Brian_D's blog

Defunding ACORN is Constitutional

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:59:43 +0000

The defenders of Association of Community Organizations (ACORN) are desperate and they have called upon their friends in Congress to deploy a last ditch effort to preserve the millions of your tax dollars given to ACORN every year. Big Government web site broke the ACORN scandal showing video of two journalists posing as a prostitute and pimp requesting help to hide assets from the IRS in Baltimore, New York City and Washington, DC. The Congress responded by passing legislation to stop federal monies from going to ACORN and, in response, liberal Members of Congress have called upon the research arm of Congress to declare that this attempt to defund ACORN as being unconstitutional.

Senator Mike Johanns (R-NE) and Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) have both passed separate Amendments in the House and the Senate to defund the ACORN with overwhelming bipartisan support in the wake of the scandal. The left responded by requesting a report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), claiming that legislation defunding ACORN may be unconstitutional as a Bill of Attainder. The goal of the left is to use this constitutional argument to stall legislation before it reaches President Obama’s desk. Hans Von Spakovsky of The Heritage Foundation has written a response to the CRS report titled “Defunding ACORN: Necessary and Proper, and Certainly Constitutional” where he argues that defunding ACORN “certainly is not a bill of attainder.”

A Bill of Attainder is set forth in Article 1, Sec. 9, Clause 3 of the Constitution and states “No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed” by Congress. Both CRS and von Spakovsky agree that the Supreme Court applies a two pronged test to determine if legislation is a bill of attainder:

Whether specific individuals are affected by the statute; and,
Whether the legislation inflicts a punishment on those individuals.

CRS’s claim that the above test is met and that defunding ACORN is unconstitutional is based on a faulty legal reasoning according to von Spakovsky.

In assessing the first point, the CRS report places a great deal of emphasis on the fact that Section 602(c) of th Act applies the funds prohibition to all of ACORN’s affiliates, characterizing this as “joint and several liability,” and questions applying such a prohibition based on the “hypothetical” possible behavior of just one employee.

Von Spakovsky argues that there is nothing unusual for corporations to suffer legal consequences because of the behavior of an individual. I would further argue that one should not look at federal monies as an entitlement. Congress should not be forced to dole out federal tax dollars out of a fear of being sued and it seems clear to this lawyer that organizations have no property interest in federal funding. Barring an institution from receiving federal funds seems to me to be purely political question that should never be entertained by the Courts.

Von Spakovsky further argues that the CRS argument that there is no rational basis for the defunding of ACORN is not factually correct.

The CRS also ignores the comprehensive report issued by Darrel Issa (R-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. This report found that “structurally and operationally, ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money.”

According to Hans von Spakovsky, defunding ACORN is not a “bill of attainder,” yet you will hear the voices on the left hiding behind the CRS report to justify efforts to stall the idea that ACORN should not get one more dollar of federal funds. Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) and John Conyers (D-MI) requested a the report and two days later the left was falling all over themselves to declare the effort unconstitutional. The Huffington Post, received a leaked copy (CRS reports are not publicly posted and given to the general public) and made the absurd claim that the effort to defund ACORN “is likely to be ruled unconstitutional.” As usual, the Huffington Post’s “reporter” Ryan Grim, misleads with a headline “GOP FAIL,” yet fails to note the vote on the Issa Amendment was 345-75 (with 172 Democrats voting for the Amendment and 75 voting against) and the vote on the Johanns Amendment on September 14th to block funds from the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill (THUD) was 83-7 (50 Democrats voted for the Amendment and only 7 voted against). Seems like strong bipartisan support for the idea to me.

Clearly, the left wing is intent on fighting this and you will most likely see the Congressional allies of ACORN slow down legislation claiming that this legislation needs more study and is unconstitutional as drafted. Von Spakovsky concluded that ”organizations such as ACORN have no vested property or contractual right to receive federal contracts or grants and Congress has complete constitutional discretion to decide who shall (or shall not) receive congressional appropriations.” In short, defunding ACORN is constitutional and claims to the contrary are a ruse to block, slow down and thwart the efforts of Congress to weed out waste in the federal budget.

Sotomayor in Her Own Words

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:28:42 +0000

Sotomayor on “fundamental rights” and why average Americans have a different definition than judges. Clearly most Americans view the 2nd Amendment individual right to own a firearm as a fundamental, natural right that the Constitution recognizes. Sotomayor seems to assert a definition that defines your fundamental rights as those that the Supreme Court, not the clear words of the Constitution, dictates.

It doesn’t have the same meaning that common people understand that word to mean. To most people, the word by it’s dictionary term is critically important, central, fundamental. It’s sort of rock basis. Those meanings are not how the law uses that term when it comes to what the states can do or not do.

On her signed opinion in the Maloney 2nd Amendment Case finding that the 2nd Amendment is not a fundamental right in New York and the distinction from Heller. The below argument would lead one to believe that the State of New York could ban all firearms for any purpose at all times, if New York could state a rational basis for the action.

The question in Maloney was different for us. Was that right incorporated against the states? And we determined, given Supreme Court precedent, the precedent that had addressed that precise question and said it’s not, it wasn’t fundamental in that legal doctrine sense. That was the Court’s holding.

Coburn asked Sotomayor “Did the Supreme Court say in Heller that it definitely was not? Or did they just fail to rule on it?” Coburn was correcting Sotomayor’s misstating of the Holding in Heller and other pre-incorporation rulings, because she characterized the state of precedent as if the Supreme Court had held that 2nd Amendment does not apply to the state action.

Well, they failed to rule on it. You’re right.

What are the limitations of the 2nd Amendment? Sotomayor says yes and states a vague standard of review for gun cases.

It’s also important to understand that the individual issue of a person bearing arms is raised before the court in a particular setting. Andy by that I mean, what the Court with look at is a state regulation of your right. And then determine can the state do that or not. So even once you recognize a right, you’re always considering that the state is doing to limit or expand that right and then decide is that OK constitutionally.

Can an American citizen defend themselves? Do people have a right to defend themselves? This was a common sense question by Senator Coburn and an issue that was directly addressed by the Maloney and Heller cases. In Maloney an individual possessed nunchuks for personal protection and in Heller individuals possessed firearms for the purposes of defending themselves. Sotomayor and numerous Senators had mentioned Maloney and Heller when this question was asked.

I’m trying to think if I remember a case where the Supreme Court has addressed that particular question. Is there a constitutional right to self-defense? And I can’t think of one. I could be wrong, but I can’t think of one….I don’t know….I don’t know if that legal question has ever been presented.

Senator Sessions asked Sotomayor if her opinion, overturned by the Supreme Court in the Ricci Case, the New Haven Firefighter’s case, was not an in-depth opinion evidencing a lack of “courage.” The opinion in Ricci was short and lacking in legal analysis. Many have criticized the opinion of Sotomayor, because it lacked an in depth analysis of the core constitutional issues in the case.

Sir, no, I didn’t show a lack of courage. The court’s decision was clear in both instances on the basis for the decision. It was a thorough, complete discussion of the issues as presented to the district court. The circuit court’s ruling was clear in both instances. No, I did not lack courage.

