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Archive for September, 2011
September 16th, 2011 at 2:49 pm
Boehner Rides the REINS

Speaker John Boehner’s jobs plan is well targeted. It was especially encouraging to see him lead with useful attacks on the regulatory state. As a matter of fact, if you look at the summary of his plan, you’ll see that item number one is about requiring congressional approval for “major” new regulations. What he’s referring to is the REINS Act, which we wrote about a couple of times while I was at the Washington Times. This is good stuff, and very important. Please do read those two links in the previous section for an explanation. The first of those came almost a year ago to the day; the numbers need updating, but this paragraph provides a sense of the problem:

Under the Obama administration, bureaucrats have gone wild, with the Code of Federal Regulations reaching a record 163,333 pages last year (and growing). That’s an increase of 22,000 pages since 2000. In 2008, the Small Business Administration estimated that the annual cost to the economy of these regulations was $1.75 trillion, which was even before the regulatory explosion under Mr. Obama.

On deregulation, Boehner is on the right track.

September 16th, 2011 at 2:45 pm
California (Almost) Leading the Nation in Unemployment

The Los Angeles Times reports that California’s unemployment is now 12.1 percent statewide, 25 percent higher than the national average, and second only to Nevada’s 13.4 percent.

For decades, California politicians have prided themselves on being “first in the nation” on numerous job-killing efforts such as fanciful global warming regulations, onerous land use regulations, and stupefying bans on products like Mylar balloons and plastic bags at grocery stores.

Recently, Troy wrote a painfully insightful piece on yet another attempt to wage war on business by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (higher taxes on commercial property).

California’s political class cannot resist the siren song of being the first to put the screws to the engines of economic growth.  If Villaraigosa’s plan becomes reality, perhaps the Golden State will finally be first in a category no one should want: unemployment.

September 16th, 2011 at 11:29 am
This Week’s Liberty Update
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Center For Individual Freedom - Liberty Update

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

Senik:  A Conservative’s Guide to Obama’s Flawed Jobs Proposal
Hillyer:  Yes, $2 Gasoline is Possible
Lee:  “Let Him Die” Or Government Healthcare? That’s a False Dichotomy
Ellis:  Postal Reform is Opportunity for Innovation, Not Capitulation
Ellis:  Paul Krugman’s 9/11: A Liberal History Lesson

Freedom Minute Video:  The New Adventures of Old Obama
Podcast:  Consequences of Neutering America’s Space Program
Jester’s Courtroom:  White Castle Craver Files Lawsuit

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.

September 16th, 2011 at 8:40 am
Video – Obama’s Jobs Plan: “A New Version of the Same Old Song”
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In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino analyzes President Obama’s “jobs plan,” which he outlined last week before a joint session of Congress.  While the plan has been advertised by the president as a bold new approach to job creation, Giachino says the details reveal that it is nothing more than “a new version of the same old song.”

 

September 16th, 2011 at 7:37 am
Podcast: Consequences of Neutering America’s Space Program
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In an interview with CFIF, George Landrith, President of Frontiers of Freedom, discusses why the end of the space shuttle program and America’s dominance in space are huge mistakes.

Listen to the interview here.

September 16th, 2011 at 6:23 am
Ramirez Cartoon: Ponzi Schemes
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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.

September 15th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
Michelle Obama’s War on Breadsticks
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Oh, the policy initiatives of a First Lady. In most White Houses, they’re confined to feel-good exhortations to increase child literacy or avoid the temptations of drugs. And at their best, they’re an opportunity for the president’s spouse to take a stand on an issue better handled by civil society than government. That’s not without merit. The voice of an influential public figure can certainly change popular attitudes for the better.

What’s a little dismaying however, is when what starts as an earnest appeal to self-improvement becomes an excuse for nannyism and artificial quotas. Consider this, from the Daily Caller:

Bending to the whims of Michelle Obama, Darden Restaurants — the company that owns the Olive Garden, Red Lobster, LongHorn Steakhouse and other restaurant concepts — announced Thursday that it will cut the “calorie footprint” and sodium levels in its meals and create new kids’ menus to comply with the first lady’s public health objectives.

