Freedom Line Blog

Lest Freedom Line readers sink too far into despair over Jeff’s earlier post about the EPA’s transformation into a People’s Commissariat, it turns out there’s good news: it’s all to stave off the coming carbon wars. At least that’s the diagnosis of California’s taxpayer-financed parody of liberalism, Senator Barbara Boxer:

Here’s to hoping that Boxer’s opponent, Carly Fiorina, brings this up the next time she finds herself on an open mic.

The U.S. Senate this afternoon voted 47-53 to reject a resolution (S.J. Res. 26), sponsored by Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), to prevent the EPA from unilaterally regulating all greenhouse  gas emissions  in the United States (in other words, regulating pretty much the entire U.S. economy).

Six Democrats joined with all 41 Republicans in voting “Yes.”    They included Senators Evan Bayh (IN), Mary Landrieu (LA), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Ben Nelson (NE), Mark Pryor (AR) and Jay Rockefeller (WV).  

During a floor speech prior to his vote in support of the resolution, Senator Rockefeller said he was voting “Yes” because “I don’t want EPA turning out the lights on America.”  Kudos to him.  Unfortunately, however, 53 of his Senate colleagues decided it best to relinquish Congress’ authority to a merry band of now unchecked, free-wheeling EPA bureaucrats for no other reason than the realization that their beloved Cap-and-Trade “climate change” bill is destined for failure in the normal legislative process.

Those 53 Senators, together with President Obama who lobbied hard to defeat the resolution, now must take full responsibility for the negative economic consequences sure to come.

When was the last time that a scientific survey reported 91% agreement on anything, other than that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D – Nevada) is a really creepy guy?

Yet that’s precisely the consensus contained in a survey released by the very Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that continues to push so-called “Net Neutrality” despite overwhelming public, judicial and bipartisan Congressional opposition.  According to the FCC itself, nine out of ten respondents are happy with their broadband speed:

Fully 91% of broadband users say they are ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ satisfied with the speed they get at home.”

Yet the FCC continues to concoct an imaginary broadband crisis just around the corner as an alibi for proposed “Net Neutrality” regulation.

With this reality staring it straight in the face, why does the FCC persist in pushing “Net Neutrality” upon the American public?  Also consider that the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC does not possess authority to impose “Net Neutrality,” which merely triggered the FCC shenanigan of announcing that it would reclassify Internet service under Depression-era rules created to govern 1930s landline telephones.  Also consider that the public opposes “Net Neutrality” by a two-to-one margin (a dramatic turnaround since 2008), and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress sent separate letters to the FCC opposing this atrocious proposal.

None of this seems to interrupt Chairman Julius Genachowski and his slim FCC majority.  “Net Neutrality” will be defeated, whether via judicial, Congressional or administrative avenues.  But how long will it take for Genachowski to wake up and smell that coffee?

“Americans don’t blame Mr. Obama for the oil spill, but they are beginning to doubt the competence of a President whose decisions suggest political panic more than careful policy.”

That was the cogent observation of The Wall Street Journal today, and it captures the essence of why Americans now rate the federal government’s response to the Gulf oil spill even worse than its 2005 response to Hurricane Katrina.  It obviously wasn’t Barack Obama that caused the oil rig collapse, but he’s ultimately responsible for the manner in which his administration has reacted.  For example, Obama’s order of a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling has exacerbated job loss in the region and further eroded our ability to access non-foreign oil sources.

And now, the same Barack Obama who breezily offered to meet such dictators as Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “without preconditions” now refuses to even meet with the CEO of the corporation desperately trying to cap the oil leak and minimize the damage that will ultimately hit its bottom line.  In a video interview for NBC’s Today show, Obama proclaimed his childish refusal to sit down with British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward:

I have not spoken to [BP CEO Tony Hayward] directly, and here’s the reason.  Because, uh, my experience is, uh, when you talk to, uh, uh, a guy like, uh, a BP CEO, he’s gonna say all the right things to me.  I’m not interested in words, I’m interested in actions.”

And precisely what do you expect from murderous dictators with whom you gladly offer to meet?  Earnest concessions?  Honest negotiation?  Substantive results?

Is it possible that Barack Obama actually holds corporations and their CEOs in higher contempt than genocidal dictators?

The media often paint non-liberal legal thinkers with broad brush strokes, a failure of reporting that hides some very important distinctions between libertarians and conservatives.  That’s why Reason’s Damon Root does a public service in explaining the fault lines in right-of-center legal thinking that are emerging over the most recent gun rights case, McDonald vs. City of Chicago.  The Supreme Court’s decision could land any day, so before it does, make sure to check out Root’s cogent description of the politics behind the process of winning more freedom for individuals through litigation.

