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Archive for November, 2011
November 14th, 2011 at 5:36 pm
Obama: America’s Been “A Little Bit Lazy”
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A few weeks ago, Ashton gave us a column’s worth of examples of President Obama’s rhetorical stupidity, much of which involved running down the nation he governs. Well, the Schoolmarm-in-Chief is at it again. From coverage of the APEC summit going on in Hawaii:

Note the palm trees in the background if you want to fully understand the moral force of the president’s example. Effort may be the issue, but we’re not sure the private sector is the culprit.

November 14th, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Newt Agonistes

Now that he is surging in the polls, Newt Gingrich is likely to come under renewed scrutiny. Jennifer Rubin was nice enough to quote me extensively in this blog post, but she also wrote a whole lot more worth reading, including this:

It is far from certain whether Gingrich will hold up under scrutiny any better than Herman Cain, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), and Texas Gov. Rick Perry did. Unlike Perry and Cain, he won’t be perceived as lacking a basic understanding of the issues. But soon he will need to fend off questions about his years in Congress, his support for the individual mandate and the ethical lapses. He will need to address a slew of not-very conservative positions he has taken over the years on everything from TARP to cap-and-trade to illegal immigration. Frankly, he’s been to the left of most of the GOP field on a number of issues.

Rubin also extensively quotes some reader comments, here. Some are rather devastating, such as reasons 4 and 5 from a longer list from somebody named ChrisFord:

Many people remember him as so personally dislikable and intemperate in the 90s he was rejected out of hand for a Presidential spot in 1996 and 2000. That unpopularity lingers, outside Republican ranks, showing him far behind Obama in getting the moderate and independent vote.  Outside the policy wonk area, Newt has shown horrible executive and organizational skills. He has raised little money, despite all his inside the Beltway connections, and his whole staff quit on him last summer over his conduct.

Actually, Rubin had a trifecta of hard-on-Gingrich posts. Here’s another:

When invited to explain why he thinks Romney is merely a good manager and and not a change agent, Gingrich declined. His willingness to sign onto Perry’s notion about reducing all foreign aid to nothing didn’t show him to be a deep thinker. This is an easy applause line, the sort that Gingrich would normally say is beneath him. To be frank, the assessment of many that he “won” the debate reflects the ease with which many are beguiled by Gingrich’s professorial tone. What he says is far less impressive than how he says it.

Carter Eskew, a Democratic consultant to be sure, also hit Gingrich. And now a new e-book, by people who are seen as center to center-right, may cause him more problems.

Then again, if you are surging into first place in the polls, none of this may bother you right now. Truth is, Gingrich wouldn’t be receiving such renewed scrutiny if he hadn’t pulled off a political near-miracle by coming back from the political dead. It seems somebody forgot to put a stake through his heart when they buried him.

November 14th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
THIS WEEK’s RADIO SHOW LINEUP: CFIF’s Renee Giachino Hosts “Your Turn” on WEBY Radio 1330 AM
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Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CDT to 6:00 p.m. CDT (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EDT) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her radio show, “Your Turn: Meeting Nonsense with Commonsense.”  Today’s guest lineup includes:

4:00 (CDT)/5:00 pm (EDT):  Catherine Crier, Author of “Patriot Acts:  What Americans Must Do to Save the Republic”;

4:30 (CDT)/5:30 pm (EDT):  Catherine Engelbrecht, Founder of King Street Patriots and True the Vote;

5:00 (CDT)/6:00 pm (EDT):  Elizabeth Samson, Visiting Fellow at the Hudson Institute;  and

5:30 (CDT)/6:30 pm (EDT):  Ken Blackwell, Senior Fellow at the American Civil Rights Union.

Listen live on the Internet here.   Call in to share your comments or ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

November 14th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
Showdown 2012: Supreme Court Accepts ObamaCare Challenge
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As we anticipated in last week’s Liberty Update, the U.S. Supreme Court announced today that it will hear legal challenges to ObamaCare this term.  As we also noted in that commentary, the issue broadly boils down to whether an explicit provision of the Constitution will be rendered meaningless and effectively read out of the document itself.

