Freedom Line Blog

No one begrudges a man his pastimes, but veteran White House reporter Keith Koffler wonders whether President Barack Obama might be better off canceling his upcoming ESPN appearance and focusing – at least in public – on any number of world crises.

This morning, as Japan’s nuclear crisis enters a potentially catastrophic phase, we are told that Obama is videotaping his NCAA tournament picks and that we’ll be able to tune into ESPN Wednesday to find out who he likes.

Saturday, he made his 61st outing to the golf course as president, and got back to the White House with just enough time for a quick shower before heading out to party with Washington’s elite journalists at the annual Gridiron Dinner.

With various urgencies swirling about him, Saturday’s weekly videotaped presidential address focusing on “Women’s History Month” seemed bizarrely out of touch.

Koffler also notes the growing concern among members of Congress that Obama is AWOL in the deficit reduction debate, seemingly content to let the legislative branch decide whether to shut down the government if negotiations fail on Friday.

Forget debating whether this president is able to make the right decision when he gets a 3am phone call.  So far, it looks like he can’t maintain focus during his regular workday.

In just a few hundred words a Wall Street Journal editorial writer summarizes how out-of-touch supposed ‘experts’ can be when it comes to how policies affect everyday Americans.  The object lesson comes courtesy of New York Fed President William Dudley’s failed attempt to convince citizens in Queens that the economy is doing much better than they think.

The former Goldman Sachs chief economist gave a speech explaining the economy’s progress and the Fed’s successes, but come question time the main thing the crowd wanted to know was why they’re paying so much more for food and gas. Keep in mind the Fed doesn’t think food and gas prices matter to its policy calculations because they aren’t part of “core” inflation.

So Mr. Dudley tried to explain that other prices are falling. “Today you can buy an iPad 2 that costs the same as an iPad 1 that is twice as powerful,” he said. “You have to look at the prices of all things.”

Reuters reports that this “prompted guffaws and widespread murmuring from the audience,” with someone quipping, “I can’t eat an iPad.” Another attendee asked, “When was the last time, sir, that you went grocery shopping?”

Mr. Dudley has been one of the leading proponents of negative real interest rates and quantitative easing, so this common-man razzing is a case of rough justice. If Mr. Dudley were wise, he’d take it to heart and understand that Americans aren’t buying the Fed’s line that rising commodity prices are no big deal. Unlike banks and hedge funds, they can’t borrow at near-zero interest rates, and most of them don’t have big stock portfolios. Wall Street and Congress may love the Fed’s free-money policy, but Mr. Dudley and Chairman Ben Bernanke ought to worry about losing the confidence of the middle class.

Ronald Reagan destroyed confidence in Jimmy Carter with one simple question: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”  Any Republican presidential hopeful that can channel the frustration in Queens into a similarly concise indictment of President Barack Obama will be well positioned to oust yet another bumbling Democratic incumbent.

Yesterday, we noted that Obama’s 2012 reelection odds may not be as high as many currently assume, especially with even higher inflation, gas prices and international chaos on the horizon.  Recalling 1991 and the supposedly invincible President George H. W. Bush, Byron York makes the same point with a brilliant summary quote:

Back in 1991, the pundits discussed how hard it would be to defeat a president with a job-approval rating of 90 percent.  Now, they’re talking about how hard it would be to defeat a president with a job approval rating of 47 percent.”

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.

Owsley Stanley, the famed 1960s “King of LSD” who helped pioneer the Grateful Dead’s trademark sound, has died following an auto accident in his adopted home country of Australia. So what led him to abandon America and flee to Australia, anyway?

It’s actually instructive regarding our current political climate.  Apparently, he became convinced during the 1970s that global cooling was about to trigger a new ice age, so he relocated to the southern hemisphere, which he considered less subject to that supposed oncoming disaster.  Mr. Stanley, of course, wasn’t alone in the global cooling hysteria.  Among others, Newsweek and The New York Times repeatedly sounded the alarm, and continuing climate alarmist Paul Ehrlich predicted massive crop failures and starvation.

Rest in peace, Owsley Stanley.  And thank you for the sobering lesson of the ephemeral nature of climate change alarmism amid the current fashion of global warming.