It’s definitely worth the read.

Buried amidst the landslide primary victories of GOP candidates Meg Whiteman (governor) and Carly Fiorina (U.S. Senator) is a far more consequential vote.  The passage of Proposition 14, the ballot measure that abolishes partisan primaries in favor of a top-two run-off in a general election, is not the panacea its supporters claim.  Then again, many of the people who voted for it aren’t sure what it will do anyway.  From the New York Times:

That no one actually knows what the real effect of Proposition 14 will be seems almost beside the point to frustrated voters. What mattered, supporters said, is that something fundamental about politics — anything fundamental — had been changed.

As supporters celebrated, they promised to bring the so-called “top two” system to a state near you, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger leading the charge — though his second term, plagued by budget meltdowns and plunging popularity, was, analysts said, one of the leading motivators for the measure.

Whether the measure will empower more independent voters — who were already allowed to vote in Democratic or Republican primaries, provided they requested a ballot — remains to be seen. But what did seem certain was that California was again poised to capture the mood of the country, just as it did in 1978 with Proposition 13, which distilled widespread antitax sentiment into a cap on property taxes.

This time, it is the anger of the electorate that Californians have bottled, experts said, even if they are not totally sure what they are doing.

This kind of thoughtless voting was the same motivating factor in passing the Golden State’s term limits measure in 1990s and the electorate’s more recent decision to have an unelected commission draw legislative and congressional districts.  Like Proposition 14, both have the effect of minimizing accountability by shifting power away from publicly elected officials toward staff, lobbyists, and moneyed insiders.

Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that in modern California politics Proposition 14 is likely to have zero effect on which two candidates are selected to run in the general election.  For over a decade the Republican and Democratic nominations have gone to those with high name recognition and/or independent wealth.  Whitman and Fiorina had tremendous advantages as a billionaire and multi-millionaire, respectively, and benefited enormously from establishment support that cut off their opponents’ ability to raise funds.

When Proposition 14 is implemented in 2011, they still will – only this time the decisions will take place not in an open, voter decided forum, but in informal discussions among special interest groups picking their candidates and clearing the field.

So, way to go California!  By voting for less structure you’ll get less control.  Maybe next year someone will qualify a ballot measure to abolish the legislature and let every citizen decide every issue by popular vote.

What could go wrong?

With Barack Obama’s presidency at one of its undeniable low points, the commander-in-chief’s booster club in the beltway media is tying itself in knots attempting to locate blame anywhere but Pennsylvania Avenue.

The last time we saw the press corps engaged in this sort of intellectual yoga it was to push the notion that Obama’s “failures” were rooted in communication — that he was making prime rib arguments to a country that could only digest apple sauce. This line of reasoning has reached its apogee with Jonathan Alter’s recent hagiography of Obama, “The Promise: President Obama, Year One”, which practically drools over the president’s intellect and regularly laments the country’s refusal to comprehend the profundity of his liberal vision quest.

Lately, a new form of hand-wringing is taking center stage. It’s exemplified by journalists like the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, who writes on the Post’s Plum Line blog today:

… the Gulf oil spill may pose a serious threat to one of the most important aspects of Obama’s presidency: his effort to restore public confidence in government as competent, as a trustworthy agent of genuine and lasting reform.

Note Sargent’s peculiar phrasing, which frames the spill as a hurdle to Obama’s unified theory of government, not a refutation of it. Yet as Ron Fournier noted in an Associated Press column earlier this week:

While there were surely crises of faith during the Civil War, the Progressive Era and others times of tumult, the early 20th century was marked by a reflexive sense of trust in the nation’s institutions. Even as Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal vastly expanded the government safety net, a new breed of private charities and social reformers didn’t bother waiting on government to help the poor, infirm and abused.

But things started to change in the mid-20th century, when polls showed a steady decline on the question of whether Americans trusted government in Washington to do what is right.

From 1958, when more than 70 percent said they trusted government most or all of the time, the trend line steadily drops until it hits the mid-20s in the post-Watergate era.

Looking at those figures closely, it’s hard to miss the trend. As American government ballooned during the 20th century, the public progressively lost faith in it. The decline starts when the expansion of the welfare state begins to showcase government incompetence and compounds when Watergate adds malevolence to the mix. Could it be that Americans don’t trust the government because it has appropriated responsibilities it can’t fulfill?