Senator Grassley asked Sotomayor whether she stands by her prior comment that “our society would be straight-jacketed were not the courts, with the able assistance of the lawyers, constantly overhauling the law and adapting it to the realities of ever-changing social, industrial, and political changes.”

And I don’t actually remember those particular words. But I do remember the speech. I’m assuming you’re talking about “Returning Majesty to the Law.” And there I was talking about a broader set of questions which was how to bring the public’s respect back to the function of judges. And I was talking about the judges that lawyers have an obligation to explain to the public the reasons why what seems unpredictable in the law has reasons.

Grassley asked if the state taking property and selling it to a private developer is constitutional and asked about Sotomayor’s ruling in the Didden case that allowed a state to “extort” and take private property from him.

The basis of Mr. Didden’s lawsuit was the state can’t take my property and give it to a private developer and because that is not consistent with the takings clause of the Constitution. To the extent he knew the state — and there’s no dispute about this, that the state had found a public use for his property, that it had a public purpose, that it had an agreement with a private developer to let that developer take the property — he knew that he was injured because his basic argument was, “The state can’t do this. It can’t take my property and give it to a private developer.” The Supreme Court in Kilo addressed that question and said, “Under certain circumstances, the state can do that if it’s for a public use and for a public purpose” And so his lawsuit, essentially addressing that question, came five years after he knew what the state was doing. The issue of extortion was a question of whether the private developer, in settling a lawsuit with them, was engaging in extortion and extortion is an unlawful asking of money with no basis. But the private developer had a basis. He had an agreement with the state.

Senator Jeff Sessions - I will vote no if Sotomayor is “Not Fully Committed to Fairness and Impartiality”

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:53:38 +0000

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, kicked off the hearings for President Obama’s nominee, Sonia Sotomayor to be Associate Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court, with a very strong opening statement.

Sessions stated that repeated statements by 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sotomayor exhibiting empathy for certain parties before the court evidences a potential problem with this nomination. Sotomayor has said that ”experiences will affect the facts I choose to see as a judge” and made other statements that exhibit an empathy and prejudice for certain parties. Sessions attacked this empathy standard as “more akin to politics” and clearly stated that “politics has no place in the courtroom.” Sessions statement laid out clear lines and definitions on an appropriate, and inappropriate, judicial philosophy for judges.

Sessions described the results of the “empathy standard” as follows:

Like the American people, I have watched this for a number of years, and fear this “empathy standard” is another step down the road to liberal activist, results-oriented, and relativistic world where: Laws lose their fixed meaning; Unelected Judges set policy; Americans are seen as members of separate groups rather than simply Americans; and, Where the constitutional limits on government power are ignored when politicians want to buy out private companies.

If Sotomayor can’t argue that she will apply the law objectively, then she will have a difficult time securing significant numbers of Republican senators to support her nomination. This hearing will be an important teaching moment in history where conservative strict constructionist philosophy is explained to the American people in easy to undersand terms. Conservatives want to have judges who act as a neutral umpire. Conservatives like judges who are bound by the words of the Constitution and does not read into the Constitution rights that do not exist. Furthermore, a strict constructionist conservative philosophy ignores personal biases and empathy.

In the strongest opening statement in a nominations hearing in years, Senator Sessions declared:

I will not vote for - no senator should vote for - an individual nominated by any President who is not fully committed to fairness and impartiality towards every person who appears before them.

This is a line in the sand and if Sotomayor can’t pledge “fairness and impartiality” then she will have a difficult time getting confirmed. This pledge implies that Senator Sessions believes that Sotomayor may not be committed to fairness and impartiality. I would expect that Sotomayor and her Democrat defenders on the Committee, will spend a significant time during the questioning of the nominee that Sotomayor will be fair and impartial.

Sessions put forth a second line in the sand for Sotomayor:

I will not vote for - no senator should vote for - an individual nominated by any President who believes it is acceptable for a judge to allow their own personal backgroud, gender, prejudices, or sympathies to sway their decision in favor of, or against, parties before the court. In my view, such a philisophy is disqualifying.

Clearly, Republicans on the committee will not assail the qualifications of Sotomayor to be on the Court. Sotomayor has a steller legal education and significant legal experience, including over 10 years on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. The question is whether Sotomayor is so extreme in her views that she has disqualifed herself from serving on the Supreme Court. In other words, Sotomayor may have the qualifications throught her education and experience to serve on the Court, yet may have evidenced a philosophy that ignores the words of the Constitution and the law when Sotomayor’s prejudices and empathy for certain parties before the court are strong.

This hearing will be contentious and Session’s early words have set the table for a debate on judicial philosophy and the proper role of judges on the Courts.

Dan Mitchell of Cato on Obama’s Policies of Spend, Tax, Spend, Borrow and Spend More

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 05:18:36 +0000

Multi-trillion dollar Stimulus, Heath Care, Bailouts and Climate Change proposals have to be paid for some how. EIther increased taxes, increased borrowing or a combination of the two are in the works by the Obama Administration and these initiatives will further constrict private enterprise. Dan Mitchell tells Red State, “the White House agenda of handouts, bailouts, and big government is bad for the economy regardless of whether the new spending is financed by taxes or borrowing. So far, the left is diverting money from private credit markets to finance the spending spree, but the President has stated that he wants to impose big tax increases on investors and entrepreneurs.” Mitchell discusses the Presidents tax and borrow to spend programs in a video produced by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity that makes explains Obama’s Soak-the-rich tax hikes. Please note Mitchell’s awful tie.

Mitchell did not stop there, he has made a second video discussing class warfare against individuals in American society who are being punished with higher taxes — entrepreneurs and other creators of wealth.

Dan Mitchell tells Red State, “the business community also is getting hit with higher taxes (at least those firms that still have the nerve to make money rather than mooch off the taxpayers). A second video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity shows the utter foolishness of the White House proposal to boost the tax burden on American companies trying to compete in global markets.”

On Health Care, Member of Congress are considering a value-added tax to raise the Congressional Budget Office initial estimates between $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion to pay for a modest increase in health coverage for Americans. Mitchell says that “if the Obama Administration succeeds in taking over health care sector, it will mean additional tax increases - including tax hikes that will directly harm the middle class such as energy taxes and a value-added tax. Tax increases on the ‘rich’ and big business indirectly hurt the middle class by hindering growth.” Agreed. Mitchell is right on tax policy, but he may need a fashion consultant about his poor choice in ties.

David Frum Blames Conservatives for Specter and the Demise of Republicans

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:42:26 +0000

David Frum should take a hard look in the mirror if he wants to find the real culprit.

I was a supporter of President George W. Bush, yet the demise of the Republican Party started during the Bush years and Frum’s former boss deserves a good portion of the blame. President Bush moved forward on No Child Left Behind (a massive expansion of the federal government into education), the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit (a massive new entitlement program), the so called Troubled Asset Relief Program (which never purchased one troubled asset and bailed out poor business decisions on Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion), and committed an inexcusable verbal blunder when he trashed the free market. Bush made terrible statements about capitalism when he said “I readily concede I chucked aside my free-market principles” and “I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.” I hope Frum had nothing to do with writing those stupid phrases that committed irreparable harm to the idea of free market capitalism.

