Freedom Line Blog

Monday’s news cycle has been very good to two men who don’t receive a lot of sunshine in their lives these days.

The first is former International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was in a New York City courtroom this morning to plead not guilty to the charge that he sexually assaulted a Big Apple hotel maid. While his circumstances are still unenviable, the media spotlight abandoned the French financier in favor of the equally prurient Anthony Weiner, the Democratic New York congressman who admitted at a press conference earlier today to committing every gross act you already suspected he committed. The irony must be galling to Weiner, who, had he followed Strauss-Kahn’s lead and pursued a career in French politics, would doubtless be up for a cabinet position after his recent revelations.

The second is Michael Steele, the former RNC chairman whose two-year tenure was marked by a parade of rhetorical gaffes and accusations of gross mismanagement. Steele, however, looks like a man with the message discipline of a Soviet apparatchik in comparison to the new DNC chairwoman, Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

As our own Quin Hillyer has repeatedly (and persuasively) argued, Wasserman Schultz is a public official who elevates inanity to an art form. Prior to today, her most egregious exercise in vapidity had been her characterization of Paul Ryan’s plan to reform Medicare:

[Republicans] would take the people who are younger than 55 years old today and tell them, ‘You know what? You’re on your own. Go and find private health insurance in the health care insurance market. We’re going to throw you to the wolves, and allow insurance companies to deny you coverage and drop you for pre-existing conditions.  ‘We’re going to give you X amount of dollars and you figure it out.’

Asinine and, as is now well-documented, totally wrong. But if Wasserman Schultz seemed to have found a floor for exhibitionist stupidity with that remark, she has now gone subterranean. Asked this weekend about the possibility of stricter state voting laws, this was the controlled implosion that ensued:

“Now you have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally — and very transparently — block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote for Democratic candidates than Republican candidates,” she told host Roland Martin on “Washington Watch” this weekend [emphasis hers]. “And it’s nothing short of that blatant.”

Some remarks speak for themselves. But just a few notes for the gentlewoman (I suppose) from Florida:

1. The word “literally” only has one meaning. This isn’t it. No matter what Joe Biden has told you.
2. If Republicans actually were enthusiastic about Jim Crow laws, they’d have to take tutorial sessions from Democrats — who actually authored them.
3. On behalf of all conservatives everywhere … please do more media availability.

A blog post last Friday by Loren Kaye at Fox and Hounds Daily provides another variation on the theme of California’s broken governing structure.

Two budget-related developments yesterday bring a small amount of clarity to the political positioning on achieving a deal. But their long-term effect is to re-allocate political power.

Controller John Chiang released a legal opinion interpreting the section of Proposition 25 that would halt salary and expense payments to the Legislature if it fails to transmit a budget to the Governor by June 15. His lawyers concluded that even if the budget is timely passed and sent to the Governor, if it is not a balanced budget, then legislators would forfeit their pay until they pass one that is balanced. This twist arises from an earlier measure, Proposition 58 in 2004, which requires that the Legislature may not send to the Governor, nor may the Governor sign, a budget that would spend more than the revenues estimated for the year. Until the Controller’s memo, this constitutional provision had no teeth. Now that provision has been given real force, and the arbiter of whether a budget is balanced – and therefore whether the Legislature will be paid – will be Controller John Chiang.

Within several hours of this disclosure, Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg announced that his SB 653 would be folded into a budget trailer bill. His proposal would provide broad local taxing authority (contingent on existing voter approval requirements) to counties and school districts, which would substantially increase the level of uncertainty surrounding economic development. The significance of including the language into a budget trailer bill is that those bills are granted immunity from referendum, even if passed by a simple majority vote. This was another consequence of Proposition 25 that was warned against, but pooh-poohed by proponents. This maneuver has ramifications that extend well beyond today’s budget controversy, and could presage the demise of the people’s cherished referendum power, 100 years after it was first granted.