Consider the functions that all but the most staunch libertarians believe government should be responsible for: defending the nation, collecting taxes, developing infrastructure, securing the border, delivering the mail. In these areas, the government is intermittently competent at best, but benefits some from the fact that its inefficiency isn’t being spotlighted by private-sector competition. When it steps over the line into smothering civil society, the evidence of government waste and stupidity becomes nearly impossible to deny.

Does President Obama have a growing problem with Americans’ faith in government? Yes. But the culprit is not the fates conspiring against him. Rather it’s the root of so many of his problems: he’s beginning to suffer the wages of making promises it’s impossible for him to keep.

…means being the life of a party you host.  RealClearPolitics’ Jay Cost gives a great analysis on just how shallow is this chief executive’s understanding of his job.

By virtue of his omnipresence, this President has given new meaning to the phrase “big government.” He is everywhere. Try as you might, you cannot escape him. Mr. Obama has expanded the concept of the bully pulpit in ways we have never before seen. It is worth asking: in a country founded on the idea of limited government, is it good to have a President who appears to see no limits to what he can involve himself in?

Some of this must be political strategy. Barack Obama is the first President in American history who is primarily after the same precious 18-to-35 year olds that Madison Avenue covets. He won about 2/3rds of this age group in the 2008 election, and he needs them to vote Democrat this November. Talking sports and culture and “kicking ass” is a way to stay in touch with them. I half expect him to start driving around in a Scion xB.

But some of this must be narcissism. This is, after all, the President who got up on stage to sing “Hey Jude” with Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, and Jerry Seinfeld. There is no electoral utility to this sort of spectacle. Obama clearly enjoys the attention that comes with being a super cool Commander in Chief.

But only, it seems, when it results at a time and place of his choosing.  Makeshift ballrooms on government property are fine, but Louisiana beaches or Florida straits streaked with oil?  Eh.

We’ve all heard the horror stories and seen the cringe-inducing statistics about public employee pensions and the unions that make them insolvent.  Now, organized labor provides yet another example of just how bad its leaders are at managing other people’s money; this time, their own members’ dues.

Because Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) did not support a public option in ObamaCare, the dons of American labor decided to make an example out of her to other left-of-center Democrats.  Their hate totaled $10 million of union members’ dues spent to defeat her in the Arkansas Democratic primary.  And they lost.

True to form, they are lashing out.  In fact, the political director of the SEIU issued a warning to other Lincoln-type Democrats:

“We’ll see if Blanche Lincoln is made a better senator for having to answer to working Arkansans over these past few weeks. And if you are [Democrats] Larry Kissell (N.C.-08) or Zack Space (Ohio-18) or Mike McMahon (N.Y.-13) or Michael Arcuri (N.Y.-24) or another candidate who stopped advocating for the needs of working families once elected, the labor movement is going to be at the side of those voters who demand change,” said SEIU national political director Jon Youngdahl.

These people are crazy.  But then again, you’re an American taxpayer so you probably already knew that.

H/T: Politico

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

A few months ago, I noted how Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is shaping up to be one of the most impressive stars in the GOP’s 2012 firmament. Though Daniels has gotten some literary love from a wonky contigent of Washington’s columnist corps, he’s never received quite as extensive a profile as in Andrew Ferguson’s cover story in the new Weekly Standard.

The whole (very lengthy) piece is worth reading for its portrait of Daniels as an unpretentious midwesterner, aggresive manager, and possible antidote to the Age of Obama (the piece — coming close on the heels of his PAC’s first high-profile Washington fundraiser — is an obvious attempt to rollout a campaign narrative). Among the nuggets that make a Daniel’s candidacy worth consideration:

He’s quicker on his feet than a garden-variety pol:

We were having lunch one day at a favorite spot, the St. Louis Street Soda Shop in Vincennes, on the Wabash River. Having resisted the Fried Bologna Sandwich ($3.49, with chips, pickle extra), Daniels was washing down a quarter-pound Coney Island dog with a large butterscotch milkshake—“the best in the state,” he assured Dolly, the delighted owner—when a reporter from the local radio station appeared. She pressed him on the education budget cuts too. She told him the local school board had just laid off nine teachers and an administrator.

“What would you say to those people?” she asked.

He visibly flinched, just as he had on MitchTV.

“I’d say it should have been nine administrators and one teacher. There are 20 things that school board could do before it had to lay off one teacher.”