Blaming conservatives is a way for the bedwetters, including but not limited to David Frum, in the Republican Party to shift blame from the moderate wing of the Republican Party and to engage in an overreaction to the events of yesterday. Senator Arlen Specter decided to join the Democrat Party, because it is the only way he can win his seat back in Pennsylvania, a state that is trending Democrat. No need to interpret Specter’s crass political decision as the beginning of the end of the Republican Party as we know it. It is a sad state of affairs that Rush Limbaugh bashing David Frum and his holier-than-thou attitude has infected others in the big tent on the right like a bad case of the Swine Flu.

Let’s analyze the David Frum hysteria. Frum wrote for his center-right (i.e. conservative with caveats) web site New Majority that if we get bad health care policy, we should put the blame on conservative Pat Toomey.

If the Democrats do succeed in pushing through national health insurance, they really should set aside a little extra money to erect a statue to Pat Toomey. They couldn’t have done it without him!

This is classic blame shifting. The hangover from President Bush’s policies and the uninspiring campaign of Senator John McCain lead the people of Pennsylvania to vote for Senator, now President, Barack Obama. How is that Pat Toomey’s fault? Just how, exactly, did Pat Toomey help President Obama to tee up socialized medicine? The Frum use of exclamation points is evidence that Frum is becoming unhinged. Frum needs to blame somebody, but it would never cross is well educated mind that his former boss, President Bush, helped to lead the Republican Party into the abyss and moderate influences in the Bush Administration aided an abetted the muddled message of Republicans over the past 8 years.

More Frum hysteria.

The Specter defection is too severe a catastrophe to qualify as a “wake-up call.” His defection is the thing we needed the wake-up call to warn us against! For a long time, the loudest and most powerful voices in the conservative world have told us that people like Specter aren’t real Republicans – that they don’t belong in the party. Now he’s gone, and with him the last Republican leverage within any of the elected branches of government.

Specter himself said just over a month ago to The Hill that “I think the United States desperately needs a two party system. It is the basis of politics in America. I think each of the 41 Republican Senators, in a sense, and I don’t want to overstate this, is a national asset, because if one was gone you would only have 40. The Democrats would have 60 and they would control all of the mechanisms of government.” What did conservatives do to Senator Specter over the past month to change Specter’s opinion that one party control of government is a good idea? Nothing. Specter looked at a poll that indicated that he was going to lose a Republican Primary to former Congressman Pat Toomey, so he switched parties. David Frum seems to use every opportunity possible to bash conservatives and as Hogan stated a few weeks ago on Red State that Frum and the other bedwetters “please stop telling us what is wrong with… well, US. Seriously, I just cannot take it any more.” Hogan was correct. We all know that David Frum thinks he is smarter than the people who go to tea parties and those foul mouthed conservatives on talk radio and the people who want members of the party who actually believe in the platform and the readers of Red State and Mark Levin who Frum has engaged on Levin’s radio show, thanks Ace of Spades, in short — real conservatives.

The fact of the matter is that Specter was barely a Republican. According to Congressional Quarterly “the five-term senator has consistently ranked among the Republicans most likely to part company with the party’s conservative majority.” The word “consistently” is a very important characterization of Specter’s votes. CQ found that Specter (56%) was only outdone in the Senate, in voting with most Republicans, by the Senators from Maine Olympia Snowe (43%) and Susan Collins (49%). Snowe and Collins are unlikely to switch parties, because they win elections handily in Maine as Republicans.

Mr. Frum — you are no conservative, so stop pretending to be one. Your views are not conservative. You worked for a President who was not a conservative on fiscal spending. You want to blame conservatives for the demise of the Republican Party, yet you ignore the fact that the last election says nothing about the conservative movement. Conservatives are showing up a tea parties to boo Republicans who voted for the bailout of Wall Street program and cheer conservatives like Senator Jim Demint (R-SC) who are fighting a principled battle of ideas. Conservatives are the ones that have new ideas, yet conservative ideas that protect traditional family values, promote small government and a strong national defense. Please cease and desist from blaming conservatives for the lack of support for Republicans and go look at some of the squishy speeches you penned for President Bush.

Progressivism - Socialism’s Little Brother

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:49:11 +0000

The left is marching against free market capitalism and it is the responsibility of all conservatives to take up verbal arms against the progressive troops lining up to trash free markets. E.J Dionne, self proclaimed progressive, writes for the Washington Post today that there is something to the argument that Americans are all Socialists now, because “capitalist theory and practice were being toppled by an economic catastrophe that proved how profoundly flawed the old system was.” I guess Dionne wants to toss “old system” of capitalism in the trash, for a new Socialism-Light system with a big government nanny state to take care of us all. What Dionne misses is that one of the factors creating the meltdown on Wall Street was the the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), requiring financial institutions to make loans to people who could not repay.

According to Investors Business Daily, if a company refused to loan to people with bad credit, they would be penalized by one of four federal banking regulatory agencies, including being listed on a CRA ratings report card. This government action was a factor in the meltdown of Wall Street, no matter how loud the left cries that the Wall Street downturn was attributable to greed and evil corporate wrongdoers.

Dionne claimed that the approach to a form of ”capitalism that saw government playing an ever smaller role in economic and social life, and finance reigning over production and invention” was failed. I guess Dionne believes the converse to be true that we need government to play a bigger role in our economic and social life. No thanks.

Dionne went on to argue for “socialism’s philosophical brother,” which consists of a “cooperative system” including support for ”stimulus (by government), re-regulation of finance (by government), and stronger safety nets (also provided by government).” Massive new government spending, more bureaucrats second guessing decisions of private enterprise, and more entitlement programs will send us down the road to socialism, not prosperity. In short, Dionne far prefers warmed over socialism, which resembles the left’s definition of progressivism, to the current American system of a limited government with minimal government interference in the economy.

Dionne and his progressive buddies need to understand that warmed over socialism is not the solution to any of the probems of the economy. What caused the economic catastrophy was too much government, not too little. The TARP is a great case study in how government solutions actually exacerbate the problem and are further evidence that big government is a problem that should be the subject of reform — not capitalism.

Tim Geithner, Secretary of Nationalization

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:00:02 +0000

Rewarding failure is not just for Wall Street anymore. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has done such an uninspiring job over the past few weeks that many in Congress have called for his head. Much like Wall Street where Washington, D.C. is rewarding failure with big bonuses and massive multi-billion dollar bailouts, the Obama Administration is following the “rewarding failure” strategy by putting forth a proposal that would grant the Secretary of the Treasury the unprecedented power to nationalize private enterprise. And I bet you thought those types of ideas went out the door when the Iron Curtain fell. If you believed the era of big government was over then you have not been paying attention.