Washington is a town where being an intellectual means being relentlessly synchronized with the conventional wisdom, no matter how vapid. That’s how President Obama (no doubt a smart man by any reasonable standard — all presidents are, almost inevitably) has been elevated to the commanding heights of the cognitive elite by the Beltway press corps. Not so fast, says one guy who actually knows what he’s talking about.

In one brief run in a piece in the new edition of Newsweek, famed Harvard historian Niall Ferguson absolutely eviscerates President Obama’s glib reading of revolutionary history:

Since at least the FDR era, the Democratic Party has served as an umbrella for a motley coalition of special interest groups that have only one thing in common: demanding action from government.  Most of the time, the competing priorities of the groups don’t come into direct conflict.  But when they do, it is a delight to sit back and watch each carve up the other.

Today’s example comes from the pages of the Wall Street Journal.  Apparently, businesses in the energy sector aren’t the only ones fighting the Obama Administration’s job-killing EPA regulations.  Labor unions like the Utility Workers Union of America and the United Mine Workers are demanding a ceasefire on cap-it-or-close-it regulations that could force companies to close 18% of the nation’s coal factories if they fail to comply with the EPA’s proposed climate change rules.

Unions recognize that without factories workers get fired.  Environmentalists don’t want to budge on what the Natural Resources Defense Council calls “the biggest public health achievement” of the Obama Administration.

Simple math is likely to break the stalemate.  Unions in coal states account for millions of campaign contributions and thousands of votes.  With Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin all flipping from Obama in 2008 to the Republicans in 2010, don’t count on the president to sacrifice his reelection chances on the altar of green jobs.

If he does, union voters – and their dollars – just might stay home in 2012.

For every crisis there is an opportunity.  The Detroit public school system is in a fiscal state of emergency with a mandate to eliminate its $327 million deficit.  At first, leadership planned to close 40 of the district’s 142 schools.

Now, more innovative heads have prevailed.  Yesterday it was announced that instead of closing schools the district would convert 41 of them into privately-run charter schools.  Estimated savings to the taxpayer: more than $28 million.  Estimated benefit to parents looking for a hand-up out of failing classrooms: priceless.

Of course, teachers’ union advocates bristle at the idea that nearly one-third of their Detroit membership will be laid off and required to reapply for jobs without costly pension funds and tenure protection.

But the data doesn’t support the status quo.  Since Louisiana lawmakers transformed New Orleans into the only public school system where a majority of students attend charter schools, scores on student achievement exams have risen dramatically.

Louisiana’s reform was made possible by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.  Michigan’s ongoing financial crisis may be just the opportunity Detroit families need to get the education – and the tax relief – they deserve.

According to a Wall Street Journal survey of economists, unemployment for the November 2012 election will remain elevated at 7.7%.  That would make it the highest for a presidential election since the Carter/Ford nailbiter in 1976, when it was 7.8%.

Ominously, the report adds, “Economists in the survey slightly raised the likelihood of recession over the next 12 months to 14%, largely due to rising oil prices.”  The article endeavors to highlight the caveat that, “analysts point out that it is often the overall trend – rather than the level of joblessness – that determines an incumbent’s fate.”  The 7.8% rate of November 1976 (in which the incumbent Ford lost), however, had declined from 9.0% in May of 1975, 8.3% one year earlier and 7.9% at the beginning of 1976.

Liberal pundits appear eager to claim that no Republican wants to take on the supposedly strong Obama, but this survey and storm clouds in the form of higher gas prices, overall inflation and worldwide chaos may suggest otherwise.

There is never a dull day in the Oval Office.  In the midst of budget fights and 2012 politicking, President Barack Obama surely does not relish the foreign policy “distractions” that are dominating the news cycle, if not his personal schedule.

But Obama can’t continue to avoid his office’s innate leadership responsibilities in the wake of yet another humanitarian crisis.  First, he dithered while an enormous oil leak ravaged the Gulf of Mexico.  Then, he looked the other way while Middle East protests pushed the region into chaos.  If Obama lets this pitch from wrecked Japan sail by with America’s big stick resting on his shoulder, his disastrous responses will be the perfect metaphor for his catastrophic presidency.

