Freedom Line Blog

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.

Dan Murphy at National Review found another possible debating point for Mitt Romney:

Tucked away in President Obama’s 2012 budget proposal was a little-noticed provision telling Congress that it may need to provide $688 million to cover the FHA’s projected losses this fiscal year. Translation: The FHA will need a bailout for the first time in its 75-year history.

A short-term solution by the Department of Housing and Urban Development covered up FHA’s growing financial problem until mid-November, i.e. after the presidential election.

Mitt Romney should clue-in the American people on this failure before they vote.

Before Barack Obama, America had never seen a trillion-dollar deficit.  Under Obama, we have now endured four in a row.

Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced that the deficit for fiscal 2012 totaled $1.1 trillion, after trillion-plus deficits for 2009 (which Obama falsely attributes to Bush), 2010 and 2011.  Keep in mind that Obama originally promised that the deficit would be down to $557 billion this year, in addition to his infamous promise to “cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term.”   Moreover, the expiration date on his all-purpose alibi of the last recession has long since passed, since that recession ended over three years ago in June 2009.

Obama and his media apologists will naturally trumpet this morning’s lackluster jobs report, yet today’s deficit announcement by the CBO provides a broader perspective on his utter, unprecedented failure as president.

Kudos to CNN host Erin Burnett for getting Obama campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter to admit that President Barack Obama’s charge that Mitt Romney is campaigning on a $5 trillion tax cut is just wrong.

From a transcript provided by RealClearPolitics:

Erin Burnett, CNN host: So you’re saying if you lower them by 20% you get a $5 trillion tab, right?

Stephanie Cutter: It’s a $5 trillion tab.

[crosstalk]

Burnett: But then when you close deductions it’s not going to be anywhere near $5 trillion, that’s our analysis.

Cutter: Well, okay, stipulated. It won’t be near $5 trillion but it’s also not going to be the sum of $5 trillion in the loopholes that he’s going to close. So it is going to cost someone and it’s going to cost the middle class. Independent economists have taken a look at this. There aren’t enough deductions for those at the top to account for the number of tax cuts that they get because of Mitt Romney’s policy so you have to raise taxes on the middle class. As Bill Clinton said, it’s just simple math.

Burnett: Okay, they’ll just say that you can do that. There are other studies. I know the one to which you’re referring, but there’s also the possibility of economic growth.

Cutter: Prove it. Erin, prove it.

Burnett: We can’t prove either side, that’s all I’m saying, but the one thing that I can say is not true is the $5 trillion tax cut.

Cutter: I disagree with you. You can prove it. So then they should just say that they’re counting entirely on economic growth to pay for a tax cut. Which is an interesting theory because that is what George Bush and let’s look at how that turned out, we had the slowest economic growth since World War II.

Burnett: They’re not saying entirely, they’re saying closing loopholes and economic growth, both. I understand you disagree with it.

Cutter: But that still leaves you at least a trillion dollars short. The math does not work with what they’re saying. And they won’t name those deductions, not a single deduction that they will close because they know that is bad for their politics. Now look, this is the center, this is the core of Mitt Romney’s economic policy. Last night, he walked away from it, said he didn’t have a $5 trillion tax cut. He does. That’s what lowering the rates amounts to.

Don’t confuse them with the facts!

Enough is enough.  It’s time to shine a brighter spotlight on pilot union attempts to sabotage American Airlines.  That’s why CFIF is launching TalktoYourPilot.com – to ensure that travelers know who’s to blame for their frustrations.  No surprise – it’s the pilots’ union, the Allied Pilots Association (APA).

From time to time over the last five months, Jeff Mazzella, Renee Giachino and I have written about the APA’s antics.  You can read most of those things here or read my op-ed in the Washington Times.  In those commentaries we’ve made each of the following points:

–          The airline industry has changed dramatically over the last couple of decades, forcing every single legacy carrier to reorganize under bankruptcy.  American was the last to do so, holding out until last year.  The cause was simple: With the highest labor costs in the industry (bar far), American needed to do something to become more competitive.

–          Accordingly, American went about negotiating with each of their nine separate labor unions, representing flight attendants, mechanics and pilots. Eight of those nine unions ratified new contracts to help their employer and provide stability for their members.

–          The lone exception of those nine unions?  It was the APA – the primary pilots’ union. The APA rejected a generous offer that included pay raises and an equity stake valued at $187,500 for each of the 8,000 union pilots (13.5% of the company’s value).