The consequences of Proposition 25 on the power dynamics in California government go far beyond just passing the state budget. And we’re only beginning to see their boundaries tested.

So, as of last Friday, California’s Controller claimed the power to determine the state’s budget process.  Maybe next week the state’s Attorney General can find a way to trump him.  After that, why doesn’t the Treasurer figure out how to get in on the fun?  In Golden State government, everyone wants power, but none claim responsibility.

Previously, I interviewed California Republican Assemblyman Chris Norby about the costs associated with taxpayer-funded redevelopment agencies (RDAs).  Along with liberal use – and threats – of eminent domain powers, RDAs siphon away local tax money from schools, roads and other public services to service the debt incurred to privilege certain businesses.

Writing for City Journal, Steve Greenhut of the Pacific Research Institute laments the dependency on RDA funding by local officials like the mayor of Glendora, CA.

When I spoke to Tessitor, I finally got to the heart of his redevelopment defense. The city relies on RDA funding for 15 percent of its budget, he said, and assuring the city’s financial future is “all I care about.” Individual cities have indeed become dependent on redevelopment money, but that doesn’t mean that the current system works. Nor does it change the reality of how these abusive agencies operate. I sympathize with the mayor’s budget worries, but if Glendora is an example of redevelopment done right—as he argues—then the situation is even worse than I thought.

For the all the protests to the contrary, it’s hard to shake the feeling that RDAs are crony capitalism by another name.

Last week I blogged twice here about what should be a major scandal involving hiring at the Department of Justice.  Now it’s starting to get attention, of the right sort (meaning not the fawning, Holder-is-God type of stuff the New York Times does), from bigger publications. This is the lede: “The Justice Department’s Civil-Rights Division has hired dozens of Democratic-affiliated lawyers from organizations that have a huge financial stake in the agency’s decisions and policies.”  To give credit where it is due, J. Christian Adams and Pajamas Media both have been all over this topic for months, and I think the Washington Times actually was the first in print on it, way back last October.

The question is, where the heck is the Washington Post on this scandal. As the WashTimes noted, it was the Post that first laid down the marker:

On Sept. 9, 2009, The Washington Post editorialized: “Mr. Holder must be careful not to repeat the mistakes of his predecessors. If it was wrong then to fill career slots only with ‘loyal Bushies,’ it would be wrong now to reserve slots only for committed liberals seeking to make up for lost time.” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s team deserves to be blasted now that it’s implementing exactly such an injustice.

Now that it is clear Holder is doing just what the Post warned against, the Post ought to be calling for a major investigation. We eagerly await its editorial (but we’re not holding our breaths).

Now, just to throw a note of perhaps-overheated (but not really implausible) worry into this situation, note what James Carville said the other day (as reported by the excellent Jeffrey Poor) about what might happen if the economy doesn’t improve: civil unrest.

How is this related? Well, I have long posited that civil unrest actually would play into Obama’s hands, if Obama is as much of an Alinskyite as he appears to be. Civil unrest gives Obama the chance to demand (or just assume) expanded executive authority to “maintain order.”  And…. now who, exactly, would be asked first to decide how to deal with the unrest, and to decide what authority the president does and doesn’t have? Yes, the Department of Justice, probably its Civil Rights Division, rapidly filling up with lefties who will do exactly Obama’s bidding without a second thought.

This isn’t the fox watching the henhouse, it’s the wolves policing themselves.  Last I checked, wolves weren’t much interested in being policed.

Columnist Michael Barone thinks that House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) may be reconsidering his decision not to run for president in 2012.  How else to explain Ryan’s recent pro-American Exceptionalism foreign policy speech?  Paraphrasing Barone, how often do committee chairmen weigh in on issues outside of their jurisdiction?

Here’s an excerpt from the concluding section of Ryan’s speech:

A more prosperous economy enables us to afford a modernized military that is properly sized for the breadth of the challenges we face. Such a military must also be an efficient and responsible steward of taxpayer dollars in order to maintain the confidence of the American people. The House-passed budget recognizes this, which is why it includes the $78 billion in defense efficiency savings identified by Secretary Gates.