With Michelle Obama, Darden unveiled its plans for all 19,000 of its restaurants in 49 states at an Olive Garden restaurant in Hyattsville, Md., in front of a prominent sign advertising the first lady’s “Let’s Move!” campaign.

The company pledged to reduce the overall calories and sodium in its meals by 10 percent over the next five years, and by 20 percent over 10 years.

Is the First Lady’s goal to suck all the joy out of life? Has our concept of limited government been so diminished that we’ll accept being hectored by the waiter at the Red Lobster over how many cheddar bay biscuits we’ve had because it’s a directive from Michelle Obama’s office?

The First Lady is certainly right that Americans could stand to step up their excercise regimes and cut back on the calories. But taking away options is the low road to virtue. If her case is compelling, it’ll sink in on the merits. If not, those are the wages of living in a free society.

As for those cheddar bay biscuits, I have five words for Mrs. Obama: “… from my cold, dead hands.”

September 15th, 2011 at 9:23 am
Ramirez Cartoon: Obama Jobs Plan…Deposit Money Here
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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.

September 14th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
What 9/11 Was Really About
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Rush may have the bravado. Hannity may be able to move the polls. But when it comes to sheer depth of insight, few figures in conservative talk radio can match the great Dennis Prager. In his most recent column, available on National Review Online, he makes an important point about 9/11 in his trademark style: simple yet profound.

The United States of America is a flawed society. Composed of human beings, it must inevitably be flawed. But in terms of the goodness achieved inside its borders, and spread elsewhere in the world, it is the finest country that has ever existed. If you were to measure the moral gulf between America and those who despise it, the distance would have to be measured in light-years.

If the academic and opinion-forming classes of the world had any moral courage, they would instead have asked the most obvious question that the events of 9/11 provoked: Were the mass murderers who flew those airplanes into American buildings an aberration, or were they a product of their culture?

The further we get from that horrible day, the dimmer our view of the moral horizon tends to become. Here’s to Dennis Prager, for always being a source of illumination.

September 13th, 2011 at 9:32 pm
Chuck Woolery Does His Bit to Save America
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We’ve long known that Pat Sajak counts himself a resident of the political right. Now, thanks to this new video from Chuck Woolery, it looks like we may be able to go so far as to carve out a game show host exception to the otherwise ironclad rule of Hollywood leftism. No word yet on Alex Trebek, but don’t hold your breath … he’s Canadian.

September 13th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Thoughts on Last Night’s Debate

In addition to agreeing with Jennifer Rubin, here, I have the following, ultra-summary, reactions to last night’s debate and the state of the GOP presidential nomination race:

Herman Cain: When he talks foreign policy, he seems completely lost. When he talks economics, he is wonderful. He’s also incredibly likable. If he doesn’t get the nomination, he should be Secretary of the Treasury. His combination of practical business experience and chairmanship of the Kansas City branch of the Federal Reserve gives him great qualifications for that position.

Michelle Bachmann: You gotta love her passion and principles. Not so much her knowledge. She is actually way out in right field to say that Romneycare is “unconstitutional.” It’s not — not at the state level. The problem isn’t that it violates the Constitution; the problem is that the individual mandate tramples on liberty and completely upends the American understanding of individual choice and personal responsibility — not to mention the practical drawbacks of Romneycare as a whole.

Newt Gingrich: He shines in most of the debates. But his personality, temperament, and philosophical benders are probably not suited to the presidency.

Jon Huntsman: Condescending, unctuous, and with a nasty streak. And unconservative to boot.

Rick Perry: As I wrote last night, the man had a very bad evening.  I saw multiple other analysts say the same. He needs to improve his game, and fast, or else he could enter Fred Thompson-ville. (I like Thompson, by the way; this is in terms of political trajectory, not personal candidate preference.)

Mitt Romney: Plastic.

