The Freedom Bulletin

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.

The new members of Congress were sworn in today, including the new Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-OH). Before she handed over the gavel, former speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) gave a fairly classy speech, in which she complimented Boehner and congratulated him and the new Republican majority. Boehner’s speech (below), although not the most exciting I’ve ever heard, was short, sweet, and straightforward.

The representatives will read the Constitution aloud tomorrow, which I think is pretty cool.

Also, some of my favorite politicians were on the news to weigh in with their ideas for the new Congress:

Ron and Rand Paul discussed the national debt in a great interview with George Stephanopoulos of Good Morning America.

The father-son duo were also on Anderson Cooper 360 on Monday.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) talked about spending and the health non-reform bill on the Dylan Ratigan Show.

I hope that this new Republican majority can get some good things done!

More coverage of today’s events from the usual sources: CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and AP.

It’s the end of 2010. Guess what that means here at the Freedom Bulletin? It’s time for my roundup of the top 10 most important, influential, and interesting people of the year (formerly the Imperial Awards, but now the Freedom Awards since I changed the name of my blog from the Imperial Bulletin to the Freedom Bulletin).

The list includes people good and bad, local, national, and international. For some reason, this year, at least to me, was much busier than most in terms of newsworthy, brave people who stand up for freedom…and people who are newsworthy for other reasons. As a result, it was extremely difficult to narrow it down to 10 people. But here goes:

10. Evgeni Plushenko – In the world of sports, it was Plushenko, a Russian figure skater, who stood out to me. Although he only won the silver medal in the Vancouver Olympics, he showed that he truly cared about the future of his sport by speaking out fearlessly against what he saw as unfair judging and an unfair scoring system.

9. Thomas Mortimer IV - The quadruple murder case of this Winchester, MA man, accused of killing his wife, children, and mother-in-law, was one of the most interesting, sad, and shocking crime stories of the year.

8. Philip Markoff – The alleged “Craigslist killer” will remain just that forever. One of the nation’s most notorious murder defendants, he committed suicide in his jail cell while awaiting trial, leaving unanswered questions and mysteries in his wake.

7. Ron Paul – As always, this Congressman from Texas spoke out for liberty on many fronts this year, from WikiLeaks to health insurance to airport security. He was also awarded the chairmanship of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy.

6. Rand Paul – Not only the son of Ron but a libertarian / conservative leader in his own right, Rand defeated establishment candidates in the Republican primary and went on to win a Kentucky Senate seat this November, giving the Tea Party movement, and liberty in general, a great victory. I’m excited to see what he does once he takes office.

5. Scott Brown - Back in the beginning of the year, he was elected Senator, becoming the first Republican from Massachusetts elected to either part of Congress in recent memory. Although this trend did not continue in November (at least in his home state), a Republican Senator from Massachusetts is something special indeed.

4. John Boehner – Now the Speaker-Elect of the House of Representatives, Boehner was the Minority Leader when the Democrats forced their health non-reform bill through Congress. He condemned the bill in a moving speech, as well as getting all Republicans in the House to vote against it.

3. Ken Cuccinelli – As the Attorney General of Virginia, he sued the federal government over the health non-reform bill and its individual mandate and triumphed when the mandate was declared unconstitutional earlier this month.

The top two people of the year are both great in different ways. They are both worthy of being person of the year, so it was only right to do just that. The following brave freedom fighters are tied for person of the year 2010:

1. Julian Assange – Before 2010, hardly anyone had heard of Assange or WikiLeaks, but he became one of the world’s most talked-about people when his website published the “collateral murder” video and later thousands of secret diplomatic cables. Loved by many and hated by many, Assange faced death threats, attacks on his website, rape accusations, and the possibility of espionage charges because of his work for government transparency. He is truly an admirable person because he stands up for his beliefs no matter what the cost.

1. John Tyner – Many people don’t recognize his name, but almost everyone knows his famous words to TSA agents, which he captured on video: “If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested.” Tyner had the courage to stand up to the TSA’s truly despicable policy of requiring people to either be seen naked or have their private parts patted down in order to board an airplane. This November, he helped to spark a long-overdue popular uprising. So this award goes not only to Tyner but to everyone who has protested, in any way, against the TSA’s attacks on our freedom and dignity.

