The Freedom Bulletin

It seems like President Obama is not going to release any photo or video evidence of Osama bin Laden’s death.

Obama said on 60 Minutes today, “It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of someone who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence, or as a propaganda tool.”

While it makes sense to withhold gruesome photos out of respect for the dead (even bin Laden deserves respect in death), I don’t believe in keeping information secret merely because it could be incendiary.

I think that the best solution would be for the government to make the photo and/or video available to people who want to find it, without any fanfare, without any gloating or editorial comments, and without displaying it prominently. The photo shouldn’t end up being plastered on the front page of the White House website or all over newspapers or television. It is dishonorable and classless to plaster pictures of someone’s dead body anywhere, or for that matter, to celebrate someone’s death. But the government shouldn’t expect people to blindly trust them, nor should they censor information out of fear of how people will react to it. In my opinion, Obama should release the photo in a tactful, neutral way and allow people to form their own opinions.

Late Friday night, barely averting a government shutdown, President Barack Obama, Speaker John Boehner, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reached a compromise budget deal which included $38.5 million in cuts. While this is not as much as the $62 million that Tea Party members pushed for, or the $100 billion that Speaker Boehner mentioned after the 2010 election, it is a victory for small government.

The good things about the budget:

• The $32 billion in cuts that Boehner originally proposed were called “extreme” and “draconian,” yet Democrats ended up agreeing to even more
• The budget bill requires audits of many of Obama’s programs, denies additional spending on the IRS, and cuts $2 billion from the Department of Defense
• It is the largest spending cut in American history

The bad things about the budget:

• It does not cut Pell Grants, medical research, the Race to the Top initiative, PBS, or NPR
• It only slightly cuts foreign aid
• $18 billion of the cuts come from programs whose budgets “run largely on autopilot” and might not actually be spent anyway
• The debate about cutting funding to Planned Parenthood still has to be resolved

Considering our national debt of $14 trillion, the budget deal might be a baby step toward solving America’s money woes and restoring freedom and justice, but baby steps are better than nothing. Instead of our leaders arguing about how much additional spending to add, they are arguing about how much to cut. Now that is an encouraging change.

I’m still trying to decide what my opinion is about the U.S. intervention in Libya…but Ron Paul certainly opposes it. Dennis Kucinich does too, and this odd pair are both saying that President Obama could be impeached for it:

Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul will be co-sponsoring an amendment announced Tuesday by Ohio Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich that would defund the American military intervention in Libya.

Kucinich suggested during a Saturday conference call with fellow anti-war Democrats that he thought impeachment could also be considered for Obama’s “unconstitutional” actions in Libya.

Read the rest at the Daily Caller.

The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, have both been in the news recently – DOMA because the Obama administration announced on Thursday that they would no longer defend it against lawsuits, and the ACA because a judge upheld its constitutionality against a religious-freedom-based challenge a week ago. Other than that, these two laws don’t have much in common. But this made me think, why did the Obama administration decide DOMA was unconstitutional while enthusiastically defending the constitutionality of the ACA?

DOMA defines marriage as between one man and one woman and, as a result, denies same-sex spouses of federal employees some benefits that are given to opposite-spouses. The Obama administration decided it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment. As Attorney General Eric Holder wrote, “The record contains numerous expressions reflecting moral disapproval of gays and lesbians and their intimate and family relationships – precisely the kind of stereotype-based thinking and animus that the Equal Protection Clause is designed to guard against.”

The Democrats’ health reform law, the ACA,  makes it illegal (for the vast majority of people) not to buy health insurance, and punishes people who disobey this requirement with fines. The Justice Department’s website has a prominent page dedicated to its “vigorous” defense of the law in federal courts.

Why does the Obama administration believe Obamacare is constitutional but DOMA is not? DOMA merely stops some people from partaking in a benefit offered through their spouse’s employment with the federal government. It might be fairer if both same-sex and opposite-sex couples  were offered the same benefits, but (a) the fairest thing for gay, straight, bisexual, asexual, married, and unmarried people would be not to offer benefits to spouses at all but only to actual employees; and (b) people don’t have a fundamental right to government-given health benefits based on their spouse’s employment. The ACA, on the other hand, outlaws the decision to opt away from health insurance and instead pay for all of one’s health services oneself. In other words, it takes away the ability to spend one’s own money as one chooses, which is a fundamental right.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to allow people to form whatever romantic relationships they want (or none at all) without government labels or interference, and to choose whether to buy insurance or pay for health services in cash? I sure think so, but I guess that’s just me.

In honor of Presidents’ Day, Gallup released the results of its annual poll on who Americans consider to be the greatest president. The winner? Ronald Reagan. There were some interesting inclusions and omissions in the top results, which you can see below:

1. Ronald Reagan (19%)
2. Abraham Lincoln (14%)
3. Bill Clinton (13%)
4. John F. Kennedy (11%)
5. George Washington (10%)
6. Franklin Roosevelt (8%)
7. Barack Obama (5%)
8. Theodore Roosevelt (3%)
9. Harry Truman (3%)
10. George W. Bush (2%)
11. Thomas Jefferson (2%)
12. Jimmy Carter (1%)
13. Dwight Eisenhower (1%)
14. George H. W. Bush (1%)
15. Andrew Jackson (less than 1%)
16. Lyndon Johnson (less than 1%)
17. Richard Nixon (less than 1%)

In my opinion, Reagan is a reasonable choice for the winner, and Lincoln definitely deserves his second place slot. But Bill Clinton third? Washington only fifth and Jefferson tied for tenth? Those two certainly deserve to be higher. So does Andrew Jackson, who received less then 1% of the vote, and so do Calvin Coolidge, John Adams, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams, none of whom were even in the top 17. And don’t even get me started on Obama with 5% of the vote.

It is understandable that the results are skewed toward more recent presidents, since people are more likely to think of them, but people need to be more aware of our nation’s history and have more respect for the early presidential greats.