Ron Paul: When he’s right, he’s really right. But when he’s wrong, he’s in outer space, in fact in another galaxy. He was hurt politically very badly last night by Rick Santorum’s apt criticism of Paul’s goofball statements relating to 9/11.

Rick Santorum: Okay, I’m a big Santorum fan. This is the third straight debate in which I am hardly alone among pundits in saying that he really was impressive. Isn’t it time people stop saying: “He did great; too bad he can’t win,” and instead start saying: “He did great; maybe he might have a chance to win”?

September 13th, 2011 at 10:15 am
Ramirez Cartoon: Obama’s Jobs Plan
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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.

September 12th, 2011 at 4:32 pm
Former Obama Economist Recommends 10 Year Plan, Soviets Envious

Larry Summers, the economist whose resume includes helping create the kind of mortgage default swaps that crashed the financial system, being fired as President of Harvard for sexist remarks about female scientists, and resigning in disgrace as his infrastructure-heavy stimulus package failed, is back with a plan only a Soviet central planner could love.

Writing for Newsweek (itself an entity that’s seen better days), Summers tells his former boss, “Mr. President, We Need a 10 Year Plan.” Give Summers credit for brashness; in Soviet Russia the Communist Party considered it a success if it could make good on any of its 5 year plans.  (It never did.)

I’ll use Summers’ piece as an excuse to do something otherwise thought impossible: praise President Barack Obama for firing at least one bad economist.

It’s not about central planning, Larry; it’s about incentives.  Reform the tax code and streamline regulations with incentives for hiring and producing, and the economy will grow.

September 12th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
Perry’s Ponzi Scheme Comment Not Hurting Him

Byron York breaks down a CNN poll showing that Republican voters 65 and older (i.e. eligible to receive Social Security) favor Texas Governor Rick Perry for president more than any other GOP candidate.

This flies in the face of the current criticism of Perry’s widely discussed comment at last week’s debate that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme.”  As far as I can tell, no one has yet shown that Perry is incorrect since in both Social Security and a Ponzi scheme the money from later investors (or taxpayers) goes to benefit earlier investors (or taxpayers).

If anything, Perry should be applauded for speaking the kind of tax-and-spend truths necessary to get a handle on the nation’s fiscal problems so we can begin to fix them.

Admittedly, there is one noticeable difference between the programs that Cato’s Michael Tanner explains perfectly:

Of course, Social Security and Ponzi schemes are not perfectly analogous. Ponzi, after all, had to rely on what people were willing to voluntarily invest with him. Once he couldn’t convince enough new investors to join his scheme, it collapsed. Social Security, on the other hand, can rely on the power of the government to tax. As the shrinking number of workers paying into the system makes it harder to continue to sustain benefits, the government can just force young people to pay even more into the system.

In fact, Social Security taxes have been raised some 40 times since the program began. The initial Social Security tax was 2 percent (split between the employer and employee), capped at $3,000 of earnings. That made for a maximum tax of $60. Today, the tax is 12.4 percent, capped at $106,800, for a maximum tax of $13,234. Even adjusting for inflation, that represents more than an 800 percent increase.

In addition, at least until the final collapse of his scheme, Ponzi was more or less obligated to pay his early investors what he promised them. With Social Security, on the other hand, Congress is always able to change or cut those benefits in order to keep the scheme going.

September 12th, 2011 at 3:38 pm
What Al Gore and Karl Marx Have in Common
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It’s a little something called “false consciousness.” An essential aspect of Marxist thinking (though it was actually propagated by his partner, Friedrich Engels), false consciousness is a term that one uses to tell an ideological adversary, in essence, “You disagree with me not because of your reasoned conclusion, but because your ability to understand reality is so polluted as to prevent you from even discovering truth without the enlightened guidance of your betters.”

That seems to be the tact that former Vice President Gore is taking on — what else? — climate change skepticism. And his need for proselytization is now taking on a particularly bizarre form. According to Reuters:

“24 Hours of Reality” will broadcast a presentation by Al Gore every hour for 24 hours across 24 different time zones from Wednesday to Thursday, with the aim of convincing climate change deniers and driving action against global warming among households, schools and businesses.

