Freedom Line Blog

Late last year, the “Climategate” scandal fell like a meteor from the sky, creating catastrophic damage for the worldwide fraud that is global warming alarmism.  That controversy centered upon the revelation that climate change activists had manipulated data, blacklisted scientists who opposed their agenda and targeted scientific journals.

The repercussions continue, but one fortunate trend is that most Americans have become skeptical toward environmental extremists and their deteriorating claims.

Now, the United Nations was forced this week to make yet another embarrassing admission.

Yesterday, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) admitted that its 2007 claim that Himalayan glaciers would completely disappear by 2035 was based on speculative assertions.

The UN’s erroneous 2007 claim was based upon a 2005 World Wildlife Fund study, which was itself based upon a 1999 study in New Scientist magazine, in which Indian glacial scientist Syed Hasnain was quoted as saying the glaciers would disappear “within forty years.”  Now, however, Dr. Hasnain admitted that his 1999 assertions were based upon “speculation” instead of sound science.

Along with the fact that global temperatures have fallen below their 1998 levels despite eleven years of rapid growth in China, India and the United States, these successive scandals within the global warming grievance industry have the movement well on its way to the same fate as the ultimately discredited 1970s “global cooling” movement.

The demise of this politically-based speculative movement can’t come soon enough.

On year ago tomorrow, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.  Where exactly are we as a nation one year later?

The Associated Press has put together an interesting compilation of numbers to help answer that question.  Highlights of the AP piece, which is titled “A By-the-Numbers Look at Obama’s First Year,” include:

– 13 million—Number of people 16 and older unemployed as of January 2009.
– 14.7 million—Number of people 16 and older unemployed as of December 2009.
– 7.7 percent—Unemployment rate January 2009
– 10.0 percent—Unemployment rate December 2009
– $787 billion—Cost of economic stimulus approved by Congress.
– $10.6 trillion—Outstanding public debt Jan. 20, 2009
– $12.3 trillion—Outstanding public debt Jan. 14, 2009.

Read the entire piece via Breitbart.com here.

The current political environment for Democrats appears gloomy.  The President’s approval rating continues to hover around 50%, Democrats can claim few political victories and now there is a strong chance that a Republican will be the next Senator from Massachusetts. The GOP has not captured a Senate seat in the Commonwealth since 1972.

A victory for Republican Scott Brown would make the passage of ObamaCare exceedingly difficult and perhaps kill its legislative prospects altogether, though Democrats will not completely cede the issue to the GOP.

As voters head to the polls in the Bay State, recent predictions are confirming that Brown has a legitimate shot at the seat.  Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight projects a Brown victory based on aggregate polling data since the first week in January.  Silver writes, “Coakley’s odds are substantially worse than they appeared to be 24 hours ago, when there were fewer credible polls to evaluate and there appeared to be some chance that her numbers were bottoming out and perhaps reversing.  However, the ARG and Research 2000 polls both show clear and recent trends against her.”

Charles Franklin at Pollster agrees with Silver.  Franklin noted, “Across all models, Brown leads by between 1.0 and 8.9 points.  Three quarters of the estimates have Brown ahead by 4 points or more.”

And now, Politico reports that some Democrats are working up contingency plans if Scott Brown proves to be the 41st vote against a government takeover of health care.  Their plan: Blame Republicans.  One Democratic staffer noted, “Sure you could say it’s worse because we didn’t pass anything.  But it might be better to get past this as soon as possible, and bring it up for a vote in the Senate, let Republicans kill it – and then blame them for everything.”

Nice strategy.  Voters will surely reward you for delivering on your message of transparency, lower taxes for the middle class and affordable health care.

Today, all eyes are on Massachusetts as Bay State voters head to the polls to decide the fate of the U.S. Senate seat previously held by the late Senator Ted Kennedy.  Will Republican State Senator Scott Brown pull it out against Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley?  We will all know soon enough.

The special election between Brown and Coakley is, in large part, a referendum on President Obama’s agenda, including health care reform.  The President himself, while avoiding the health care issue as much as possible, all but admitted as much during a campaign speech for Coakley on Sunday.  If Brown does pull off a victory, Democrats will lose the 60th vote in the Senate needed to sustain their filibuster-proof majority to pass ObamaCare and possibly other legislation on President Obama’s agenda.

But that is not discouraging some in the Democrat leadership, most notably House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  According to Alex Koppelman at Salon.com, Pelosi commented about the situation during an event in San Francisco yesterday:

“Let’s remove all doubt, we will have healthcare one way or another. … Certainly the dynamic would change depending on what happens in Massachusetts. Just the question about how we would proceed. But it doesn’t mean we won’t have a health care bill.”   