He has an economic record about as sharply in contrast to Obama’s as is imaginable:

When Daniels took office, in 2004, the state faced a $200 million deficit and hadn’t balanced its budget in seven years. Four years later, all outstanding debts had been paid off; after four balanced budgets, the state was running a surplus of $1.3 billion, which has cushioned the blows from a steady decline in revenues caused by the recession. “That’s what saved us when the recession hit,” one official said. “If we didn’t have the cash reserves and the debts paid off, we would have been toast.” The state today is spending roughly the same amount that it was when Daniels took office, largely because he resisted the budget increases other states were indulging in the past decade.

No other state in the Midwest—all of them, like Indiana, dependent on a declining manufacturing sector—can match this record. Venture capital investment in Indiana had lagged at $39 million annually in the first years of this decade. By 2009 it was averaging $94 million. Even now the state has continued to add jobs—7 percent of new U.S. employment has been in Indiana this year, a state with 2 percent of the country’s population. For the first time in 40 years more people are moving into the state than leaving it. Indiana earned its first triple-A bond rating from Standard and Poor’s in 2008; the other two major bond rating agencies concurred in April 2010, making it one of only nine states with this distinction, and one of only two in the Midwest.

And — most astonishingly — he’s such an effective governor that he even got the DMV (actually BMV in the Hoosier State) transformed into a customer-centered operation:

The state Bureau of Motor Vehicles, another patronage sump that was routinely ranked one of the worst in the country, was drastically reorganized. “He likes metrics,” [Indiana OMB Director Ryan] Kitchell said. “He likes to measure outcomes.” Every line item in the state budget has at least one objective formula attached to it to indicate how well each service is being delivered. Regulatory agencies track the speed with which permits and variances are granted. The economic development agency has to compare the hourly wage of each new job brought to the state with the average hourly wage of existing jobs. In the case of the BMV, the two most important metrics were wait times and customer satisfaction. Now each receipt is stamped with the time the customer arrives and the time his transaction is completed. Wait times have dropped from over 40 minutes to under 10 minutes. Surveys put customer satisfaction at 97 percent.

A new generation of reformers is beginning to develop outside of Washington. Dare we hope for a Mitch Daniels/Chris Christie ticket in 2012 (in either order)?

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

From the Australian Comedy duo of Clarke and Dawe. Sadly this may be more accurate and succint than anything you’ll see on network news:

After letting medical marijuana dispensaries illegally mushroom to about 1,000 within city limits, L.A.’s city council is imposing tough new restrictions designed to reduce that number to between 70 and 130 within six months.  Under the recently passed ordinance, violators could be fined up to $2,500 a day, and possibly face jail time.

Here’s a mind-blowing perspective:

“The sky isn’t going to fall down,” Asha Greenberg, assistant city attorney, told National Public Radio. “LAPD isn’t going to go around kicking down doors, etc. Initially we’re going to be doing information gathering.”

At least there’s one deleterious activity the people running L.A.’s City Council are willing to fight against.  (At least until November…)

It’s amazing in the modern era where information is so plentiful that news pieces more often look like a schizophrenic’s diary entry than a well thought out update on a continuing story.  Today’s example is courtesy of an article in the UK’s The Guardian.  The story begins with the serious, but by no means startling, news that Iran is publicly offering to escort future convoys to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

Some readers may remember this is the same regime which sponsored a Holocaust denial conference, maintains a president who promises to destroy the Jewish State, and is the primary supplier of arms and rockets to the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas.

Iran also doesn’t have much love for the United States.  Neither does one of radical Islam’s most corrupt Western supporters, former British MP George Galloway.  An unrepentant Socialist, Galloway seems like many other A-list apologists for totalitarian governments, having secured his status with a speech praising Saddam Hussein in the dictator’s presence, and excoriating American foreign policy in an appearance before the U.S. Senate.

Given just that bit of information, you might think mentioning him at the end of a news story about the coming flare up between Israel and Iran would be adequate:

George Galloway, the founder of Viva Palestina, announced in London that two simultaneous convoys “one by land via Egypt and the other by sea” would set out in September to break the Gaza blockade. The sea convoy of up to 60 ships will travel around the Mediterranean gathering ships, cargo and volunteers.

The paragraph could have introduced Galloway as “Current Hamas financial contributor George Galloway,” or “Oil for Food profiteer George Galloway,” to give a much clearer understanding of the man organizing the September “solidarity” sailing trip.    At the very least, the article could have quoted the announcement from the Viva Palestina website detailing that the talks to plan the trip occurred in Istanbul, Turkey, with Galloway saying he wanted Egypt to guarantee safe passage for the next convoy.  But instead of linking Galloway to the corrupt groups running various Middle East governments, the article reads like he is unconnected from the people he gets paid to support.

