to work?”

Not paying the additional taxes on capital gains imposed by the bill?  Who do you think you are,  Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner?

Can’t understand why you must pay the additional taxes now and only get those awesome promised benefits some years down the road?  Take it up with the President.  Maybe he’ll read your letter on TV.  The IRS is just the new national health care police force.  It just does what it’s told to do, not make policy.  You better do the same.

Think the IRS is not going to have the manpower and money to find you and fine you?  Think again, meathead.  Ten billion dollars in new funding and almost 17,000 in new enforcers will take care of that.

Think you can plead illness and hide out in the hospital?  Well, maybe yours will be one of the very few that can afford to take new patients.

Think it’ll help to take your meds before your visit with the IRS?  Might ought to get your prescription soon, because your doctor is leaving to practice in Indonesia.

In a public relations effort to build even greater support for its new duties, the IRS is considering a national public school contest to help design the imposing new uniforms it will need to make sure its authority is understood.  To simplify the contest, the uniform color has already been chosen:  brown.

Although no final decision has yet been made for the new IRS slogan, we are hearing that “resistance is futile” is the most popular choice at the moment.

The U.S. airline industry is slowly recovering from a worldwide recession and severe downturn in travel volume, and hasn’t completely righted course since the catastrophic 9/11 attacks.

So what do you if you’re a labor union representing employees of that struggling industry?  Threaten to strike and kill it off for good, apparently.

In recent weeks, union bosses representing airline employees are demanding pay increases and costlier benefits, even as the economy continues to shed jobs and unemployment remains stubbornly high.  They may also strike for the first time at a major U.S. carrier since 2005, despite rising fuel costs as summer approaches.

Few things illustrate the dramatic distinction between workers’ interests and labor unions’ interests than the unions’ continuing destructive behavior.  They have nearly killed the domestic automobile industry through decades of unsustainable demands, and states such as Michigan decay while employers hire in friendlier states.  Big Labor’s apologists like to argue that they provide better jobs and benefits to everyday workers, but the sad truth is that they kill jobs or drive them overseas, leaving unemployed workers and decaying communities to pay the price.

Hopefully, union leaders and the everyday workers whose livelihoods they control will regain sobriety rather than do to domestic airlines what they did for domestic automakers…

San Francisco’s ktvu.com reports that all three Republican challengers to three-term California Democratic U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer are now within striking distance of defeating her, based on results of a new Field Poll.

Former Congressman Tom Campbell – the most moderate of the three Republicans – has a one point lead over Boxer.  Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, a bit more conservative, trails Boxer by a single point.  The most conservative Republican – Assemblyman Chuck Devore – trails Boxer by only four points, about the poll’s margin of error.”

Only months ago, Boxer – one of the most liberal members of the Senate – had double-digit leads over the three.  Mark DiCamillo of the Field Poll told ktvu, “there has been a sea change in perceptions,” and attributed Boxer’s precipitous decline to the economy, people fed up with incumbents and the health care debate.

DiCamillo added, “The atmospherics surrounding health care is really – I think – a detriment to Democrats right now.”

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.

Conservative radio talk show host and former Reagan Justice Department Chief of Staff, Marc Levin, is planning to challenge via lawsuit Speaker Pelosi’s use of the “Slaughter Solution” to “deem” the Senate health care bill passed.  Pelosi’s maneuver would pass the bill by voting to approve a rule that introduces it.  A draft of the lawsuit can be read here (pdf).  Though it’s likely the federal courts would refuse to hear the case under the political question doctrine, it would seem to be a bedrock constitutional issue whether “deeming” a bill passed is the same as actually voting on it.  Hopefully, we won’t have to find out.