That is not hyperbole.  Our Founding Fathers didn’t randomly insert provisions into the Constitution for no reason whatsoever.  Rather, they crafted that document to design a federal government of limited, enumerated powers and to safeguard individual freedom to the greatest extent possible.  Accordingly, they intentionally included the Commerce Clause of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to empower Congress “To regulate Commerce with Foreign Nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.”  ObamaCare, however, does not merely “regulate commerce among the several states.”  Rather, it compels commercial activity from every citizen, and punishes inactivity on the part of any individual.

Anyone asserting ObamaCare’s validity must therefore answer this question:  If the Commerce Clause somehow permits forced commercial activity and prosecution of inactivity, what possible hypothetical federal mandate would it not permit?  Such a result would void a specific clause within the text of the Constitution because no limiting principle would remain.  That, in turn, would mean that no other provision remains safe in such a brave new world.

Hopefully, at least five Justices respect the Constitution enough to not remove yet another thread from its fabric.  Should the Court fail, however, the fight will not be finished.  The job will simply fall upon us as individual citizens to effectuate the individual freedoms that too few elected and appointed officials seem to respect.

November 11th, 2011 at 8:28 pm
Parents of Slain Border Patrol Agent Call for Holder to Resign

At least they gave him a chance.  Only after watching U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s defiant responses to congressional interrogators did the parents of the late Brian Terry say that Holder needs to go.

Both parents want Holder to resign, citing his response to a question from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who asked if Holder thought it was his responsibility to have known about Operation Fast and Furious.

“There are 115,000 employees in the Department of Justice,” Holder said. “I cannot be expected to know the details of every operation on a day-to-day basis.”

To which Kent said: “Holder says he has 115,000 employees. That is his job. If he can’t handle his job, he should get out of it.”

Indeed.

November 11th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Biden Chiseling Secret Service for Rent While They Protect Him

If you’ve ever wondered how career politicians make money while in office, here’s an answer to file away with “marry a lobbyist” and “have a trust fund.”

The Washington Times confirms that even after six months of bad press, Vice President Joe Biden will continue to charge rent from the Secret Service for the agents who live on his Delaware property to protect his life.  The Times notes that Secret Service officials can’t recall another public official charging rent from his protectors – essentially a double tax on taxpayers who’ve been subsidizing Biden’s lifestyle since he was elected to the Senate 36 years ago at the age of 31.

The amount of rent Biden will receive from the Secret Service next year – $26,400 or $2,200 a month – is a pittance compared to the trillions being wasted by the Obama Administration on its assorted boondoggles.  But it’s the way this transaction looks to have occurred that should really irk taxpayers.  From the Times report:

According to Mr. Biden’s office, the cottage had been occupied by Mr. Biden’s mother, Jean Biden, who died in 2010 at 92.

After her death, Mr. Biden asked the Secret Service about renting the property, but the agency declined and a private tenant whose identity has not been disclosed moved in. When that tenant moved out, however, the Secret Service reconsidered, approached Mr. Biden about renting the property and moved in, paying the same $2,200 per-month rate charged to the previous occupant.

Hard to believe that the Secret Service suddenly had a change of heart about granting Biden’s wish to make money off of a service offered to him by a generous nation and dedicated personnel.  Instead, it looks like the mystery tenant was just a stand-in to establish a rental price that Biden could claim was fair market value when he cajoled the Secret Service into accepting his offer.

What’s next; Biden charging AMTRAK for the privilege of ferrying him between D.C. and Delaware?

November 11th, 2011 at 6:58 pm
A Revolutionary War Veteran’s Reminder

With Quin’s column this week reminding us of the lessons to learn from the War of 1812 (though the battle he writes about occurred in 1815), it’s nice to a plug for the Revolutionary War heroes flow from Eliot Cohen’s pen in today’s Wall Street Journal.  After recounting some of the highlights from America’s 200 years of military intrigue along the “Great Warpath” from Albany to Quebec, Cohen ends his masterful treatment with this poignant command from one of our nation’s first veterans:

One of the relics carefully preserved at the Fort Ticonderoga museum is the knapsack of Benjamin Warner, a some time soldier during the Revolution who, like many of his fellow citizens, fought, went home and returned to fight again, and not once but half a dozen times. Fifty years later, he left the battered canvas bag to his oldest son, with instructions to transmit it “to the latest posterity. And whilst one shred of it shall remain, never surrender your liberties to a foreign invader or an aspiring demagogue.” In this age of uncertainty and self-doubt, that spirit is yet another legacy of the Great Warpath worth pondering.