At least one group of union members doesn’t treat collective bargaining rights as the end-all, be-all of organized labor.  Today, the NFL Players Association voted to decertify itself when negotiations broke down with league owners over the proper revenue sharing ratio.

One of the effects of decertification is the elimination of NFL players’ collective bargaining rights, and the transformation of the union into a trade association.  Of course, the fight between labor and management now goes to the courts; mostly because labor thinks it can get a better deal.

Maybe so, maybe not, but at least NFL players have the opportunity to choose whether the union structure best serves their needs.  Imagine if Wisconsin public employees had that kind of freedom.  Do you think a majority would vote to certify their union every year?

As if we needed another issue to highlight the differences between conservatives and liberals, the skyrocketing price of gasoline is showing each side’s true colors.

Fox News reports that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) wants to put forward several ‘bite-sized’ bills to expand domestic energy production through increased oil drilling, easier permitting, and promoting nuclear power plant construction.  (The piecemeal legislation is also intended to be a jab at Democrats’ penchant for ‘comprehensive’ legislative fixes.)

Liberals like Ed Markey (D-MA) want to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to drop prices by increasing supply.

How brazenly foolish.  As usual, liberals want to blow a savings account instead of increasing their revenue streams.  Shattering the nation’s energy piggy bank isn’t a solution to the problem – it’s a delaying tactic that puts off the hard decisions until later.

The time for stop-gap measures is over.  If liberals continue to show a genetic inability to create sustainable budget and energy policies, conservatives should bypass them and get America back on a sound footing.

A new Rasmussen Reports poll of likely voters finds that less than half of Democrats favor an immigration policy that prohibits national security threats, criminals and welfare seekers from entering America.  By contrast, Republicans support this kind of welcoming policy toward every other kind of immigrant by a 3-to-1 margin.  Here’s the data:

But, while Americans want the border secure and a reduction in illegal immigration, most continue to support a welcoming policy of legal immigration.

Fifty-four percent (54%) of voters now agree with an immigration policy that keeps out only national security threats, criminals and those who would come here to live off America’s welfare system. This is down slightly from 58% last April but is generally consistent with findings for several years. Twenty-seven percent (27%) disagree with a policy like that, while another 19% are not sure about it.

It is interesting to note that Democrats are less supportive of a welcoming immigration policy than Republicans and unaffiliated voters. Republicans support such a policy by a 3-to-1 margin and unaffiliated voters by a 2-to-1 margin. Among Democrats, 47% favor a welcoming immigration policy and 36% are opposed.

This is just another example of where Democrats think their interests lie in the immigration debate: lawbreakers and tax-takers.  Heckuva way to build a party.

This week’s edition of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out. Below is a summary of its contents:

Lee:  “I Voted for Hope and Change, but All I Got Was This Lousy Deficit”
Ellis:  Obama Charts Middle Course of Failure on Libya, Energy
Ellis:  Californians Don’t Need More Democracy, Just Leadership

Freedom Minute Video:  Hope for the Best, But Prepare for the Worst in the Middle East
Podcast:  Analyzing Potential GOP Presidential Candidates, the NFL Labor Dispute and the Fed
Jester’s Courtroom:  Off the Court and Into the Courtroom

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 by e-mail, sign up here.

In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino provides viewers with three tips for how to think about the growing revolutionary fervor and ongoing unrest in the Middle East.

Quin Hillyer, senior editorial writer at The Washington Times and senior editor of The American Spectator, analyzes the field of potential GOP presidential candidates, offers a solution to the NFL labor fight and discusses Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his policies.

Listen to the interview here.

Their howls of protest notwithstanding, Wisconsin Democrats – whenever they gain control of state government again – are likely to retain Republican Governor Scott Walker’s ban on collective bargaining by public employees.

The Manhattan Institute’s Josh Barro explains that Democrats in Wisconsin are about to learn the joys of writing their own budgets; just like their peers in other states and the federal government.

For this reason, I am skeptical of Democrats’ vigorous hopes to retake Wisconsin’s government and repeal this new law. There is no clamor among Democrats in Virginia to give collective-bargaining privileges to public workers, nor have Democrats in Washington, D.C., shown much interest in empowering federal workers’ unions. This is because Democratic officeholders, quite rationally, prefer to write their budgets themselves, rather than hand over control of employee-compensation costs to unions. Once Wisconsin lawmakers get used to the new status quo, I think this is likely to be true there, too — why would mayors, school-board members, and state legislators want to give up a powerful new budgeting tool they’ve been given?