Thankfully, David Horowitz and the folks over at Discover the Networks provide much more background and documentation than The Guardian’s Middle East editor.

So, the next time you read or hear a news story and wonder if you’ve heard the name, place, or group before, run it through Discover the Networks before moving on.  Within ten minutes you’ll be way more informed than most of the information gatekeepers in the MSM.

Following up on our commentary last week that Turkey’s increased malfeasance illustrates the Obama Doctrine’s failure, today’s Wall Street Journal includes a commentary by Eliot A. Cohen entitled With Friends Like the United States…

Cohen points out that even in supposedly Obama-loving Europe, America’s standing has declined, not risen:

When asked about relations with the U.S. under President Barack Obama, 17% of Britons in a recent poll thought they had improved; 25% thought they had deteriorated.”

Cohen also notes Obama’s poor treatment of such friends as Colombia and Israel, alongside his spinelessness toward North Korea, Iran, China and other antagonists.  As he cogently summarizes, “The Obama Administration has managed to convince most countries around the world that we are worth little as friends and even less as enemies.”

More ominously, Cohen concludes, “the administration is making a dangerous world even more so.”

You will if John Eastman wins next Tuesday’s Republican primary.  Eastman is a former law school dean, clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, and appellate litigator with experience in over 50 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.  He is also a dyed-in-the-wool conservative.  His nomination for CA AG would instantly make the race the most important contest going into November for state voters.  Why?  Because unlike any of the gubernatorial candidates, Eastman is laying out a comprehensive strategy to fight for lower taxes, stronger borders, and less federal intrusion in the state’s prison and pension systems – all by suing to enforce existing laws.  It’s not often that the expert most likely to be the principal office holder’s deputy runs for the top job.  If Eastman emerges with the California GOP’s nomination next week, get ready for a full court press of conservative first principles.

Did you hear about the Glenn Beck vs. Ivory Tower tiff?  A California history professor blogged on the Huffington Post that America’s highest profile fan of the Founders needs to get some perspective before spouting off like he knows something.  In particular, Joseph Palermo argues that – consistent with liberal elite opinion – looking to the Founding Generation for any type of guidance is silly because…well, things are different now.  Per Palermo, “The United States Constitution is a ‘living document’ no matter how often Beck and others repeat the lie that it isn’t.”

Forgive this former collegian if Dr. Palermo’s conclusory, unsourced statement leaves a bit much to be desired.

Thankfully, Amity Shlaes came to Beck’s defense.  Since she too (along with Jonah Goldberg) was blamed for misleading millions of Americans about the “goodness” of FDR’s handling of the Great Depression, Shlaes felt the need to explain the main attraction of Beck.  He gets deep into his subjects.  Moreover, he provides a sustained conversation with his audience about an alternative set of books that won’t show up on many university reading lists, no matter how well researched they are.

Every author is glad to sell books. But the victory is far more Mr. Beck’s than any individual writer’s or publisher’s. His genius has been in his recognition that viewers do not want merely the odd, one-off book, duly pegged to news. They want a coherent vision, a competing canon that the regulated airwaves and academy have denied them. So he, Glenn Beck, is building that canon, book by book from the forgotten shelf. Since the man is a riveting entertainer, the professors are correct to be concerned. He’s not just reacting or shaping individual thoughts. He is bringing competition into the Ed Biz.

In a word, Glenn Beck gives people a choice when it comes to getting well written, well researched histories about the people and issues that matter.  If he keeps it up, maybe reading history during college will be as enlightening – and enjoyable – as it is before and after.

Dr. Donald Berwick, the Obama Administration’s nominee to oversee the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, once praised Britain at the expense of America by saying, “at last a nation where healthcare is a right and carrying a semi-automatic machine gun is a privilege, instead of the other way around.”

Dr. Berwick had worked with Britain’s National Health Service, and callously wrote in 2002 that “most people who have serious pain do not need advanced methods – they just need the morphine and counseling that have been available for centuries.”

Naturally, the Obama Administration said that Dr. Berwick’s comments were “taken out of context” in attempting to sweep the rising controversy under the rug.  The statements, however, speak for themselves.

Get a good look at the potential future under ObamaCare, America.

In an interview with CFIF, Florida State Senator Don Gaetz discusses the BP oil spill, the government’s response and the potential impact on the environment and economy of Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Listen to the interview here.