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November 11th, 2011 at 12:00 pm
This Week’s Liberty Update
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This week’s edition of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out. Below is a summary of its contents:

Lee:  This Week’s Sloppy, Shameful ObamaCare Ruling Provides Wake-Up Call to American Voters
Senik:  The Myth of Romney’s Electability
Ellis:  White House Chief of Staff Latest Scapegoat for Failed Policies
Hillyer:  Lessons from 1815

Freedom Minute Video:  Saluting America’s Heroes
Podcast:  How Government Unions are Bankrupting America
Jester’s Courtroom:  Catholic University Sued to Remove Crosses in Classrooms

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.

November 11th, 2011 at 10:01 am
Video: Saluting America’s Heroes This Veterans Day
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This Veterans Day, the Center for Individual Freedom honors the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces.

November 11th, 2011 at 8:13 am
Podcast: How Government Unions are Bankrupting America
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In an interview with CFIF, Daniel DiSalvo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute’s Center for State and Local Leadership, discusses his recently released Encounter Books’ Broadside, “Government Unions and the Bankrupting of America.”

Listen to the interview here.

November 10th, 2011 at 2:01 pm
Net Neutrality Escapes from Senate Unharmed, Despite Rubio’s Eloquence
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If you need another reason to hope for a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate next fall, here you go: a resolution to overturn net neutrality — the Obama Administration’s attempt at a government takeover of the internet — failed today in the upper chamber by a narrow vote of 52-46 (it had previously passed in the House, 240-179).

Of the Republicans who fought the good fight, none put the issue in as sharp relief as Florida freshman Marco Rubio. This a man who gets the bigger picture, as the Daily Caller reports:

“The FCC and the federal government cannot keep pace with the Internet and the technology industries, and the government should not attempt to catch up through regulation or legislation,” said Rubio.

“And that’s an important point. We are asking this government, we are asking this bureaucratic structure which struggles to keep pace with issues we have been facing for the last 20 years, to somehow keep pace with issues and the technology and the innovations that arrive in the Internet world. Not only do I think that is asking too much, I think it’s impossible.” 

Rubio is right on the money, sounding the same cautionary note that CFIF’s Timothy H. Lee has repeatedly emphasized. America has had no more dynamic sector of the economy in the last two decades than the internet, a development that would have been impossible without a relatively light hand from the federal government. If Washington gets in the driver’s seat, we should expect the same results that have characterized government involvement in everything from health care to postal service to education: lower quality at higher prices with less convenience. It’s a Wi-Fi world and we’re handing off the internet to a dial-up government.

November 9th, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Obama’s Yuletide Gift to the Nation? A Christmas Tree Tax
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Four years ago at this time, we were all being told about the unrivaled intelligence of both candidate Barack Obama and his presidential campaign. Now, as the One prepares to launch his reelection campaign in earnest, we see how far the mighty have fallen. From Fox News:

The Obama administration has imposed a 15-cent tax on Christmas trees in order to pay for a new board tasked with promoting the Christmas tree industry.

There are still about eight weeks left in the year, but the odds are pretty good that this is the single dumbest sentence you will read about American politics this year. Even John Maynard Keynes deep into the eggnog would have a hard time working out the economic rationale of taxing an industry in order to finance a campaign promoting that same industry. And is there an epidemic lack of public awareness about Christmas trees in America? (Side note: are the PC police okay with calling them “Christmas trees” as long as we’re taxing them?)

More than anything else, this is just incredibly amateurish politics. With the flood of public workers who have come to D.C. during the Obama years, you’d think there’d be at least one political apointee with the savvy necessary to point out that a president presiding over a prolonged economic downturn (including 9 percent unemployment) may not want to make his contribution to the holidays a tax on the foundational symbol of the season. I suspect the principle may not sink in until next Christmas, when the president’s stocking is stuffed with a first-class ticket back to Chicago.