How can the Speaker be so confident?  According to a report in yesterday’s New York Times:

The White House and Democratic Congressional leaders, scrambling for a backup plan to rescue their health care legislation if Republicans win the special election in Massachusetts on Tuesday, have begun laying the groundwork to ask House Democrats to approve the Senate version of the bill and send it directly to President Obama for his signature.

In other words, Plan B for Pelosi appears to be to ask her caucus just to approve the Senate-passed health care bill, avoiding another vote in the Senate altogether.  That’s a big ask considering the numerous and significant complaints many in her caucus have expressed about the Senate bill.

If Scott Brown wins today in the most liberal state in the Union, the message to rank-and-file Democrats about health care “reform” and President Obama’s overall agenda should be clear.  If Brown wins and they continue to follow Pelosi’s lead and pass ObamaCare “one way or another,” they ignore that clear message at their own peril.

Politico – Brown Win Could Spark Legal Battle
USA Today – Analyst Predicts Comfortable Win for Brown
Washington Examiner – Win or Lose, Brown Spells Real Change
Eugene Robinson – Hard Lessons for a Rookie Year

The Hill – Gun Control Group Gives Obama an ‘F’
Washington Times – White House Undermines Government Watchdogs
WSJ Editorial – Predators and the Constitution
The Buffalo News – Net Neutrality Stifles Innovation

Federal Debt: $12.294 trillion

I try to resist the temptation to overstate my opposition to President Obama’s agenda. I don’t think the president’s a bad man, a crypto-communist, or a self-hating American. I think he’s an extraordinarily conventional (and mostly doctrinaire) liberal who got a lot further than most people who share his worldview could have because he has some rather pronounced political gifts. What he clearly lacks, however, is any real skill at governing in a sustainable way.

Thus, do we get the President, on the eve of what will either be a devastating defeat or a too-narrow win in the Massachusetts senate race waxing defiant. According to a story from tonight’s edition of Politico:

An upset by Republican Scott Brown would be covered in many quarters as a repudiation of Obama, especially after Obama’s last-ditch campaign appearance with Coakley 36 hours before the polls opened.

But the president’s advisers plan to spin it as a validation of the underdog arguments that fueled Obama’s insurgent candidacy.

“The painstaking campaign for change over two years in 2007 and 2008 has become a painstaking effort in the White House, too,” the official said. “The old habits of Washington aren’t going away easy.”

The White House rallying cry, according to one Obama confidant, will be, “Buckle up — let’s get some stuff done.”

There’s always been a hint of wishful thinking in the Obama as Jimmy Carter meme on the right … until now. If the White House’s response to the loss of what should be one of their safest seats in the entire nation is to go gung-ho, then Democrats will learn by November that the president’s forward march is a kamikaze mission. Read the whole piece on Politico for a disturbing look into how deeply the administration is embracing court sycophancy.

Check out one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

In today’s WSJ, Glenn Beck is profiled for the benefit of those who are not among the 30 million he already reaches. Mr. Beck’s previous exposure in the MSM has been largely limited to hit-pieces in newsweeklies, but this WSJ article is yet another step on his path towards mainstream respectability.

Senator Ben Nelson’s home state kickbacks are notorious.  The “Cornhusker Kickback” is firmly entrenched in the American political lexicon and now Nelson is starting to hear it from his constituents.

According to this report from Politico, Nelson and his wife were eating at a local pizza joint when one patron recognized the longtime politician and yelled, “Get him the hell out of here!”  Other customers began to boo and Senator Nelson and his party disappeared into the Nebraska cold.

It appears that this local pressure is taking its toll on not only Nelson’s approval rating but also his conscience (if politicians have those).  Roll Call reports that Nelson has asked Harry Reid to drop the infamous Cornhusker Kickback.

As Andy Roth over at Club for Growth wrote, “Nebraskans will still be forced to swallow ObamaCare AND they’ll have to pay more for it.  Sorry, Senator Nelson, you can’t unring that bell.”

In The American Conservative, Andrew Bacevich writes a thought-provoking meditation on American military outcomes since World War II.  Contra William Kristol and the neo-cons, Bacevich argues that “kinetic” (i.e. violent) power is actually much less effective than its supporters in the punditry suggest.  If anything, the career soldiers cutting their teeth in Afghanistan and Iraq on their way up the chain-of-command are likely to incorporate the limits of using force into their future strategic thinking.

Extending this thread a bit, support for Bacevich’s point may be found in this week’s disaster in Haiti.  Though the earthquake is devastating, the conditions that pre- and post-date it (lack of infrastructure and political leadership) are contributing mightily to the scale of its toll.  Like the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the earthquake brought the state and its citizens to their knees.  At some point, the pieces will be picked up, but the recent past doesn’t predict a better future for countries that produce strongmen and weak societies.

For a man of such supposed intellectual prowess, Barack Obama certainly seems oblivious to any sense of irony.