In addition to spending trillions, printing massive new amounts of cash and trying to tax every aspect of life, President Obama wants the Secretary of the Treasury to become CEO of the USA. According to the Washington Post today, “The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document.” The federal government now has the authority to seize banks, but President Obama is asking for expanded powers for Secretary Geithner to be granted the power to nationalize any failing institutions that would damage the broader economy. This is a terrible idea.

So let me get this right, President Obama has the second half of the TARP money, a $787 billion dollar stimulus plan for his liberal friends, an Omnibus with 8,500 earmarks, a $3.6 trillion dollar budget that will raise taxes on energy, pay for socialized medicine……and now he wants Congress to give his Secretary of the Treasury the power to nationalize private enterprise when he, in consultation with the President and the Fed, decide that a company is “too big to fail.” This is a bridge too far and grants Secretary Geithner too much power over private enterprise.

Gorby Working Democrats Last Week

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:28:22 +0000

Last week I reported that a source on the Hill told me that Mikhail Gorbachev is speaking to the Senate Democrat Policy Committee.

Reuters reports today that on last Friday, Gorby met with President Barack Obama.

U.S. President Barack Obama has held talks with Mikhail Gorbachev, a spokesman for the former Soviet leader said on Monday, in the latest sign of Washington’s efforts to “press the reset button” on ties with Russia.

I still have no details on the nature of the discussion with Democrat Senators but expect the Tuesday meeting with Democrat Senators was on the same subject matter of the Friday meeting with President Obama.

The Obama CYA Act of 2009

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:37:09 +0000

The House is debating HR 1586, a bill that would tax bonuses given to employees of bailed out businesses. The bill would tax “90 percent of the TARP bonus received by the taxpayer.” The TARP recipient’s employer must have received the money from “the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008″ (the TARP bailout), “the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation”, “members of the same affiliated group” (units of the TARP recipients, FNMA and FHLM monies), and affiliated partnerships. Conservatives in the House and Senate need to use this debate as an opportunity to debate how this provision was placed in the Obama so called Stimulus bill and forbidding future bailouts.

This effort in the House and Senate to tax bonuses is not much more than a cover your backside vote to protect the Obama Administration and liberals in Congress who requested, through Treasury, that the AIG Bonus Protection Amendment be put in the Stimulus. If conservatives in the Congress want to show some leadership, they need to use the bonus debate to fight the further nationalization of private enterprise.

The debate on how this provision was added to the Stimulus was intensified yesterday when Senator Dodd admitted to FOX News that Treasury had requested the bonus protection language be added to the Stimulus.

In a dramatic reversal Wednesday, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., confessed to adding language to a spending cap in the stimulus bill last month that specifically excluded executive bonuses included in contracts signed before the bill’s passage. Dodd told FOX News that Treasury officials forced him to make the change.

Congress should investigate who put the language in the Stimulus and how it happened. Senator Dodd was not a conferee on the Stimulus bill, yet the bonus protection language was added in the secret conference committee on the Stimulus. The Democrat conferees on the bill were Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), Max Baucus (D-MT) and Daniel Inouye (D-HI). Which one of these Senators added the language? Conservatives need to force a debate and possible Amendments setting up a means to investigate who at Treasury requested the change and how the change was added to the Stimulus conference report.

As I previously posted, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) argued this week that bailouts are the problem — not bonuses.

The bonuses for thousands of employees of AIG – the huge insurance company to which the government, the taxpayers of the United States, have shoveled $170 billion into to keep afloat – recall the Sessions maxim, announced about 20 years ago when I was U. S. Attorney attempting to faithfully enforce a host of federal regulations. It is stated: “Oh, what a tangled web we create when first we start to regulate.”

Conservatives are outraged by the bonuses, because taxpayer monies are being used to reward failure. It seems patently unconsitutional to retroactively tax recipients of these bonuses, yet Congress seems to be putting a legislative Band-Aid over the bailout problem in an effort to do something about the bonuses. Congress should forget about the bonuses, abolish the TARP and investigate how this controversial provision was added to the Stimulus bill if they want to make this debate productive.

Gorby on the Hill

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:02:56 +0000

A source on the Hill tells me that Mikhail Gorbachev is speaking to the Senate Democrat Policy Committee today. No details on the topic.

Senator Jeff Sessions on AIG Bailout

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:02:35 +0000

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) gave a great speech putting the AIG bonus issue in perspective today on the Senate floor.

The bonuses for thousands of employees of AIG – the huge insurance company to which the government, the taxpayers of the United States, have shoveled $170 billion into to keep afloat – recall the Sessions maxim, announced about 20 years ago when I was U. S. Attorney attempting to faithfully enforce a host of federal regulations. It is stated: “Oh, what a tangled web we create when first we start to regulate.”

The more we proceed with policies whereby the government owns 80% of the stock of a private insurance company – having poured $170 billion of our wealth into it – the more we are inevitably compelled to direct how the company operates, to the point of deciding who their executives should be, what the company’s salary scale should be, or what aircraft it can or cannot have or where or what kind of corporate retreat they may have, and whether or not it can pay bonuses.

The size of this investment – an absurd term when used to describe the reckless, gargantuan commitment of our citizen’s money to AIG – puts us, the American people, into the insurance business. Not long ago, I had occasion to meet an official of a healthy insurance company and in jest, I asked how he liked competing with a company supported by the deep pockets of the taxpayers. He replied that it was no joke, AIG was their top competitor in several insurance markets. At bottom we extract tax money from this businessman to keep afloat his reckless competitor. The size of this commitment cannot be lost on us. The entire Alabama state budget, a state well run by our fine Governor, Bob Riley, including the state education budget for all our thousands of schools and teachers, amounts to about $7 billion per year. How big is $170 billion?

The entire federal highway budget, for our interstate system, all our pork projects added to it, and the billions we send to states is $40 billion per year. How big is $170 billion?

So, like an unwise banker, we face the dilemma. Do we pour more good money in to revive this corpse in a desperate effort to recoup our improvident “investment’? Investment is the wrong term since no legitimate investor would have invested in this company. The bullet was already in its heart, only the government would do so.

Senator Sessions referred to a New York Times article that discussed how Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner had a “difficult” conversation with Edward Liddy about the notorious AIG plan to award $165 million in bonuses. It is interesting to note that if reorganization of AIG had happened in bankruptcy under Chapter 11, these contracts would have surely been invalidated. It is truly rewarding failure to give executives a bonus when they work in the business unit that almost crashed the company, and if you believed former Hank Paulson’s assertions, the economy as a whole.

Senator Sessions in criticizing the “Masters of the Universe” who crafted the bailout strategy and the so called Troubled Assets Relief Program makes a strong point that the United States should not be promoting big government ideas that have not worked to our European friends.