UPDATE: ABC News is now reporting that the administration is “going to delay implementation and revisit this action” in light of the uproar. It’s hard to know whether to be thankful that media scrutiny could cause such a swift retreat or depressed that it had to get this far down the road before the White House realized there was a problem.

November 9th, 2011 at 9:05 am
Ramirez Cartoon: Holder’s “Fast and Furious” Defense
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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.

November 8th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
Watch Newt
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As Ashton notes below, I’ve been peddling a theory for the last several weeks that Newt Gingrich is poised to end up in a one-on-one showdown with Mitt Romney for the Republican Presidential nomination. The reason is simple: despite his seeming meltdown early in the campaign, Newt has been playing the long game, eschewing attacks on the other Republican candidates, and using the debates as a cost-free method to display his intellectual mastery of the issues and his ample abilities as a communicator.

It’s a savvy strategy, though like all “great in hindsight” moves it has benefited a lot from luck. If Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, or Herman Cain had been able to to convince the primary electorate that they had presidential deliverables, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Even the leaden Tim Pawlenty campaign may have been getting a second look if the former Minnesota governor had stayed in the race. But they haven’t, and Newt (who probably enjoys a five-point premium in the polls just because of the number of Republicans who’d love to watch him debate President Obama) is now riding high: a new poll out of Iowa yesterday had him second, only four points behind Herman Cain, who is likely to start taking a serious nosedive any day now.

One note of caution: as Ashton mentions, I have my doubts on whether Newt can overtake Romney in the final tally, as two factors will come into play once the former speaker is seen as a formidable threat. First, his intemperance while leading the House of Representatives will be brought back to the fore. Newt can reasonably argue that he’s even better equipped to lead the nation having learned the lessons of those years. Fair enough, as such things go. The other issue will be his messy personal life, which is the factor most likely to torpedo the campaign. If Gingrich has learned anything from the Herman Cain debacle, hopefully it’s that he should be candid about his past — and do so as quickly as possible. That will allow him to better control the story and adequately separate fact from fiction. Expect to hear a lot about Newt’s new-found religious convictions when those issues take center stage.

As for Romney, he should hope that Newt stumbles on one of these issues, but be prepared for him not to. The front runner has had it easy thus far, with most of his major opponents taking themselves out of contention without the former Massachusetts governor having to so much as lay a finger on them. Ask any Democrat from the last few decades: Newt will not be nearly so easy a target.

November 8th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
Gingrich Has Largest Campaign Operation in South Carolina

Granted, Newt has 9 staff members in the Palmetto State while Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry each have 7, but hey, he’s still #1!

Troy wrote an insightful entry analyzing Gingrich’s somewhat discussed boomlet as perhaps not enough to overtake the unfathomable Mitt Romney.  Still, if there’s anyone in this race who knows how to galvanize a movement, it’s the author of the Contract with America.

Quin, I await another onslaught on why Gingrich would not be (to put it nicely) your choice for POTUS.

November 7th, 2011 at 10:11 pm
Cain Agonistes

Bill Bennett today offers what for him are prototypically thoughtful comments on the increasingly sad allegations against Herman Cain. The gist of his comments is that the growing number of allegations against Cain show that this isn’t just a “high-tech lynching,” and that Cain’s handling of it, by making utterly baseless allegations against the Perry campaign, is very disturbing:

I have watched long enough and held my tongue long enough to give him the benefit of the doubt, but can no longer say this is a witch hunt, “a lynching” to use his word, or any other euphemism. There are allegations out there that matter and they have stacked up. For we who led the charge against Bill Clinton on a number of related issues to continue to blame the media or other campaigns or say it simply doesn’t matter makes us the hypocrites as well.

To that, I add this thought: If these allegations against Cain are UNtrue, then this is one of the vilest episodes in American political history. The lady’s allegation today is so graphic that if it is a lie, it is absolutely sickening. What really puzzles me is that if these allegations ARE true, I don’t see how Herman Cain could possibly have thought he could run for president and not have these stories come out. I mean, I can sort of see Cain thinking that two vague allegations of the “you are the same height as my wife” sort would not be any reason at all to keep him from the presidency. But if he is a serial lout whose loutishness includes two official allegations of harassment of anywhere near the sort as the non-harassment loutishness described today, it makes NO sense for him to put himself in the public eye. He HAD to know these things would come out.