–          At the same time, the APA used US Airway’s CEO, Doug Parker, to improve their leverage with American.  The APA cut a deal with Parker in case American and US Airways were to merge – even though Parker’s own US Airways pilots have gone seven years without a contract. (Parker has said that everyone will have their cake and eat it too if he combines the airlines.  That’s unrealistic and disingenuous, but it’s a matter for a different day.)  For more on this, read my interview in the Phoenix Business Journal.

–          Ultimately, if American’s pilots stubbornly refuse to accept a new contract, they could effectively send their employer, or perhaps the entire airline industry, the way of the auto industry.  The difference this time would be that taxpayers won’t be so enthusiastic about bailing them out.

Words are no longer enough. Thousands of travelers have been disrupted by the holdout pilots’ union, and we want to afford those inconvenienced travelers an opportunity to give the pilots a piece of their mind.  That’s why we built TalktoYourPilot.com – to give consumers a chance to tell the pilots to settle their disputes without inconveniencing the rest of us.

If headlines earn a vice presidential candidate’s stripes, then Joe Biden may merit consideration as Mitt Romney’s most effective attack dog.

A few days ago Biden said the middle class has been “buried” during President Barack Obama’s economic stewardship.  Today, Obama’s self-immolating Vice President confirmed Mitt Romney’s charge that the Democratic incumbent would raise taxes if reelected:

Biden said Romney and other Republicans often say `Obama and Biden want to raise taxes by a trillion dollars.’ Guess what? Yes, we do in one regard: We want to let that trillion dollar tax cut expire so the middle class doesn’t have to bear the burden of all that money going to the super-wealthy. That’s not a tax raise. That’s called fairness where I come from.”

It’s true Biden is gaffe-prone, but these kinds of statements are too true to be unintentional.

Watch yourself, Paul Ryan – Good Ole’ Joe is gunning for your job!

H/T: Fox News

Joel Gehrke of the Washington Examiner flagged a disingenuous statement from the AARP after President Barack Obama’s disastrous debate performance last night:

President Obama invoked AARP to defend his health care law last night, prompting the influential group to release a statement telling him not to do that again.

“While we respect the rights of each campaign to make its case to voters, AARP has never consented to the use of its name by any candidate or political campaign,” the group posted in a statement. “AARP is a nonpartisan organization and we do not endorse political candidates nor coordinate with any candidate or political party.”

The statement is disingenuous because, as I argued in a recent column, AARP stands to gain $2.8 billion if ObamaCare is implemented; an event foreshadowed in an email from a top AARP executive to the White House in 2009 that said, “we will try to keep a little space between us” on health care because AARP’s “polling shows we are more influential when we are seen as independent, so we want to reinforce that positioning…The larger issue is how best to serve the cause.”

AARP already made its choice.  If it wants its money, the group must support its patron, no matter how unpopular he is becoming.

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.

I’ll have more thoughts about this evening’s debate in my column this week, but for now let me just say this: At the rate this one went, I expected it to end with Romney handing Obama a sword and saying “you know what to do.”

A new study confirms something we’ve highlighted here at CFIF in recent weeks:   The environmental activist campaign to grant the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) a monopoly over forestry certification standards in the United States would (1) substantially raise costs for American consumers, (2) threaten domestic jobs, (3) disproportionately punish American producers, (4) increase importation of foreign wood and (5) paradoxically incentivize use of less environmentally-friendly materials.

A little background: The clear majority of certified timber in North America is not certified by FSC.  Instead, it is certified by credible certification programs, such as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and American Tree Farm System (ATFS).   Some environmentalist groups, however, have commenced a campaign to strongarm U.S.  businesses into only using wood and paper products that satisfy the FSC’s preferred standard.

The problem?  As confirmed by the new study, an FSC certification monopoly would threaten domestic industry, cost American jobs and raise prices for consumers.  Entitled The Monopolization of Forest Certification:  Do Disparate Standards Increase Consumer Costs and Undermine Sustainability?, the study vividly and alarmingly summarizes its findings:

• The FSC certification seems to be significantly more costly than other standards, thereby raising producer costs and consumer prices in the range of 15% to 20%, as well as upsetting the balance between sustainability and economic viability;
• The FSC standard in the US appears to be stricter, and therefore more costly, than standards applied overseas, thereby disadvantaging US producers and raising retail prices for American consumers; and
• If a FSC standard becomes a regulatory requirement for US forests (through edict or non-market pressures from outside groups), consumer welfare losses would occur in a number of markets, including an estimated loss of $10 billion per year for wood products and $24 billion per year for paper products markets.”

Rather than subject ourselves to a foreign monopoly with such destructive consequences, the preferable alternative is to continue competition between certification programs – which will spur economic and consumer benefits.