By contrast, President Obama has announced $400 billion in new defense cuts, saying in effect he’ll figure out what those cuts mean for America’s security later. Indiscriminate cuts that are budget-driven and not strategy-driven are dangerous to America and America’s interests in the world. Secretary Gates put it well: “that’s math, not strategy.”

I’ll close on a final thought: Britain’s premature decline was triggered by a crisis of confidence among its political leadership. Once they concluded that they should manage Britain’s decline, it mattered little what Britain was objectively capable of achieving on the world stage. This crisis of self-perception was fatal to Britain’s global leadership.

Today, some in this country relish the idea of America’s retreat from our role in the world. They say that it’s about time for other nations to take over; that we should turn inward; that we should reduce ourselves to membership on a long list of mediocre has-beens.

This view applies moral relativism on a global scale. Western civilization and its founding moral principles might be good for the West, but who are we to suggest that other systems are any worse? – or so the thinking goes.

Instead of heeding these calls to surrender, we must renew our commitment to the idea that America is the greatest force for human freedom the world has ever seen; a country whose devotion to free enterprise has lifted more people out of poverty than any economic system ever designed; and a nation whose best days still lie ahead of us, if we make the necessary choices today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sir.  Now, how about running for president to see those choices made?

Herewith, some updates to my post earlier today on what should be (but isn’t being treated as) a major scandal at the Justice Department. Updates (or, rather, links to other important coverage with great information) are here, here, and here.

From today’s Wall Street Journal:

As he mulls jumping into the presidential race, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. is corralling some big GOP fund-raisers—and even a few who helped Hillary Clinton in 2008.

Somehow, I don’t think that’s a selling point in any Republican primary.

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of drifting off the highway, chances are you’ve been instantly reminded by the deep grooves on the other side of the white line.  When your car crosses over them a deep, sickening rattle shakes your vehicle.  It’s a warning that you’re about to leave the road and enter a crash zone.

Most people have to fight to urge to overcorrect.  Austan Goolsbee, President Barack Obama’s chief economist, would probably reclassify the loud death tones as just “bumps along the road” and keep driving.

That’s effectively what Goolsbee is doing by claiming that the nearly 80 percent drop in jobs created from April to May are just 200,000 or so “bumps” in the White House’s empirically indefensible road to recovery.

Like an absent-minded professor ignoring the warning signs of an impending car wreck, Goolsbee and Co. are driving the American economy off the road and into a ditch.  Unemployment is anchored at 9.1 percent.  The stock market is falling with every new round of bad economic news.  Rating agencies are downgrading America’s economic outlook because of its lack of fiscal responsibility.

There are two ways to stop bumping over the warning grades.  Either get back on the highway or leave the pavement entirely.  By sticking to his present course, President Obama is steering the nation’s economy into a serious wreck.

As I wrote earlier this week, a bipartisan coalition in Congress is growing tired of President Obama’s refusal to involve the legislative branch in the policy-setting for the conflict in Libya. Today that irritation grew to a head on the floor of the House of Representatives. The Washington Times reports:

Crossing party lines to deliver a stunning rebuke to the commander in chief, the vast majority of the House voted Friday for resolutions telling President Obama he has broken the constitutional chain of authority by committing U.S. troops to the international military mission in Libya.

In two votes — on competing resolutions that amounted to legislative lectures of Mr. Obama — Congress escalated the brewing constitutional clash over whether he ignored the founding document’s grant of war powers by sending U.S. troops to aid in enforcing a no-fly zone and naval blockade of Libya.

The resolutions were non-binding, and only one of them passed, but taken together, roughly three-quarters of the House voted to put Mr. Obama on notice that he must give explain himself [sic] or else face future consequences, possibly including having funds for the war cut off.