You see, we own nearly 80% of AIG. We paid $170 billion for this controlling stake. It is ours. Yours and mine. Who, then, is to run AIG? Secretary Geithner, that Master of the Universe, just now returning from Europe where he upbraided the governments of Germany and France for not doing more to invade the private sector, and not going far enough in debt? I suspect that running AIG might be a bit distracting even for this Master of the Masters of the Universe, because he has taken on the duty of advising not only the President and our Congress on how to fix our economy, but he is now advising our big government friends in Europe that they are too concerned about “taking on” more debt and must intervene even more aggressively in their economies. The world is his parish it seems. All the while, the proud people of the United States watch this spectacle unfold in total mortification.

Thank you Senator Jeff Sessions for standing up tall for the taxpayers and for what remains of free market capitalism in the U.S.

Obamanomics - “Revolutionary”

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:30:25 +0000

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, argues in Salon today that President Obama’s brand of economics is “revolutionary.” Only an Ivy League educated lefty economist (i.e. - Keith Olbermann graduate of Cownell could not pull this one off) could have the intellectual gall to argue that the Obama budget is both “conservative” in the details, yet “revolutionary” in scope. The left is gearing up for a public relations campaign (some would say a propaganda war) to sell the Obama budget and it seems as if the left will use every catch phrase possible to sell this plan.

Reich argues that Obama’s brand of economics is ”an economic philosophy exactly the opposite of the one that’s dominated America for more than a quarter century.” If by economic philosophy Reich means capitalism, then I think conservatives agree that Obamanomics would move the United States away from the free market to expand the role of government in health care, environmental issues and tax policy. The era of big government is back and Robert Reich is cheerleading from the sidelines.

Reich’s column argues that “Obama’s budget projects that government spending by the end of the decade will drop to around 22.5 percent of GDP, which is about where it was under Reagan.” The Wall Street Journal’s Op Ed “The Obama Revolution” published on Feb. 27th, disputes the assumption that government spending will drop as a percentage of GDP, because the many of the entitlement spending initiatives in the stimulus spending are not temporary, the government’s proposed $1 trillion nationalization of the health care industry is fully funded, and massive tax increases will destroy the productive sector of the economy.

How can a leftist cook the books to get Obamanomics to look good? The WSJ argues that all you need is to make up wild assumptions about economic growth to create the illusion that the economy will grow quicker than government with the government controlling more of the private sector and taxes skyrocketing:

The biggest illusion in this budget may be its optimistic economic forecast. The White House assumes that the economy will decline by only 1.2% this year, before growing by 3.2% next year. This assumes the recovery will begin later this year and gather steam quickly to return to normal levels of growth. By 2010 to 2013, the budget adds, the economy will be cooking by an average of 4% a year — which is also how it conjures up magical deficit reduction.

Reich argues that the the Obama redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor will allow the government to grow the best.

Obamanomics, by contrast, holds that an economy grows best from the bottom up. Obama’s program increases taxes on the top and uses the proceeds to raise the living standard of average Americans by giving them lower taxes, better schools and more affordable health insurance. That may not seem very radical, but compared with the last quarter century it’s revolutionary.

The WSJ concludes that the “revolutionary” Obama budget blueprint is a massive increase in the role of the federal government:

(F)ederal outlays will soar in fiscal 2009 to $4 trillion, or 27.7% of GDP, from $3 trillion or 21% of GDP in 2008, and 20% in 2007. This is higher as a share of the economy than any year since 1945, when the country was still mobilized for World War II. It is more spending by far than during the Vietnam War, or during the recessions of 1974-75 or 1981-82.

The bottom line is that President Barack Obama has radical views on the proper role of the federal government. The Robert Reich and Barack Obama vision of the American economy is heavy on government intervention and Robin Hood economics. If you are fan of France and Germany’s high tax low growth economies, you will be overjoyed with the policies being supported by Reich and other Obama cheerleaders.

The Audacity of Signing Statements

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 03:30:45 +0000

As a candidate for President, Senator Barack Obama told NPR that “he might use signing statements to clarify his position on an ambiguous law, he would not abuse signing statements to undermine the will of Congress.” President Obama yesterday used a signing statement on “dozens of provisions in a $410 billion government spending bill” recently passed by Congress. Undoing many provisions of the Omnibus spending bill would seem to be an abuse of the process and is clearly an act undermining the will of Congress. If the Obama Administration was unwilling to issue veto threats to force Congress to remove the supposedly unconstitutional provisions in the Omnibus spending bill, this act by President Obama is inconsistent with his campaign promise of “Change.”

There are many provisions in the President’s signing statement and most students of government would agree that a signing statement is constitutional. The Congress and the President have constitutional responsibilities and a signing statement is merely a President expressing constitutional reservations about a bill. One provision of President Obama’s signing statement with regard to Whistleblowers will prevent transparency in government and will allow government officials to intimidate employees when they want to communicate with Members of Congress about illegal or improper activities on the part of the Obama Administration.

From the Wall Street Journal

Presidents have employed signing statements to reject provisions of a bill without vetoing the entire legislation. Democrats and some Republicans have complained that Mr. Bush abused such statements by declaring that he would ignore congressional intent on more than 1,200 sections of bills, easily a record. Mr. Obama has ordered a review of his predecessor’s signing statements and said he would rein in the practice.

“We’re having a repeat of what Democrats bitterly complained about under President Bush,” said Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), who drafted legislation to nullify Mr. Bush’s signing statements.

If a President believes that a bill is unconstitutional, that President should veto the legislation. Merely ignoring the provisions of a bill passed by Congress without, at a minimum, a veto threat seems to undermine the President’s claim that the bill is objectionable because it violates separation of powers rights reserved to the Executive Branch.

The Whistleblower provision in the Omnibus reads as follows:

Sec. 714. No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be available for the payment of the salary of any officer or employee of the Federal Government, who
(1) prohibits or prevents, or attempts or threatens to prohibit or prevent, any other officer or employee of the Federal Government from having any direct oral or written communication or contact with any Member, committee, or subcommittee of the Congress in connection with any matter pertaining to the employment of such other officer or employee or pertaining to the department or agency of such other officer or employee in any way, irrespective of whether such communication or contact is at the initiative of such other officer or employee or in response to the request or inquiry of such Member, committee, or subcommittee; or (2) removes, suspends from duty without pay, demotes, reduces in rank, seniority, status, pay, or performance or efficiency rating, denies promotion to, relocates, reassigns, transfers, disciplines, or discriminates in regard to any employment right, entitlement, or benefit, or any term or condition of employment of, any other officer or employee of the Federal Government, or attempts or threatens to commit any of the foregoing actions with respect to such other officer or employee, by reason of any communication or contact of such other officer or employee with any Member, committee, or subcommittee of the Congress as described in paragraph (1).

The Whistleblower provision seems to be a provision to merely prevent superiors from intimidating inferior officers from disclosing illegal or unethical activities on the part of the Administration. Hat tip to Ed Whelan at NROnline for the text of the Obama signing statement

Obama Executive Authority to Control Communications with the Congress. Sections 714(1) and 714(2) in Division D prohibit the use of appropriations to pay the salary of any Federal officer or employee who interferes with or prohibits certain communications between Federal employees and Members of Congress. I do not interpret this provision to detract from my authority to direct the heads of executive departments to supervise, control, and correct employees’ communications with the Congress in cases where such communications would be unlawful or would reveal information that is properly privileged or otherwise confidential.