This new study substantiates that and comes at an opportune time as the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has just opened up their discriminatory LEED process for public comment.

In light of yesterday’s release of a video of a race-baiting Barack Obama seemingly at odds with the image of a “post-racial” president that has been so carefully constructed, it is worth again looking at more evidence that there is a “real Obama” that most of the public just doesn’t know. A few weeks back, the Washington Examiner did a lengthy series on the subject, well worth a read. Read through the ten-part series to find how he earned big money defending a slumlord AGAINST poor people who the slumlord turned out of housing in below-zero temperatures … and about how Obama in the state Senate and as president made a habit of funneling government money to cronies of his, who in turn rained down campaign cash on “The One.” And much, much more. Great stuff.

Over the last 20 years or so, the conservative movement has undergone a renaissance in its posture towards the news media. The right has become more aggressive about flagging bias when it sees it, and the proliferation of cable and online news sources has created the market conditions for conservatives to counterprogram big media’s overwhelmingly liberal agenda.

During that time, many of us have developed a pretty thick skin for media malpractice. We know it’s there and we try to get it the public shaming it deserves, but we also take it is a given. But even those of us anesthetized to the practice have been taken aback by how badly the mainstream media has dropped the ball on foreign policy coverage over the past month or so — a practice exemplified by the press’s obsession with Mitt Romney’s (totally justified) reaction to the violence in the Middle East, even while the Obama Administration was proving itself to be at best clueless — and at worst, intentionally dishonest — about what was happening in the region.

Through that prism, it’s all the more remarkable that it took the Washington Free Beacon, a relatively new conservative investigative outlet to unearth this story:

Hackers linked to China’s government broke into one of the U.S. government’s most sensitive computer networks, breaching a system used by the White House Military Office for nuclear commands, according to defense and intelligence officials familiar with the incident.

One official said the cyber breach was one of Beijing’s most brazen cyber attacks against the United States and highlights a failure of the Obama administration to press China on its persistent cyber attacks.

…

According to the former official, the secrets held within the WHMO include data on the so-called “nuclear football,” the nuclear command and control suitcase used by the president to be in constant communication with strategic nuclear forces commanders for launching nuclear missiles or bombers.

The office also is in charge of sensitive continuity-of-government operations in wartime or crises.

The former official said if China were to obtain details of this sensitive information, it could use it during a future conflict to intercept presidential communications, locate the president for targeting purposes, or disrupt strategic command and control by the president to U.S. forces in both the United States and abroad.

Pretty jarring, right? But this ought to soothe your nerves:

… Officials said President Barack Obama was not notified about the cyber attack—which was traced to China when it was first discovered—but was informed about the incident later.

… [White House Press Secretary Jay Carney] sought to play down the significance of the incident and declined to provide specifics when asked if the attacked computer network was located within the White House Military Office. That office is in charge of presidential communications, travel, and the nuclear command and control suitcase known as the “football.”

“Let’s be clear: this is an unclassified network,” Carney said. “These types of attacks are not infrequent, and we have mitigation measures in place.”

“In this instance, the attack was identified, the system was isolated, and there is no indication whatsoever that any exfiltration of data took place,” he said, adding that the attack “never [had] any impact or attempted breach of any classified system.”

So no worries — the Chinese military was just trying to break into our most sensitive computer systems. They didn’t actually get anything.

Sleep tight, America.

That’s what Curt Levey of the excellent Committee for Justice recommends in an insightful op-ed today. Well worth a read, both for its analysis and for its advice to Romney. If I get a chance this evening or tomorrow, I will add my own thoughts on this topic in a subsequent post here.

Robert Costa at NRO has a great column out today about what the Romney insiders hope their candidate accomplishes in tomorrow’s debate. Excellent reporting, interesting content.

But I am moved to make the same point Jonah Goldberg of NRO made a few days ago:

[T]he Romney campaign is shaping up to be something special. It seems to be part of their strategy never to miss a chance to tell the press why they’re doing what they’re doing. … The Romney campaign is so careful not to distract the voters with actual ideas and arguments — or, heaven forbid, ideology — that it seems at times determined to run on stage directions alone.

Why is anybody inside or close to the campaign coming anywhere near telling outsiders what they hope Romney accomplishes in the debate and how he intends to do it? Unless this is all a clever misdirection play (which I seriously doubt), this lets the Obama team know exactly what to prepare for. It’s as if a head football coach did an interview before a big game and said: “Well, we really want to blitz a lot on defense, because we aren’t really satisfied with our pass rush without the blitz; and on offense, you can expect to see a lot of play-action passes because we want them to think we’re running when we’re really gonna throw the ball…. Oh, and by the way, we’ve also been practicing lots of screen passes.”