The word “including” in the last sentence is a bit of an overstatement. Since the courts will almost certainly refuse to intervene in this matter under the political question doctrine, cutting off funds is virtually the only way for Congress to impose real consequences (it’s also something of a proxy for a vote on policy, given that many White Houses argue that approving funds is the same as approving a war).

It’s not clear that this would be a wise move, however. Regardless of the initial rationale for the Libyan expedition (which was not compelling in terms of American national security interests), the reality is that the strategic landscape has shifted since the West has intervened. Leaving now in a rush has the potential to be more destablizing than not intervening in the first place. It would be better instead to set a few hard and fast objectives (killing Gaddafi, securing rebel control of certain parts of the country, etc.), achieve them, and go home, hopefully leaving that nation no worse than we found it.

That prescription may be less dramatic than the Congress wants. But that’s what they get for not speaking up sooner.

The rot in the Obama/Holder Justice Department, especially in its Civil Rights Division, is a particularly important topic to me, and a big sore spot (as well as a threat to the constitutional order).

Thus I was particularly aghast to see the New York Times the other day run a truly bizarre story attempting, somehow, to show that the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice has been wonderfully de-politicized by the Obamites.  The story is bizarre because the facts cited within the article show precisely the opposite.

Here’s how the NYT (via reporter Charlie Savage) frames the story:  “Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has reversed a pattern of systematically hiring conservative lawyers with little experience in civil rights, the practice that caused a scandal over politicization during the Bush administration.” The Times then goes to great lengths to explain that those hired by the Obama team came from law schools with higher “ranks” than did the Bush hires (“more selective law schools,” in another description), and that those hires had far more “experience in civil rights.”

Bosh.

Having a “background in civil rights” is a self-defining criterion — as defined by the Left.  As the story itself explained it, the definition of “civil rights” experience is self-limiting, because it encompasses (only) “traditional civil rights organizations with liberal reputations, like the American Civil Liberties Union or the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.”

Of course, all sorts of right-leaning organizations also are concerned with civil rights, as are lawyers in private firms who fight against absurd actions by these liberal groups that purport to be in favor of “civil rights” but that in conservative understandings actually undermine civil rights.  If one defines “experience in civil rights” as encompassing only lefty versions of civil rights, then, of course, more Obamite hires will show such “experience” on their resumes. But that does NOT mean that they are the only ones who have done legal work dealing with civil rights issues.

Here are the key facts, dutifully reported by the Times but buried and spun so that the real import is hidden:

At the same time, there was a change in the political leanings of organizations listed on the résumés, where discernible. Nearly a quarter of the hires of the Bush group had conservative credentials like membership in the Federalist Society or the Republican National Lawyers Association, while only 7 percent had liberal ones.

By contrast, during the first two Obama years, none of the new hires listed conservative organizations, while more than 60 percent had liberal credentials. They consisted overwhelmingly of prior employment or internships with a traditional civil rights group, like the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Look at that again. Not one single new hire for a “career” position by the Obamites had any prior conservative associations. Not one. If that isn’t a sign of true politicization, nothing is.  There is quite literally no way that an apolitical hiring practice could fail to snag at least a single conservative, from 120 hires, in a nation that is majority center-right and with a very large conservative plurality.

If the establishment media had an ounce of intellectual integrity — yeah, I know, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride — then this report would be treated as a major scandal.

This topic merits far lengthier exposition and discussion, but for now suffice it to say that a Civil Rights Division that absolutely excludes conservatives is a sign of viewpoint discrimination that itself should trigger a civil rights investigation — and investigation into the Civil Rights Division itself, one which ought to take some real scalps, starting with that of flagrantly dishonest division chief Thomas E, Perez.

Meanwhile, in sad news that further indicts the DoJ, Hans von Spakovsky writes that whistleblower Christopher Coates, with a tremendous amount of terrific “civil rights experience,” effectively has been hounded out of the Justice Department that he has served with great distinction for nearly two decades.  This comes after he first was, in effect, banished from Washington, all for the sin of trying to enforce laws against racist New Black Panthers to the letter of the law.