Oddly enough, today’s allegation of under-skirt exploration makes me more inclined, or at least WANT to be inclined, to believe Cain. This is probably a perverse psychological reaction from me: I just can’t bear the thought of somebody who seemed so admirable turn out instead to be not just a borderline serial harasser, but a serial serious harasser and groper.

Is it just me, or is today’s allegation just too “over the top” to be believable?

UPDATE: To be clear, I am not saying that I found Ms. Bialek personally to be not believable. She did not come across as a liar. I am just saying that I don’t want to believe both that Cain would have been such a serial lout and that he would run for president if he had been like that. In short, in a vacuum, on paper, its just hard to believe today’s accusation. Watching and listening to Ms. Bialek is NOT, however, a vacuum. She did not acquit herself badly.

November 7th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Seal Team 6 Sets Record Straight Amid White House Distortions

After a stunning recitation of the facts of the Bin Laden raid culled from interviews with Seal Team 6 members who participated in it, a former team leader (Pfarrer) says that the reason the Seals are breaking their customary code of silence is the gross misrepresentations propagated by the Obama Administration.

What infuriated the Seals, according to Pfarrer, was the description of the raid as a kill mission. “I’ve been a Seal for 30 years and I never heard the words ‘kill mission’,” he said. “It’s a Beltway (Washington insider’s) fantasy word. If it was a kill mission you don’t need Seal Team 6; you need a box of hand grenades.”

Add military terminology to the litany of policy subjects the president and his liberal cohort are jarringly unfamiliar with.  “Beltway fantasies,” indeed.

Note: A previous version of this post contained a broken hyperlink.  Google “Bitter Seals tell of killing ‘Bert’ Laden.”  Great stuff.

November 7th, 2011 at 6:46 pm
Internal Clock Off? Thank Congress
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If, like most Americans, you’re still struggling with the physiological fallout from this weekend’s end to Daylight Saving Time, keep this in mind: you have the federal government to blame.

Though it’s now regarded as something of a natural law, DST was actually a 20th century innovation, not imposed on the U.S. until our entry into World War I, when it was justified as a means of energy conservation. It was then repealed, brought back during World War II, used sporadically after the war, and finally made federal law in 1966. Yet politicians continue meddling with it to this day, changing DST most recently in 2007, when they made it approximately a month longer.

Is there any better example of Washington’s inability to know its limitations? Our elected officials literally think they can legislate what time it is. In reality, Daylight Savings Time is a sort of temporal Keynesianism — lop off a little time here, place it somewhere else, and act as if it’s a net gain. If you want to know how that little bit of alchemy works in the real world, ask any parent who has small children whether the tykes dutifully observed Sunday morning’s time change.

This is one more example of social engineering from the feds that we can do without. When it comes to keeping government out of our bedrooms, let’s start with the alarm clock.

November 5th, 2011 at 6:26 pm
Romney-Ryan Inches Closer to Reality

Jennifer Rubin’s interview with House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) gives more reason to surmise that a pairing of him and GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney as the 2012 Republican ticket.  Rubin says that Ryan’s response to Romney’s entitlement reform plan was “effusive” and a clear statement of support from the leading elected conservative intellectual.

With Romney mired in an electoral no-man’s land – leading all other challengers but only garnering 25% support – adding Ryan to his team sometime next year would probably be enough to get disaffected Tea Party and conservative support otherwise underwhelmed with Romney’s checkered history.

November 4th, 2011 at 6:55 pm
California Grows Deficit, Cuts Transparency Website

More bad news from the Tarnished State:  A memo circulated by Democratic Assembly leaders pegs California’s budget deficit for next year at $8 billion, more than double the $3.1 billion Governor Jerry Brown and legislative Democrats projected just a few months ago.  In (un?)-related news, Brown’s office shut down a transparency website from the Schwarzenegger-era that made far-flung government documents easily available.  Now, visitors are redirected to some of the relevant primary sources, but many others are not listed.

In both cases, the price of reliable information seems to be too little, too late.