The problem with this act as President is that Senator Obama wrote a constituent that “As most elementary school students can explain, Congress writes the laws and the Executive Branch must faithfully execute them. The President can veto a bill or sign it into law, but the Constitution does not grant him authority to determine when he can ignore those he signs.” Good point Senator Obama.

Caveat Emptor - I have pulled this from a web site, Kamchatka News, a post of a constituent letter from Senator Obama dated September 18, 2007. This letter indicates that Senator Obama had a different opinion of signing statements than President Obama.

The Constitution is clear about the roles of the Legislative and Executive Branches. As most elementary school students can explain, Congress writes the laws and the Executive Branch must faithfully execute them. The President can veto a bill or sign it into law, but the Constitution does not grant him authority to determine when he can ignore those he signs.

Like you, I am concerned by the President’s use of signing statements as a means to ignore the law. This issue was first raised when President Bush asserted in a signing statement accompanying the torture ban that he could bypass the law if national security was at stake. Soon after, the President attached a signing statement to the PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill, claiming that the President can ignore the mandate that he report to Congress regarding the FBI’s compliance with search and seizure safeguards.

Last year, Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) introduced a bill that would prohibit any state or federal court from relying on or deferring to a presidential signing statement when determining the intent or meaning of the law. It would also provide both chambers of Congress with legal standing to challenge a Presidential signing statement and authorizes the courts to hear those cases.

The bottom line is that President Obama had options other than a signing statement that he refused to use before allowing this bill to come to his desk. It seems that Senator Obama’s views on signing statements have evolved quite a bit.

The So Called Truth Commission

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:00:16 +0000

The Senate Judiciary Committee is conducting a hearing today titled “Getting to the Truth Through a Nonpartisan Commission of Inquiry.” Dan McLaughlin has an excellent post on Red State and I am seeking to build on the argument that the purpose of this commission is not to set up a so called “Truth Commission” to learn from mistakes made after 9-11, but to set up a partisan witch hunt. It is clear that the left is furthering the legal trend of criminalizing politics.

I would think that most conservatives agree that the idea of a commission to study and learn lessons from the Global War on Terror is a good idea, but a partisan commission to keep President Bush’s name in the news by selectively assassinating the character of former Bush Administration officials and potentially prosecuting them is not a good idea.

According to the Legal Times, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has been discussing the idea of a Commission for a few weeks and stated in a speech to Georgetown University that he would like to see a commission investigate the Bush Administration detainee and interrogation policies to the war in Iraq and even the firing of U.S. Attorneys. The panel would be bipartisan, yet who would appoint the Republicans to the panel? Also, the Commission would have subpoena power and the power to grant immunity from prosecution. This would allow for Bush Administration officials to testify, under oath, to discuss other Bush Administration officials for the purposes of prosecuting them. Does this sound like a Witch Hunt to you — It does to me.

The left is loving it. Mark Benjamin of Salon has a column titled ”How to build a Torture Commission,” where he argues that

Spearheading Senate efforts to establish a torture commission is Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. As a member of both the Judiciary Committee and the Intelligence Committee, Whitehouse is privy to information about interrogations he can’t yet share. Still, regarding a potential torture commission, he told Salon, “I am convinced it is going to happen.” In fact, his fervor on the issue was palpable. When asked if there is a lot the public still does not know about these issues during the Bush administration, his eyes grew large and he nodded slowly. “Stay on this,” he said. “This is going to be big.”

The bottom line is that the so called “Truth Commission” would keep former President George W. Bush’s name in the news for months or years to come and should be renamed the “Bush Bashing Commission.” It serves an important purpose for the left to use the power of government to prosecute Bush Administration officials and keep people minds off of President Obama’s vast expansion of the size and scope of the federal government.

Dick Durbin’s Son of Fairness Doctrine

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:00:18 +0000

Although Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) won a vote renouncing The Fairness Doctrine 87-11 last week (see the post for more details), Senator Dick Durbin won a vote on a measure that has the potential to stifle free speech and destroy conservative talk radio on a 57-41 vote. A Durbin Amendment to implement a different regulatory roadmap for the FCC to stifle talk radio was passed during Senate consideration of a bill to provide a vote in the House of Representatives to the District of Columbia. The vote on the Durbin measure is an interesting case study on how the left is working attack conservative talk radio through what I call the Son of the Fairness Doctrine.

Erick Erickson previewed the debate over the Durbin Amendment when he posted on Red State two weeks ago that “Congress will restrict how many stations a company can own in a market. They’ll also require advisory boards for each station and make it easier to address consumer complaints against stations.” Durbin’s Amendment purpose was “to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership, and to ensure that the public airwaves are used in the public interest.” Can you see the similarities?

The Durbin Amendment is a clear attack on free speech and 56 Senators vote with Senator Durbin to empower the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate conservative talk radio out of existence. The Amendment specifically forces the FCC ”take actions to encourage diversity in communication media ownership.” Diversity is a code word for efforts to remove some conservatives from the radio airwaves.

Remember that the Center for American Progress (CAP) roadmap to exterminate conservative talk radio, The Structural Imbalance of Talk Radio? This paper called for a restoration of local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations. CAP has ordered left wing Senators to mandate that national radio ownership by any one entity should not exceed 5 percent of the total number of AM and FM broadcast stations and for local ownership and no one entity should control more than 10 percent of the total commercial radio stations in a given market. The Durbin Amendment was not as specific as the CAP paper, but it is a first step to an FCC regulatory attack on the CBS, Clear Channel, Citadel, Cumulus and Salem radio networks.

The Durbin Amendment had another mandate to the FCC to “ensure that broadcast licenses are used in the public interest.” The CAP paper argues that local control can help to eradicate conservatives from talk radio by forcing ”radio broadcast licensees to regularly show that they are operating on behalf of the public interest and provide public documentation and viewing of how they are meeting these obligations.” Who determines the definition of the “public interest?” Well, it will be left wing radio broadcasters and government bureaucrats from the FCC who define the “public interest.”

The only part of the CAP recommendations that did not make it into the Durbin Amendment is the enforcement mechanism for proving that a station is being used “in the public interest” or they be forced to pay a tax with the proceeds going to support public broadcasting.

Soren Dayton has also written how the Fairness Doctrine fight is not over — it is merely beginning:

Adam Theirer, a scholar at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, notes that the Fairness Doctrine was part of a regulatory paradigm being pushed by the left and, in particular, the group Free Press. This fight is not over. Adam’s piece is worth reading: arguing that the left “they want to get on with the more far-reaching agenda of micro-managing media markets using a variety of less visible regulations.”

The Durbin Amendment is the first shot across the bow of Limbaugh, Hannity and the army of conservative talk radio stations throughout the nation. Get ready for the long arm of Washington to come to a radio station near you to force feed unpopular left wing talk radio in the name of providing for the “public interest.” All conservatives should read the Center for American Progress paper to understand the strategy of these enemies of free speech and the First Amendment.

