I've heard much about Obama's Administration and our current Democrat-run Congress taking away our freedoms from the Tea Party and GOP candidates attempting to rally the TP as their base. I honestly don't know what freedoms we've lost, other than the freedom to pay women less for the same work, the freedom for health insurance companies to victimize their clients (and citizens will have to have health insurance which I think of as losing a freedom to be irresponsible toward your fellow human beings), and the freedom for credit card companies to bamboozle their card holders. I remember when the Patriot Act passed and some of our freedoms actually were lost.
I would like to ask those who believe we've lost freedoms to explain which freedoms we've lost since the end of the last administration - in other words, what freedoms have we lost since the Obama administration took over. This isn't a challenge, I honestly want to understand the ever-growing point of view on this subject.
And, please, let's keep it civil.
1. "Remember the cacophonous wailing of the left over the Bush administration's alleged politicization of the Justice Department? We always knew they were just projecting, but now we have even more proof.
I first learned from my friend Andy McCarthy's blog post on National Review Online that Attorney General Eric Holder had rejected the legal opinion of his own Justice Department lawyers that the D.C. voting rights bill, which would give the District of Columbia a voting member in the House of Representatives, is unconstitutional.
Why would Holder reject the legal opinion of his own deputies? Dumb question. Because he doesn't like the answer and neither does his boss, President Obama. They both strongly support passage of the bill and do not believe a little trifle, such as an express constitutional provision forbidding it, should be permitted to get in their way. How many times do leftists have to demonstrate that they are an ends-justify-the-means bunch before it sinks in?
The Washington Post confirms that the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, "an elite unit that gives legal and constitutional advice to the executive branch," did issue an unpublished opinion earlier this year that the voting rights bill is unconstitutional. "
Townhall - Holder's Injustice
2. Interview on WJR radio, Detroit of Bankruptcy Lawyer Tom Lauria by Beckman, re: the White House attempt to strong arm investors in Chrysler to drop their contractual rights to be paid first in a bankruptcy.
a. These 1st Lien Lenders took a chance on Chrysler, accepting a low rate of return in exchange for high security.
b. Clients include pensioners, teachers unions, etc. in Pirello-Weinberg, Oppenheimer Funds, Stairway Capital.
c. The White House is demanding concessions and an abrogation of the contract, and have been directly threatened by the White House, if they didnt give in.
d. The Lenders have offered to accept 50%, and the White House is demanding that they accept 29%
e. This becomes a Constitutional issue, as Contract and Property rights should be sacrosanct. Lauria contends that as our government is composed of three independent branches, and the Executive is now taking over the role of the Judiciary.
News/Talk 760 WJR
White House Denies Charge By Attorney that Administration Threatened to Destroy Investment Firm's Reputation* - Political Punch
3. There appears to be a side to the Chrysler bankruptcy that has the look of an ugly partisanship not seen in this town since Tricky Dick Nixon was in the White House composing his enemies list and checking it twice every night while watching the evening TV newscast.
Bloggers on the Right side of the Blogosphere are up in arms over data suggesting that President Obamas White House auto industry potentates are targeting for closure Chrysler dealers with records of contributing either to Republicans like John McCain or to other Democrats in the 2008 presidential primary.
Posts at RedState, Reliapundit, American Thinker, Gateway Pundit, Joey Smith and Doug Ross pointed intitially at the remarkable number of closed Chrysler dealerships whose owners happen to have been contributors to Obama opponents, mainly Republicans.
Is Obama closing GOP-leaning car dealers? | Washington Examiner
4. With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senates constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a provisional basis until the Senate ratifies the treaty.
HolyCoast.com: Obama Might Have to "Temporarily Bypass the Senate" on Treaty Ratification
5. The biggest threat of all to the Big Apples financial supremacy, however, comes from Washington. The Founding Fathers wisely decided that the nations political capital should be separate from its financial capital (in both senses of the word). Now this splendid segregation has ended. If the outcome of the Chrysler bankruptcy is any indication, Washington is willing to flex its muscle in financial decisions, altering the substance of contracts freely agreed to by private parties. In so doing, the national government has undermined the certainty of the rule of law, which was the American capital markets strongest asset.
Wall Street 2015 by Luigi Zingales, City Journal 14 July 2009
Any of these work for you?