Today at the Wall Street Journal, Dorothy Rabinowitz was referring more to the terrorism-related actions/inactions of DOJ than to the other Civil Rights Division problems when she wrote that a good Republican candidate for president “would do well to give time and all due detail—the material is rich—on the activities of the Justice Department under President Obama, the most ideologically driven one in U.S. history. He would make the connection between the nature of this Justice Department and the president’s view of the American nation.” But her advice applies across the board, including and especially to the Civil Rights Division.

My latest column at The American Spectator gets around, eventually, to discussing why restoration of the American civic order is coming not from DC but from all the good Americans outside of the upper East Coast bubble.

There’s lots else in the column, so I do urge you to read it, but here’s the good news:

Now that I’ve escaped Washington, I am becoming aware that official Washington has somewhat, ever-so-slightly, improved. It did so because people here out in the hinterlands forced it to do so. Americans proved they love their country. The Tea Party movement played the largest role in sending four score and seven freshmen Republicans to the House even though the RNC was chaired by a bumbling, solipsistic embarrassment. And, while too many of those 87 freshmen and their Tea Party backers sometimes miss the difference between constructive compromise and craven capitulation, the courage of an entire caucus standing firm for entitlement reform is a glorious thing to behold. With the people leading, the politicians are following not sheepishly but with verve….

Eventually, I get around to discussing what I call “the Madisonian ideal for responsible citizenship.” I hope I’m right that this ideal is gaining new adherents.

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

Hillyer:  Obama’s Economic Debacle
Ellis:  Is Jon Huntsman the Next John McCain?
Senik:  Obama’s Hopes for An Economic Recovery by Election Day Are Doomed
Lee:  Spoiler Alert: “The Hangover III” to Feature Barack Obama, Anthony Weiner
Senik:  What it Takes: An Agenda for the Next Republican Presidential Nominee

Freedom Minute Video:  The Presidential Horse Race, 2012
Podcast:  ObamaCare in the Courts
Jester’s Courtroom:  Kiddie Casino?

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 an interview with CFIF, Erik S. Jaffe, a sole practitioner in Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court expert, discusses the multiple legal challenges to President Obama’s health care reform law and lays out the possible scenarios for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the constitutionality of its mandates.

Listen to the interview here.

With horse racing’s Triple Crown underway, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses the greatest horse race of them all:  the jockeying for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination.

Watch this week’s Freedom Minute video below.

This morning, the Labor Department announced that the U.S. unemployment rate climbed again to 9.1% this month, up from 9.0% in April.  Just as alarmingly, the net number of jobs created was only 54,000, down from 232,000 in April.  In addition to deteriorating from the previous month, both numbers fell well below the expectations of economists, who had anticipated a decline in the unemployment rate to 8.9%, and 160,000 net new jobs.  This also means that in the 27 months since Obama signed his unprecedented government spending “stimulus,” unemployment has only climbed from 8.2% to 9.1%, even though the Administration projected that he would have it down to 6.5% by now.  By way of comparison, in the same 27 months following the effective date of President Reagan’s tax cuts in January 1983, unemployment plummeted from 10.4% to 7.3%.  The facts speak volumes.

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.

In 2009 and 2010, the news out of Washington was dominated by stories of Congress rushing through legislation without reading it, voting in the middle of the night, and generally disregarding the adjective in the term “representative government.” Perhaps more than the specifics of policies like the stimulus package, Obamacare, and cap and trade, it was this disdain for honest dealing that set the public firmly in opposition to the Pelosi-Reid Congress and precipitated the blowout midterm elections of 2010.

As with most pathologies in American politics, what’s bad in Washington is usually even worse in Sacramento. The Sacramento Bee reports today:

Numerous bills to crack down on California lawmakers have been shelved quietly by the Legislature in recent weeks.