Runners up:

• Jan Brewer – the Governor of Arizona who signed into law the controversial illegal-immigration crackdown.
• Jason Chaffetz – the Utah Congressman who was one of the first to protest full-body scanners and contined to speak out against them this year.
• Carla Howell – the Massachusetts small government activist who led the campaign to cut the state sales tax.
• Bill Hudak – a Massachusetts candidate for Congress who showed courage by sticking to his conservative, anti-Obama beliefs despite liberals’ ridicule.
• Judge Henry Hudson – the federal judge who ruled the individual health insurance mandate unconstitutional.
• Chris Liu – the “Patriot Pilot” who posted YouTube videos exposing the flaws in TSA security procedures.
• Bill McCollum – the Florida Attorney General who sued the federal government over the individual mandate.
• Meg McLain – a radio host who was handcuffed after refusing to submit to the TSA’s full-body scans and pat-downs.
• Michael Merlina – the Massachusetts man who sued the state for fining people who do not buy health insurance.
• Sarah Palin – this year, she toured around the country with the Tea Party Express, starred in a reality show, wrote a book, and campaigned for many conservative candidates.
• Michael Roberts – the pilot who encouraged his colleagues to boycott full-body scanners.
• Steven Slater – the Jet Blue flight attendant who quit his job by telling a passenger off, grabbing some beers, and sliding down the emergency slide.

House Minority Leader John Boehner just said that it is “worth considering” to change the policy of granting U.S. citizenship to everyone who is born in this country, even children of illegal immigrants. Right now, the Fourteenth Amendment states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” In addition to Boehner, Senators John McCain, Jon Kyl, Lindsey Graham, and Jeff Sessions have expressed interest in the possibility of changing this amendment or interpreting it differently so that children of illegal immigrants are not automatically citizens.

I like this idea and am glad to see it being discussed by mainstream politicians. Where someone happens to be born is morally arbitrary – obviously, no one chooses where to be born – so there is no reason why being born in a country should automatically make one a citizen. It would make more sense for children to have the same citizenship as their parents, or have dual citizenship if their parents are citizens of two different countries. Being born in America does not guarantee that someone is going to be raised in the American culture or feel loyalty to America. Wouldn’t it make more sense for people to be, by default, citizens of the country whose culture they are raised in instead of the one where they happen to be born? Additionally, the last thing America needs is more incentives for illegal immigration, and revoking birthright citizenship would remove one such incentive.

This line of argument raises another question: Isn’t it just as arbitrary to base citizenship on who one’s parents are, as opposed to where one is born? To some extent, yes. A baby who is born in America to parents who have lived here their whole lives has not done anything more to earn citizenship than a baby born here to illegal immigrants. In a way, it doesn’t make sense to automatically make newborn babies citizens of any country at all. In an ideal system, perhaps people could be born citizens of no country and then as they mature they could decide whether they want to be citizens of the country they live in, the country their parents are from, or another country entirely. They could then take the required citizenship tests, if any. That way, people could freely choose which country to call home, and citizenship would be something that people earn instead of being automatically given based on arbitrary factors.

A radical idea, I know, but repealing birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants would be a step in the right direction.

For the first time since current budget rules were enacted in 1974, Congress will not pass a budget blueprint this year. “It isn’t possible to debate and pass a realistic, long-term budget until we’ve considered the bipartisan commission’s deficit-reduction plan, which is expected in December,” said Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD). Instead, Congress plans to pass a “budget enforcement resolution,” which only concerns next year’s budget instead of planning for the next five to ten years, as a budget blueprint would.

I don’t know about you, but to me, this doesn’t look like a good sign for fiscal responsibility. Minority leader John Boehner (R-OH) seems to agree.

These two videos really show the difference between the supporters and opponents of the “health care reform” bill. First is Vice President Joe Biden, who was classy enough to drop an f-bomb during the bill-signing ceremony.

And here is Republican Minority Leader John Boehner, giving a truly remarkable speech against the health legislation. Boehner’s speech was passionate, genuine, and courageous. It is truly one of the best speeches I have ever heard. For the last few years I have felt that the Republican Party has been losing its way. Most of its leaders have been speaking in platitudes, seemingly saying whatever is popular and standing for nothing. But Boehner’s speech changed that. Listening to him made me feel that he really stands for something and made me proud of the Republican Party. So did all of the other Republicans who took the floor on Sunday, and all 211 representatives (Republicans and Democrats) who voted against the health bill. Although the GOP is not perfect, and probably neither is Boehner, he and his party stood up for freedom, and I salute them for it.

So there you go: on one hand, the Democratic VP dropping an f-bomb on one of the most momentous (albeit in a bad way) occasions of Obama’s presidency, and on the other hand, the Republican minority leader bravely speaking out for freedom.