Guns and The Fairness Doctrine

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:09:40 +0000

Kudos to Senators John Ensign (R-NV), John Thune (R-SD), Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Jim DeMint (R-SC) for using the bill to provide a vote in the House of Representatives to the District of Columbia to force votes today on expanding gun rights and trashing the idea of the federal government regulating the radio airwaves. These senators used an unconstitutional bill to essentially treat the District of Columbia as a state to force votes on guns and free speech.

The Senate just passed the “Second Amendment Enforcement Act” offered by Senator Ensign to put in place a reasonable framework for law abiding citizens to own firearms in the District of Columbia. Senator Coburn and Thune also offered pro gun amendments, but they were withdrawn in an effort allow a vote on the D.C gun measure. The Ensign Amendment passed 62-36 with the strong bipartisan support of 22 Democrats and only one Republican voting no, Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN). The Second Amendment rights of all Americans are still a popular issue with both Democrats and Republicans. Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday discussed the Obama Administration’s intent to “reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons.” Holder may want to rethink that pledge in the wake of the vote on the Ensign Amendment today.

Senator Jim DeMint offered “The Broadcaster Freedom Amendment” to prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from bringing back any part of the Fairness Doctrine and prevailed with 87 votes. This vote should be a message to the FCC not to reinstate any incarnation of the Fairness Doctrine that would crack down on free speech on radio. Conservatives should be happy that Senators Ensign, Coburn, Thune, and DeMint are fighting to preserve both the First and Second Amendments to the United States Constitution.

President Obama v. Governor Jindal - Debating the Proper Role of Government

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:30:08 +0000

The reviews are in on President Obama’s Address to Congress and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s GOP Response. The New York Times calls Obama’s speech “Reaganesque exhortation to American resilience” and the consensus among my circle of friends is that Gov. Jindal did not do a great job of delivering his speech. I think we have bipartisan consensus that President Obama’s delivery was better than Governor Jindal. After reading transcripts of the speeches, I have come to the conclusion that those who distrust big government and believe in a constrained Washington, D.C must give high grades to Governor Jindal and failing grades to President Obama.

On the question of the proper role of the federal government to solve America’s economic crisis, Obama and Jindal have very different opinions.

President Obama

Now is the time to act boldly and wisely - to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. Now is the time to jumpstart job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down. That is what my economic agenda is designed to do, and that ’s what I’d like to talk to you about tonight.

Governor Jindal

Today in Washington, some are promising that government will rescue us from the economic storms raging all around us. Those of us who lived through Hurricane Katrina - we have our doubts.

President Obama is laying out a plan for the government to act boldly to revive the economy, and use your tax dollars to “invest” in energy, health care and education. Although the President stated that he does not “believe in bigger government,” his actions to grow government and promote the idea that government can solve all of our problems speak louder than his words.

Governor Jindal referenced the Bush Administration’s mishandling of the response to Hurricane Katrina as an example of the inherent inefficiency and irrationality of big government solutions to problems. If you trust federal bureaucrats at the Department of Treasury to manage our economic crisis, then you love the big government solutions that President Obama mapped out last night. On the other hand, if you believe as Ronald Reagan did that “government isn’t the solution - it is the problem” then you are with Governor Jindal.

President Obama did not discuss in detail his so called Stimulus plan, but did map out some of the elements of the massive $787 billion plan heavy on government spending. Obama alleged that his plan would “save or create 3.5 million jobs” and said that because of the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” that ”health care professionals can continue caring for our sick.” Governor Jindal argued that tax cuts, not more “power in the hands of Washington politicians,” will pave the road to American prosperity. Jindal argued that the Obama plan has major shortcomings.

Instead of trusting us to make wise decisions with our own money, they passed the largest government spending bill in history, with a price tag of more than $1 trillion with interest. While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government, $8 billion for high-speed rails projects, such as a “magnetic levitation” line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140 million for something called “volcano monitoring.” Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.

The major philosophical difference mapped out between President Obama and Governor Jindal is the proper role of the federal government.

The President argued that there are three big government solutions to our current economic crisis:

“So the recovery plan we passed was the first step in getting our economy back on track.” The $787 billion dollar plan, heavy on government spending, an expansion of entitlement spending, and thin on tax cuts is merely the first government mandated stab at fixing the economy.
“Second, we have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and re-finance their mortgages.” CNBC’s Rick Santelli said, “The government is promoting bad behavior” with this new plan. Santelli asked, why don’t we have a national referendum “to see we really want to subsidize the loser’s mortgages.” The plan rewards the estimated 10% of Americans who are either in foreclosure or late in payments on their mortgage to the detriment of the 90% who are responsibly paying mortgages on time.
“Third, we will act with the full force of the federal government to ensure that the major banks that Americans depend on have enough confidence and enough money to lend even in more difficult times.” Operative words “full force of the federal government.”

Governor Jindal argues that other measures need to be taken to create a vibrant economy.

To keep energy prices down, “increase conservation, increase energy efficiency, increase the use of alternative and renewable fuels, increase our use of nuclear power, and increase drilling for oil and gas here at home. We believe that Americans can do anything and if we unleash the innovative spirit of our citizens, we can achieve energy independence.” Although many conservatives would disagree that he federal government should mandate conservation, energy efficiency, alternative and renewable fuels, all conservatives can agree that unleashing the innovative spirit of Americans is a laudable goal.
“Health care decisions should be made by doctors and patients - not by government bureaucrats.” A universal government run health care system will not be good for the health care economy, nor the patients that rely on the life saving services provided by our nation’s doctors. As the joke goes, if American moves toward a socialist system of government run health care, where will Canadians go to get their health care?
On education - school choice is a model that has worked in Louisiana. “After Katrina, we reinvented the New Orleans school system - opening dozens of new charter schools, and creating a new scholarship program that is giving parents the chance to send their children to private or parochial schools of their choice.”

The bottom line is that Governor Jindal may not have made all the arguments that conservatives wanted to hear, but he did map out an alternative vision for the economic future of our economy and a starkly different perspective on the proper role of the federal government.

Son of The Fairness Doctrine

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:22:20 +0000

Don’t be fooled by President Obama’s purported renunciation of the Fairness Doctrine last week. The far left fully intends to use a new regulatory scheme, the Son of The Fairness Doctrine, to regulate conservative talk radio. As Erick Erickson wrote last week on Red State, “Congress will restrict how many stations a company can own in a market. They’ll also require advisory boards for each station and make it easier to address consumer complaints against stations.” Although the left has backed away from the Fairness Doctrine because it is ineffective, they are gathering support for an attack on conservative talk radio.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt told FOXNews.com that “As the President stated during the campaign, he does not believe the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated.” Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) said to The Washington Times, “I’m glad President Obama finally confirmed his opposition to the Fairness Doctrine … but many Democrats in Congress are still pushing it. With the support of the new administration, now is the time for Congress to take a stand against this kind of censorship.”