Casualties included proposals to bar middle-of-the-night legislative sessions, to restrict lawmakers from receiving pay for serving on state boards within four years of leaving office, and to require annual disclosure by public officials of their pay, benefits, travel and other compensation.

Legislators opted not to dock per-diem pay for absences or to create a “do not call” list for campaign robocalls.

What’s consistently fascinating about California politics is that, for all the dysfunction of state government, the Golden State doesn’t have a criminal political culture akin to Illinois or New Jersey, states where the capstone of a successful electoral career is often a stint in federal prison. And why would it? With six-figure legislative salaries and virtually guaranteed appointments to one of the (literally innumerable) state boards and commissions that act as legislative rest homes, one need not break the law to plunder the taxpayers.

As with most of its deficiencies, California would do well to replicate the example of Texas, a state that has shown that a massive population and a sophisticated economy do not necessitate governmental incompetence. Texas has a part-time legislature that only convenes once every two years. The stated goal of this policy: to protect the liberties of the people of Texas. Considering that Texas has created more jobs in the last five years than every other state combined, that seems to be a decent formula.

The upshot: California can take Texas’s principles or Texas can take California’s jobs. Reforming the way the Golden State’s feckless legislature does business would be a good start towards the former end.

Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times continues his excellent political commentary with an hilariously accurate take on the effect Sarah Palin’s bus tour is having on the “lamestream” media:

The media on campaigns is accustomed to being courted, even catered to with assigned airplane seats, meals, transportation to events, seats waiting, transcripts, the upcoming advance schedule, self-serving secrets confided.

But now they want/need Palin more than vice versa. They know the ratings when she’s on. And they know bosses love ratings. So, they follow along in the exhaust.

“I don’t think I owe anything to the mainstream media,” Palin said on Fox. “I think that it would be a mistake for me to become some kind of conventional politician and doing things the way it’s always been done with the media, in terms of relationships with them.”

NRO today reports the amazing news, via this blog post by Roger Clegg and Hans von Spakovsky, that the Atlanta J-C’s columnist Cynthia Tucker is having second thoughts about racial gerrymandering. Glory be! The big question is, will the rest of the Left follow suit, thus enabling all of us to end this pernicious practice even though the Obama-Holder Justice Department remains radically wedded to it and to related legal stances? Abigail Thernstrom wrote a great piece (one of many on this topic she has written through the years) at NRO last month.

I have been writing on this and related Voting Rights Act Section 5 issues for at least ten years now (I think even longer), and for what it’s worth I thought I’d share some of those pieces (some of which I acted as lead drafter of, on behalf of full editorial boards, whose opinions they represent rather than being my own personal columns). Here and here and here and here and here are some of them. Oh, and if you read ANY of them, please read this one, because it addresses the issue most directly.

It’s one of the stranger alliances imaginable in the current Congress, but it looks like a possibility. Per a story in Roll Call:

Frustrated by the White House’s handling of the civil war in Libya, House Republicans will meet Thursday to discuss what steps Congress should take to intervene — including the possibility of backing Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s resolution calling for an end to U.S. involvement.

Although GOP support for the Ohio Democrat’s resolution is far from certain, an aide said the fact that it is even being discussed is a sign of how unhappy Republicans are. “Members are really angry with the way the administration has handled this,” a GOP aide said.

The opposition has a good case on the merits. As I’ve chronicled before, the Libyan mission is an orgy of confusion with a tangential (at best) connection to American national security interests.

It will be interesting, however, to see how Republicans in particular deal with the legal issues surrounding the war. President Obama has already exceeded the 60 day window given to him by the 1973 War Powers Resolution to receive Congressional authorization for the war, which could be a solid Republican talking point — except for the fact that huge swaths of the conservative foreign policy and legal intellegentsia consider the War Powers Resolution to be an unconstitutional infringement on the president’s war-making powers. To complicate matters even further, Obama himself was a vigorous opponent of presidents using that war-making authority in exactly the way he has in Libya.

So what happens next? It seems the only thing we can expect for sure is inconsistency all around.