FW Newsletter: Another ObamaCare End Run Around Congress

Another ObamaCare End Run Around Congress - Adam Brandon via Investor's Business Daily Like the proverbial broken record, the Obama administration is — again — showing its contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law. The administration has had a proclivity for circumventing Congress when President Obama doesn't get his way. This time, taxpayers could be on the hook for a bailout of health insurance companies that have lost money through the ObamaCare exchanges. Recently, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department is considering tapping the Treasury Department's Judgment Fund, which is used to pay federal legal claims, to settle with health insurance companies that are suing the administration over financial losses from their participation in ObamaCare. Read more here... Stephen Moore's Speech at The Constitution Revival Tour- Milwaukee FreedomWorks' Book Club Spotlight: "Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document" In Our Lost Constitution, Senator Mike Lee tells the dramatic, little-known stories behind six of the Constitution’s most indispensable provisions. He shows their rise. He shows their fall. And he makes vividly clear how nearly every abuse of federal power today is rooted in neglect of this Lost Constitution. Get your copy here... Clinton Is Not the Tech Privacy Candidate. Not Your Privacy Anyway. - via Reason It's incredibly obvious that neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton are particularly savvy or even remotely articulate about cybersecurity, encryption, and other tech policy issues. It's probably too much to expect people of their ages and backgrounds to stay on top of such an ever-evolving, complicated web of concerns, so what matters here would ultimately be who they choose to help guide federal policies and what sort of principles undergird them (if any). Amid the dump of hacked emails from Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta are bits and pieces of discussion that help indicate her mindset on citizen privacy and the use of encryption to protect data. As Apple was fighting with the FBI earlier in the year over whether the government could force a private tech company to develop tools to defeat its own encryption, California Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a strong supporter of tech privacy and Fourth Amendment safeguards from unwarranted surveillance, communicated with the campaign. She was hoping that Clinton would take a stand opposing the FBI's attempts to draft Apple's cooperation via court order and wanted to speak with Clinton if she was thinking of taking the FBI's side. Lofgren supplied a copy of her statement rejecting the FBI's authority and the court's ruling against Apple, saying "It is astonishing that a court would consider it lawful to order that a private American company be commandeered for the creation of a new operating system in response." Read more here... Yahoo Case Highlights Trouble for Privacy Rights - by Isai Chavez Last year, Yahoo received a court order from the Justice Department (who obtained it from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) obligating Yahoo to scan all of its users’ emails for specific information, which has not been disclosed. We do know some of that search involved finding traces of malware. By modifying a standard spam filter, Yahoo was able to search through all of its users’ emails, not just individual accounts, in real time. Yahoo claims to have since discontinued this practice. Privacy rights were also challenged by the Apple-FBI case earlier this year. Apple was asked by the FBI to decrypt or unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. Apple refused on the grounds that in order to do that it would have to create special software. Apple was concerned that this software would be used more than once. Read more here... One Way to Reduce Regulations? Give States the Power to Reject Them. - by Neil Siefring via The Hill The current session of Congress, much like the ones that preceded it, has been filled with gridlock, recycled policy debates and little progress on the challenges facing our nation. But on the day the House adjourned until November, a ray of hope emerged: A resolution to combat the regulatory state and revive federalism was introduced. There may be hope after all for the republic. Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) introduced H.J. Res. 100 on Sept. 28. This simple and elegant resolution would amend the Constitution "to give States the authority to repeal a Federal rule or regulation when ratified by the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States." The states could repeal "any Presidential Executive order, rule, regulation, other regulatory action, or administrative ruling issued by a department, agency, or instrumentality of the United States." Read more here... The Debt The price of money—also known as interest rates—is arguably the most important price in the economy, and when government fixes these rates below the market level, the markets are distorted and we end up with more borrowing and more debt than we should have. The Federal Reserve is creating an addiction to cheap money, and like any other addiction, there’s only one way to kick the habit and return to a state of fiscal sanity. Watch it here... For Disaster Recovery, the Best Knowledge Is Local Knowledge - via Reason As residents all along the Southeastern coast start to put their lives back together after a devastating visit by Hurricane Matthew, these communities will face unique challenges. Not surprisingly, the calls for billions of dollars in federal government aid are already coming out loud and clear. In states affected by storms, government is often thought of as the only answer to reconstruction. However, research on the aftermath of natural disasters reveals that more often than not, local residents are better-suited to efficiently address these challenges than government on the local, state and federal levels. Even if the federal government could increase the funding to help these communities above and beyond the $5 billion available in FEMA's disaster relief fund, the money would have to come from an omnibus bill passed by Congress in a lame-duck session, meaning it could be months before they receive an increase in funds. Even if Congress were to approve unlimited funds for rebuilding, it would most likely be surrounded by the type of bureaucracy that benefits a few while undermining true recovery of getting people back into their homes and communities. Read more here... New Study Explores the Morality and Virtues of Capitalism - via Competitive Enterprise Institute My colleague Fred Smith has a new study out today on the morality of capitalism, in particular discussing how we think about corporations as economic actors. Is capitalism good just because it’s efficient at producing wealth, or does it have more compelling human qualities? How should corporations talk about their mission and respond when criticized? Fred likes to lead into this discussion with what I call the Adam Smith dichotomy. Smith is known for extolling the benefits of specialization and free trade in his most famous book, The Wealth of Nations. He emphasizes that it is primarily through self-interest that we advance and make economic gains. In perhaps the book’s most famous passage, Smith tells us that “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Read more here... FreedomWorks in Action Sign up for the FreedomWorks Morning Update If you want an update like this newsletter twice a week, be sure to sign up for the FreedomWorks Morning Update! The Morning Update is your tool to keep up-to-date with all the threats to your freedom. Sign up here. Make freedom work, Jason Pye Communications Director, FreedomWorks           Forward To A Friend | Update Your Email Preferences 400 North Capitol Street, NW Suite 765 Washington, DC 20001