The Center for American Progress has discussed the problem in detail in their paper titled ”The Structural Imbalance of Talk Radio” where they argue:

Our analysis in the spring of 2007 of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive.

A more detailed explanation is that the Center for American Progress blames ”two primary explanations typically put forth to explain the disparities between conservative and progressive talk radio programming:

The “repeal” of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 gave station owners and hosts free reign to fill their programming with ideologically conservative content.
The demands of the marketplace favor conservative shows and audiences over progressive ones.

In short lefties are very upset that so called “progressive” radio is not getting enough airplay and that the American listeners are bored with left wing talk radio. The solution is to heavily regulate talk radio to force feed liberal viewpoints on the American people.

The Center for American Progress’s new regulatory scheme could be termed “The Son of the Fairness Doctrine,” because the goal of this new proposal is the same as the Fairness Doctrine — to regulate conservative talk radio to force unpopular far left viewpoints on America listeners and can be explained as follows:

Restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations. National radio ownership by any one entity should not exceed 5 percent of the total number of AM and FM broadcast stations and for local ownership, no one entity should control more than 10 percent of the total commercial radio stations in a given market. This would be a direct attack on nationally syndicated conservative talk radio hosts that broadcast on a network of radio stations;
Ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing. This would be done by requiring ”radio broadcast licensees to regularly show that they are operating on behalf of the public interest and provide public documentation and viewing of how they are meeting these obligations;” and,
Require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee (i.e. tax) to support public broadcasting. If the local accountability rule is violated, then the FCC would be empowered to tax ”owners to directly support local, regional, and national public broadcasting.” The tax revenues would go to the “Corporation for Public Broadcasting with clear mandates to support local news and public affairs programming and to cover controversial and political issues in a fair and balanced manner.” The Center for American Progress hopes for enough fines to ”net between $100 million and $250 million” to pay for new left wing government sponsored programming.

Who are the targets of the left. The Center for American Progress mapped out the networks to be targeted:

CBS - 74% Conservative - 25% “Progressive”
Clear Channel - 86% Conservative - 14% “Progressive”
Citadel - 100% Conservative
Cumulus - 100% Conservative
Salem - 100% Conservative

Rush Limbaugh penned a letter to President Obama and asked

I have a straightforward question, which I hope you will answer in a straightforward way: Is it your intention to censor talk radio through a variety of contrivances, such as “local content,” “diversity of ownership,” and “public interest” rules — all of which are designed to appeal to populist sentiments but, as you know, are the death knell of talk radio and the AM band?

The Center for American Progress blog, Think Progress, responded with the following:

We have a straightforward question, which we hope you will answer in a straightforward way: When a handful of major media companies control who and what is allowed to be broadcast on the commercial dial, how is that not regulation of radio content? When these same companies then push out one-sided, right-wing information 90 percent of the time, how does that uphold freedom of expression?

So Rush asked President Obama if he plans to regulate talk radio and President Obama’s think tank responded by saying that privately owned media companies should not be allowed to “regulate” radio content. The Center for American Progress explicitly endorses a regulatory scheme that empowers the government’s regulation of Rush Limbaugh by taxing companies that don’t balance out Rush’s conservative viewpoints. Do they not understand that government mandated speech is a violation of the First Amendment right to be free from government mandated viewpoints? Watch out for the Son of the Fairness Doctrine coming to a radio station near you.

Keith Olbermann - Go Back To ESPN

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:00:17 +0000

Conservative-hating MSNBC host Keith Olbermann is known for attacking Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh (i.e. guys who crush Olbermann in the ratings) on a daily basis for a slip up or error these hosts may make from time to time. Last night, Olbermann and Howard Dean were attacking five governors (there are actually six) who are considering rejecting stimulus money on Countdown with Keith Olbermann when they engaged in a discussion of Missouri politics. The conversation was very instructive of the lack of depth of knowledge that Olberman and Dean have with regard to the day to day politics in America.

The two expert analysts evidenced a complete lack of knowledge about current events in a bizarre discussion (see below) where they slammed Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) for voting against the stimulus, yet taking credit for provisions he was able to insert in the bill while running for re-election. The problem with this analysis is that Senator Kit Bond has announced that he is not running for re-election in 2010. Keith Olbermann — you and Howard Dean are this weeks worst political analysts on national TV.

Former Democrat National Committee Chairman Howard “I had a scream” Dean was being interviewed about a story circulating that six governors are considering rejecting stimulus money. From AP and the Washington Times:

Though none has outright rejected the money available for education, health care and infrastructure, the governors of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska, South Carolina and Idaho have all questioned whether the $787 billion bill signed into law this week will even help the economy.

This issue set off a discussion of Senator Kit Bond’s vote against the bill, yet his taking credit for inserting provisions in the bill. Check out the expert political analysis between Olbermann and Dean about Kit Bond’s re-election prospects.

Olbermann:

Who is more responsible, these governors or somebody like Senator Bond of Missouri who is out on the campaign trail essentially in Missouri taking credit for aspects of the stimulus bill that he brought to Missouri and these jobs and this money and all the rest when he voted against it. He is taking credit for something he voted against.

Remember the words “campaign trail.” What is Senator Kit Bond running for Keith?

Howard Dean:

He is in trouble though. He is going to have a really strong opponent; I think Robin Carnahan a strong Secretary of State is going to run against him. He knows that he is in trouble. That is a tough vote for him to go home and explain now. People are not stupid. One of the things is that got the Republicans in so much trouble is that they assume people are dumb and voted no in Washington and come home and took credit for the stuff people like in Missouri. You have to make a principled stand and vote no then you can go home and sell the no. What you can’t do is vote no and go ahead and pretend you didn’t vote that way. People don’t like that kind of stuff and they don’t like it when Democrats do it either.

Problem with this nationally televised expert analysis between the former Chairman of the Democrat National Committee and Olbermann is that Kit Bond is not a candidate for election. Senator Kit Bond announced that he is not running for re-election to the Senate in 2010 and on January 8th announced his intent to retire after his term is completed. See link from Olbermann’s beloved Huffington Post over a month ago that, evidently, Keith missed.

Olbermann:

From the position of having been the head of the DNC, you had the 50-state strategy. Is the Republican strategy the no-state strategy?

Maybe the Huffington Post should update the Olbermann talking point to inform him that Senator Kit Bond is not running for Senate in Missouri. Keith Olbermann - read the newspaper to supplement your reading of Huffington Post and Center for American Progress talking points once in a while.

Update: Here’s a video mocking the episode:

Robert Gibbs May Have Some Competition

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:00:30 +0000

President Obama’s Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has recieved an F- for his handling of the Obama Public Relations effort by most objective observers. Maybe President Obama should provide stimulus to Julio Osegueda who currently works at McDonalds in Florida and is a 19 year old student at Edison State College by elevating him into the postion of Press Secretary for the President. Julio wants to be a communications major and he clearly is better at expressing himself than current Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Who would fare better under the tough questioning of Jake Tapper of ABC News? See below for a comparision.

Gibbs v Tapper

Osegueda v Tapper