Eventually, Democrats will take power in Wisconsin again, and when they do I think they are likely to restore the “dues checkoff” — automatic deductions from public payrolls to pay union dues, eliminated in the just-passed bill. But I think they are likely to find the federal model of limited collective bargaining pretty useful, just as Barack Obama has. Under pressure from municipal officials, Wisconsin Democrats will be more likely to “reform” this law while retaining significant constraints on bargaining than to repeal it entirely.

Somebody better tell Team Obama that world crises abhor leadership vacuums.  With Secretary of State Hillary Clinton incapable of acting without a UN permission slip, American allies are taking matters into their own hands.

British Prime Minister David Cameron is pressing for a no-fly zone.  French President Nicolas Sarkozy granted diplomatic recognition to Libya’s opposition, and will open an embassy in the rebel capitol of Benghazi.

It’s clear Britain and France aren’t waiting for Belize and Lichtenstein to approve sensible responses to the Libyan crisis.  Is President Barack Obama so contemptuous of America’s superpower status that he’s willing to cede its leadership role to countries whose foreign policy significance ended with the demise of their colonial empires?

Remember when the Obama Administration proposed thousands of new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents to enforce ObamaCare’s mandate that American businesses file 1099 tax forms every single time they spent over $600 with any supplier?  The resulting uproar was loud and justified.

Unfortunately, reports suggest that Obama’s Department of Education (DOE) similarly seeks to snoop through private IRS records to enforce its destructive “Gainful Employment Rule” against for-profit career colleges.

We at CFIF have chronicled the Obama Administration’s ongoing effort to cripple for-profit colleges via that rule, which would limit financial aid to students attending career colleges based upon arbitrary income data.  Along the way, we reported allegations of collusion between DOE personnel and short-sellers who had wagered that for-profit college stocks would decline.  Those allegations were sufficiently grave to trigger investigation by Senators Tom Coburn (R – Oklahoma) and Richard Burr (R – North Carolina).  Then, the GovernmentAccountability Office (GAO) withdrew, then revised and republished a defective study originally released last summer involving undercover “students” sent to capture information on for-profit colleges.  The GAO’s revisions all slanted in one direction – the original report inaccurately cast career colleges in an unfavorable light, while the revisions indicate that the GAO’s undercover students may have intended to entrap career college admissions personnel.  According to the GAO’s own estimate, only 1 percent of reports require correction, and the statistical likelihood that all of its flaws skewed in the same direction (unfavorably toward for-profit colleges) was 1 in 65,536.  Tellingly, the stock value of for-profit colleges reportedly fell 14%, or $4.2 billion, following the GAO report.

Now, instead of simply using aggregated, readily-available Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data to enforce their Gainful Employment Rule, the DOE seeks to access private, individualized IRS records.  Not only does this intrude upon individual citizens’ private information, it serves to deter Americans from exercising free will in choosing the colleges that best fits their needs.  Additionally, as noted by Cesar Conda in The Washington Times, the Obama DOE’s effort constitutes a new get-rich scheme for the trial lawyer lobby:

The Department of Education should admit that it is using the Internal Revenue Service to send a not-too-subtle message to prospective students:  Attend a for-profit college, and risk that your private financial data may be analyzed to ensure that all your financial transactions are accounted for and allowed.  Thus, the Department of Education, rather than putting the interest of students first, is forcing hardworking adults to go through yet another hurdle to pursue upward mobility.  In their war against individual freedom and personal choice, the nanny bureaucrats never rest; they also roll out the red carpet for the trial lawyers. Clearly, the actual impact of such tracking of student incomes by the IRS will create a new business opportunity for class-action law firms, which will use these new student financial statistics, assembled and provided the Department of Education, to justify billion-dollar litigation.”

So in addition to crippling private career colleges that it considers politically unfavorable, the Obama Administration apparently wants to pore through students’ confidential IRS individual data.  Congress must maintain its current effort to defund this Obama Administration abuse, and Americans must support that effort and maintain its resolve.

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.