Freedom Line Blog

Sean Trende at RealClearPolitics delivers some intriguing analysis about the possible net gain of Republican House seats this November:

In reality, barring some major and dramatic turnaround in the political landscape, the 50 seat GOP wave has now in many ways moved closer to the floor for Democratic losses. With the economy continuing to flounder and with fewer than 60 days until Election Day, the potential for a once-in-a-century type of wave that would lead to GOP gains in the 60-90 seat range is increasing.

In a delightful twist of irony, Trende analogizes the perfect storm facing Democrats as strikingly similar to the one that sent Herbert Hoover era Republicans into a two decade electoral wilderness:

Right now, the idea of gains in excess of 60 seats for the GOP is unthinkable to many. Gains of that magnitude haven’t happened in over 80 years. But unthinkability is not evidence. What actual evidence we have reminds us that no political party has hit the trifecta of a lousy economy, an opposition at its nadir (in terms of seat loss), and an overly ambitious Presidential agenda in over 80 years. All these macro factors are pointing to a massive GOP blowout, and they will not be changing between now and November. The Democrats need to hope that the micro factors save them from a once-in-a-century storm.

To put this in perspective, the 1994 Newt Gingrich-led takeover netted 52 seats for Republicans.  Flipping the House by almost double that number in the same year ObamaCare – the Democrats’ signature legislative achievement passed – could signal a generational rebuke.  That is, if Republicans have a credible alternative to Progressivism once in office.

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post pens a searing description of Christina Romer’s farewell luncheon at the National Press Club.  According to Milbank, Romer, until recently chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, established four points during her speech to reporters:

(1)   She had no idea how bad the economic collapse would be.

(2)   She still doesn’t understand exactly why it was so bad.

(3)   The response to the collapse was inadequate.

(4)   And she doesn’t have much of an idea how to fix things.

So, where does Christina Romer go from here?  Back to her teaching post at UC Berkeley where she’ll presumably try to make reality fit into her mathematical models; only this time she won’t have to worry about being held publicly accountable for her conclusions.  (Such as the one where she argued that passing the first stimulus bill would keep unemployment below 8%…)

Imagine the excitement at MSNBC studios when word broke yesterday of a gunman threatening to detonate bombs and shoot people at the Discovery Channel studios in the Washington, D.C. area.  Surely, the violent nature of the vicious Tea Party was finally manifesting itself!  For months, MSNBC’s primetime lunatic lineup of Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow have ranted like Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining falsely assuring us of the violent undercurrents within the Tea Party movement.

Quoting Thomas Jefferson?  Racism!  A rally in Washington, D.C.?  Inciting violence!

So imagine their thermonuclear reaction had yesterday’s Discovery Channel gunman in fact been a Tea Partier.  Instead, it turned out to be a dimestore Unabomber imitation who called babies “filthy human children” and drafted a manifesto remarkably similar to Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance.  Notably, he also reportedly made it a habit to aggressively antagonize peaceful anti-abortion demonstrators.  We won’t hold our breath awaiting MSNBC’s inquiry into the violent methods of the militant environmentalist movement.  Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people behaving as well as a church picnic will surely continue to elicit pyrotechnics of paranoia from the MSNBC gang.

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

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

Could it be that even liberals are starting to recoil at Obamacare now that it’s reality instead of a gauzy fantasy? That’s at least the case for Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden. Wyden, long a major advocate for the individual mandate (compelling citizens to buy health insurance under penalty of fine or imprisonment), has suddenly decided that the provision — which he voted for — is good enough for the rest of the country, but not for the Beaver State.

According to the Huffington Post, Wyden wrote a letter to the Oregon Health Authority that included the following passage:

In addition, Senate Finance Committee Counsel has stated that a state that can meet the general coverage requirements of the PPACA can obtain a Federal waiver under Section 1332 without a requirement that individuals purchase health insurance. Because you and I believe that the heart of real health reform is affordability and not mandates, I wanted to bring this feature of Section 1332 to the attention of you and the legislature.

Affordability and not mandates, huh? Sounds like a defensible outlook. Too bad Oregon’s senior senator couldn’t bring it to mind while casting his vote. Oh well. Not a big deal when only 49 other states have to suffer.