Imagine if Ronald Reagan’s team had said in advance of the second Mondale debate that everybody should be looking for a good one-liner to deal with the “age issue.” How stupid would that have been?

If I were Romney, I would send an edict to his entire team that they are no longer allowed to discuss anything about campaign strategy, tactics, “positioning,” or the like. Problem is, once he put out such an edict, the next report leaked through “friendly” media outlets would be about how bold a step Romney just took by ordering all of his advisors not to talk about campaign tactics, and about how they expect the no-tactics strategy to bolster the campaign’s standing with part-time self-employed Hispanics in Colorado……

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.

Interesting new data from Open Secrets, which tallies the top donors to the presidential candidates (note: these are not corporate donations, but money from PACs, as well as from individuals and their families associated with these institutions). Here are Barack Obama’s top five contributors:

1.    University of California — $703,781

2.    Microsoft — $544,445

3.    Google Inc — $526,009

4.    Harvard University — $431,860

5.    U.S. Government — $396,550

Peruse the top 20 and this trend holds. In addition to Harvard and the University of California system, schools like Stanford, Columbia, the University of Chicago, and the University of Michigan also populate the list. On the tech side, Microsoft and Google are joined by IBM (there are also a few big media companies — Time Warner and Comcast). And in government, the State Department alone is responsible for over $200,000 in contributions.

Higher ed and the permanent governing class in Washington are so thoroughly suffused with liberalism that their inclinations should be taken as a given. But conservatives would be foolish to give up on Silicon Valley, where the regnant mores are sufficiently libertarian for Republicans to win converts through a sustained emphasis on free markets (it’s no coincidence that Ron Paul was a huge hit there).

The tech industry’s lifeblood is freedom: freedom to experiment, collaborate, and innovate — which means sooner or later they should realize that the party of 2,000 page laws and dictatorial bureaucracy is not for them. But should doesn’t necessarily mean will. One need only look to African-American voters to realize that political parties can win demographics they consistently neglect if the other side doesn’t even bother competing. The GOP (quite literally) can’t afford to let that happen in Silicon Valley.

The Daily Caller reports that “Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan agrees with presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s call for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign, or for President Barack Obama to fire him, over Operation Fast and Furious.”

Ryan is now the 131^st member of Congress to say Holder should resign or be fired.

This is about more than politics.

Now that Univision has uncovered evidence that a massacre of 14 teenagers in Ciudad Juarez was perpetrated with Fast and Furious guns, and identified “57 more previously unreported firearms that were bought by straw purchasers monitored by ATF during Operation Fast and Furious, and then recovered in Mexico in sites related to murders, kidnappings, and at least one other massacre,” it is now impossible to let Holder escape responsibility for a program he claims he knew nothing about.

Even though the Department of Justice’s non-partisan Inspector General could find no direct evidence of Holder’s knowledge, the same IG told congressional investigators that “we struggle to understand how an operation of this size, of this importance, that impacted another country like it did, could not have been briefed up to the attorney general of the United states.  It should have been, in our view.  It was that kind of a case.”

And let’s not forget that Holder’s Contempt of Congress citation was directly linked to the White House’s dubious extension of executive privilege to cover a cabinet member.

So, either Eric Holder is being shielded from culpability because of the White House’s refusal to provide the relevant documents, or the U.S. Attorney General didn’t know about a major program that could, and did, jeopardize America’s relationship with Mexico.

Either way, Romney and Ryan would do voters a service by highlighting this colossal failure of leadership by key people in the Obama Administration.  If Holder’s job is safe, and the President is reelected, no one should be surprised if we get more of the same for the next four years.

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):  Megan Brown, Partner, Wiley Rein:  2012 Supreme Court Term Preview;

4:30 (CDT)/5:30 pm (EDT):  Michael Reagan, Talk Radio Host and Townhall Columnist:  Election 2012

5:00 (CDT)/6:00 pm (EDT):  Christopher Horner, CEI Senior Fellow:  “The Liberal War on Transparency;” and

5:30 (CDT)/6:30 pm (EDT):  Kristina Rasmussen, Executive Vice President, Illinois Policy Institute:  Unfunded Pensions.

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

I didn’t say it; Pat Caddell did. He has a darn good point — or, rather, a number of darn good points, about the perfidy of the press, the weakness and fecklessness of the GOP establishment, and, using the exact phrase I first heard used by my friend, columnist Deroy Murdock, way back when he was in college, about how Mitt Romney has a proclivity to “dare to be cautious.”

Please click through to that link. Great stuff.