Attempting to stanch his hemhorraging public aproval numbers, Obama yesterday retreated to phony populism by proposing $90 billion in new taxes upon American banks. It must be noted that many of these banks have already repaid the questionable bailout funds that they received, and are now staring at a form of double jeopardy.

Obama’s misguided proposal contradicts his own stated goal of encouraging bank lending in this choppy economy, because the new tax will undercut banks’ ability to create new loans.  Further, the tax will merely be passed on to strapped American consumers, as all corporate taxes ultimately are.  It’s such a terrible idea that even Democrat Senator Kristen Gillibrand voiced opposition, saying it “could disproportionately affect New York City’s economic recovery, which relies on a growing financial services industry.”

Disregarding this reality, Obama was undeterred, sanctimoniously thundering, “we want our money back, and we’re going to get it.”

We feel the same way, Mr. President.  In just the first year of your administration, we have seen you squander our hard-earned dollars on failed “stimulus” behemoths and bureaucratic boondoggles on behalf of labor unions and other favored special interests.  We have seen you triple the budget deficit after telling us duirng your campaign that you were going to reduce it by scouring the budget “line by line.”

Yes, Mr. President, we also want our money back.

Who knew when then-candidate Obama told “Joe the Plumber” about the benefits of spreading the wealth around, the future president meant security dollars for domestic terror trials? With estimates for terror trials in New York City totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, President Obama is seriously considering duplicating the increased costs in manpower, housing, and screening for at least one such trial in Washington, D.C.

Maybe it’s about creating jobs. After all, the most direct way for government to create a job is to add an employee to its payroll. One thing is certain; exposing another U.S. civilian population to the presence and possible attack of terrorists won’t make anyone safer. Except, perhaps, the men awaiting trial.

This week’s edition of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out.  For those readers who don’t receive it in their e-mail inboxes or if you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, below is a summary of its contents:

Lee:  The Obama Administration Plays the Role of Sybil
Senik:  Terror and Honesty
CFIF Release:  CFIF to FCC – Proposed “Net Neutrality” Rules Would Smother Internet Innovation and Damage the American Economy
Batkins:  President Obama’s Health Care Snake Oil
Ellis:  National Security After the “Undie-Bomber”
CFIF Staff:  Martha Coakley: Candidate-at-Large

Freedom Minute Video:  50 Way to Defeat ObamaCare
Podcast:  How Will ObamaCare Affect You? – Interview with Vincent Frakes
Jester’s Courtroom:  Caution: 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, sign up here.

In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses how the nation’s governors may be the key to defeating ObamaCare. 

Watch the video below:

Maryland lawmakers are in trouble.  They’ve spent too much money over the past decade; with the economic recession, they now have a $2 billion deficit.

Cutting spending would seem to be the logical way to reduce the deficit but since Maryland already has the fourth highest state/local tax burden in the nation, state politicians are now proposing another tax hike in an attempt to get to number one.  Someone’s got to stick it to New Jersey.

This time Annapolis is out to get the partygoers in Fells Point and Bethesda with a new 10 cents-per-drink tax on alcohol.  In total, the booze tax is expected to raise $200 million, though this is still just a fraction of the sum needed to fill the state’s budget gap.

Bars and liquor stores have an obvious motivation to oppose the new legislation but ole “Joe Sixpack” should shudder as well.  The tax would total about 55 cents for a bottle of wine and 75 cents on a handle of liquor.

Perhaps the crowds at Fells Point and Bethesda will finish their drinks and then let Annapolis know that the booze tax is a horrible idea that won’t fill the state’s budget gap.  It will, however, upset a lot of drinkers. That’s never promising.

Rep. Paul Ryan – Health Care and Progressivism
Rich Lowry – Another Rank Health Care Deal
Charlie Cook – Colossal Miscalculation on Health Care
Red State – The 2010 Ticket in Ohio

The Hill – Democrats See Health Care End in Sight
Politico – GOP Troops Pour into Massachusetts
WSJ Editorial – Oregon at the Tax Crossroad
National Review Online – The Perfect Storm in Massachusetts

Federal Debt: $12.317 trillion

Reason Magazine, the premier libertarian publication in the country, continues to turn out some of the most interesting material in the world of right-leaning opinion journals.

In a piece entitled “Five Reasons Why Libertarians Shouldn’t Hate Government”, William D. Eggers and John O’Leary, authors of the new book “If We Can Put a Man on the Moon: Getting Big Things Done in Government” make an extremely lucid and compelling case that small government advocates also have to be smart government advocates.  In addition to the eponymous reasons, the piece also features a list of five major government successes and five major failures. The article is so good that I hesitate to quote it, lest Freedom Line readers not check out the original, but here’s a taste:

“I don’t want to make government work better, I want it to go away” is the typical response [of libertarians to arguments about improving government]. Government, in their view, is the enemy.