The campaign also asks people to hand over control of their social networking accounts on Facebook and Twitter to it for 24 hours to deliver Gore’s message.

That last paragraph is particularly cultish. Tell the former VP to get his own damn Twitter account.

Gore and his ilk are accustomed to referring to their critics as “anti-science”. Yet they’re the ones engaged in something that sounds a lot more like televangelism than a climatology symposium.

Here’s an idea: if Gore really wants to be seen as a paragon of sweet reason — and really intends to convert the skeptics — why not have that hour of programming feature a debate between himself and one of the leading critics of his theories? Someone, perhaps, like Christopher Monckton of the British House of Lords, the former Thatcher advisor who has been challenging Gore to a scrimmage on global warming for years.

Of course, this format would put Gore on the spot. But when the science is ‘undeniable’ that should be an easy fight to win, no?

September 12th, 2011 at 11:06 am
P(aw)lenty of Pleading to Be Number Two

Well, I guess Tim Pawlenty really didn’t mean it when he took shots at “Obamneycare.” Now the former Minnesota governor has endorsed the author of that plan, Mitt Romney, for president.

Methinks what Pawlenty is really saying is: “Please, please, please Mr. Romney, if you get the nomination, choose me for vice president! I promise I’m your man. Oh pleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease! I really didn’t mean that bit about Obamneycare. It wasn’t even an intentional slight, and I wasn’t trying to be funny. I just had a slip of the tongue. That’s why I didn’t repeat it in that debate: I really didn’t mean it in the first place. PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE!!!! I promise I’ll be good.”

September 10th, 2011 at 12:01 am
Video – In Memoriam: 9-11-2001
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On the 10th anniversary of September 11, this week’s Freedom Minute honors those who lost their lives and the families they left behind. We shall never forget.

September 9th, 2011 at 3:42 pm
More ATF Guns Found at Murder Site of Border Patrol Agent

The web of possible criminality in the ATF “gun-walking” case i still stretching with a Fox News story confirming the existence a second and third ATF gun at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Congressional investigators have been looking for evidence of the third weapon for months.  Now, it looks like it disappeared at the behest of the FBI for fear that an informant working for it and ATF would be exposed.

This revelation follows on the news that ATF and the FBI coordinated efforts on other dubious programs that allowed guns to reach known criminals.

There seems to be no end to the incompetent corruption at Eric Holder’s Justice Department.  Can the same indefinite tenure be true of the Attorney General?

September 9th, 2011 at 3:13 pm
New York Times Flatters Palin

New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas did today what precious few liberal commentators would: give Sarah Palin a fair hearing.  “Confessing” a knee-jerk reaction to Palin that writes-off the former Alaska governor before she speaks, Giridharadas nonetheless noted Palin’s striking analysis of the current political scene from a recent speech in Iowa:

She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).

This is the kind of anti-establishment populism that Palin articulated to victory against incumbent Republicans in Alaska (first, fellow members of the state’s Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, then the sitting governor).  Indeed, one of the main reasons John “Maverick” McCain chose Palin as his vice presidential running mate was because of her willingness to buck the system in favor of her principles.

As just what might those principles be as president?  Giridharadas says:

Ms. Palin may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism.

On one side would be those Americans who believe in the power of vast, well-developed institutions like Goldman Sachs, the Teamsters Union, General Electric, Google and the U.S. Department of Education to make the world better. On the other side would be people who believe that power, whether public or private, becomes corrupt and unresponsive the more remote and more anonymous it becomes; they would press to live in self-contained, self-governing enclaves that bear the burden of their own prosperity.

No one knows yet whether Ms. Palin will actually run for president. But she did just get more interesting.

September 9th, 2011 at 11:40 am
Two Great 9/11-Themed Columns

Rich Lowry and Charles Krauthammer both hit home runs. Four years ago, I had a column (containing within it my 9/11 immediate-react editorial from the day itself) that I’d also like to share with y’all. For what it’s worth.