This way of thinking is deeply misguided, a troubling blind spot that keeps libertarians on the fringe of many policy debates. If you reflect only scorn for government, it’s hard to get anyone who hasn’t already drunk the Kool-Aid to take your opinions on the topic seriously.

This is not to disparage the argument that government is too large, for which the case is strong. But holding government in sneering contempt is a misinformed corruption of that sentiment.

Our Founding Fathers, fondly quoted by limited-government advocates, didn’t view government as evil, but as a flawed institution with some important jobs to do. They studied how government worked and they served in office, not because they viewed government with disdain, but because they knew the importance of good government.

Read the whole thing. I command you.

Who says Democrats have a big tent?  According to reporting by Politico, Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), is feeling the sting of Arkansas progressives dissatisfied with her stances and voting record.  Forget the fact that Lincoln is a reliable vote whenever the Democratic Party needs her.   In fact, seemingly angry that her uncompensated support wasn’t copied, she’s called for fellow Democratic Senator Ben Nelson’s (D-NE) “Cornhusker Kickback” to be stripped out of the final health care “reform” bill.

Despite all this, the 15% of Arkansans that call themselves progressives are pining for the state’s more liberal Lt. Governor, Bill Halter, to primary Lincoln.  Her sins?  Apparently, backing off support for “card-check” legislation, not complying with an NAACP created quota for federal judicial nominees, and resisting a public option in health care “reform.”  On that last point, at least, Lincoln can claim to be representing the majority of Arkansas’ voters.  No matter.  For today’s Democratic “base” promoting a majority opinion is enough to get you drummed out of the Party.  Just ask Joe Lieberman.

It’s amazing how even the most ardent opponents of capitalism’s profit motive sense the power of arguing for enhancing “revenue” when it’s the government’s books that need balancing. This week California’s governing class has proposed legalizing marijuana and fining motorists with low tire pressure as ways to gin up tax receipts. But while pot pushers are upfront about using the tax system to advance their aim for legitimacy, the global warmists on California’s Air Resource Board (CARB) can’t let go of subterfuge.

In the press release announcing the proposed tire fine, CARB member Barbara Riordan claims:

“This regulation is an example of how the drive to meet AB 32 goals will benefit the state,” Riordan continued. “Reducing our environmental footprint will reinvigorate our economy by establishing California as the lead source of technological innovation, diversifying our state’s fuel sources, creating jobs and helping efforts to avert climate change which threatens the state’s ecosystem.”

Unfortunately, that’s the last paragraph in the press release so readers are left to wonder how imposing a mandatory, monthly, and documented tire pressure check on drivers will create technological innovation, or diversify fuel sources. Presumably, the requirement could create jobs if CARB modifies its draft regulation to require licensing or certification of pressure-checkers. As for averting climate change, perhaps we could all do with a little bit warmer weather this year.

Update: The newest version of the proposed regulatory language has been removed from CARB’s website, likely due to the ruckus caused by irate motorists encouraged by an L.A. area radio duo.

The ostentatious Representative Barney Frank from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts never shies away from reporters or combative political opponents.  He once said to a constituent at a town hall meeting, “Ma’am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table.  I have no interest in doing it.”

Now, amidst rumors that Democrats are planning to delay the swearing-in of Republican Scott Brown if he were to win the special election in Massachusetts, Frank issued yet another linguistic tour de force.

Representative Frank opined, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve been asked in a long time.  That is insane, the suggestion could only come from a demented right wing source… That is conspiracy theory at its most contemptible.”  BAM!

Barney, you’re wrong.   ‘Conspiracies’ like this happen all the time in Washington’s political meat grinder.

Remember, Massachusetts Democrats changed the rules on filing Senate vacancies twice, once in 2004 when it would have aided Democrats, and again in 2009 to ensure a 60th Democratic Senator.

Remember, Representative Bill Owens (D-NY) was sworn in on a weekend so that Speaker Pelosi could secure his vote for health care reform.

Remember, Representative Vern Buchanan (R-FL) almost had his swearing-in delayed because Speaker Pelosi wanted to reduce the number of Republicans.  Pelosi ultimately decided to seat Buchanan so that his district would have representation.  After Buchanan’s election, however, one Democrat noted, “No one who’s in a disputed election like this should get too comfortable in the House of Representatives.”

Because Massachusetts can take its time with certification and because the Senate, under Article I §5, “shall be the Judge of Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members,” then there is plenty of legitimate legal ground for Democrats to delay the ceremony.

However, since the public backlash against even the idea of a delay is so strong, it appears that the eventual winner will be sworn in the normal course, but “normal” might not occur until February if the Senator happens to have an “R” after his name.

Barney, you might be entertaining but you’re still crazy.