Knockouts High and Low

Without self-restraint, we slip toward barbarism.

By Mark Steyn
...Restraint is an unfashionable concept these day, but it is the indispensable feature of civilized society. To paraphrase my compatriot George Jonas, punching a spinster’s lights out isn’t wrong because it’s illegal, it’s illegal because it’s wrong. But, in a world without restraints, what’s to stop you? If a certain percentage of your population feels no moral revulsion at randomly pulverizing fellow citizens for sport, a million laws will avail you naught: The societal safety lock is off.
...As a “continuing body” the Senate’s procedures are supposed to remain in force unless a two-thirds supermajority votes to change them. In this case, a 52–48 all-Democrat majority voted to change the rules, and so the rules have been changed. After all, who’s gonna stop Harry Reid? The Senate pageboys? Legislative majorities are here today and gone tomorrow, but legislative mechanisms are supposed to be here today and here tomorrow and here next year. If a transient party majority can change the rules on a single, sudden, party-line vote, then there are no rules. The rules are simply what today’s rulers say they are. After all, banana republics and dictatorships pass their own rules, too — to deny opposition politicians access to airtime, or extend their terms by another two or three years, or whatever takes their fancy.
...A government that lies to its own citizens should command no respect. To accord them any is to make oneself complicit in their lies, which is unbecoming to a free people.
Which brings us to that other death of November 22: Aldous Huxley. “Don’t you want to be free and men?” rages a dissenting voice. “Don’t you even understand what manhood and freedom are?” Gee, he sounds like a talk-radio guy demanding to know where the outrage is. Written in 1931, Brave New World isn’t as famous a dystopia as Orwell’s 1984 — because it posits tyranny not as “a boot stamping on a human face” but as a soft, beguiling caress of a human face, a land in which enslavement takes the form of round-the-clock sensory gratification: drugs, sex without love, consumer trinkets, sensory distractions . . . Crazy, huh? Like that’d ever happen.

Journalists: Obama photography policy dangerous, unconstitutional

By Robby Soave
President Obama’s refusal to allow journalists to photograph him at key events has now drawn the ire of the White House Correspondents’ Association, which joined other media outlets in sending a letter of protest to the president’s press secretary, Jay Carney.
The letter accuses the White House of restricting photojournalists’ access to the president to a degree far greater than any previous administration.
“As surely as if they were placing a hand over a journalist’s camera lens, officials in this administration are blocking the public from having an independent view of important functions of the Executive Branch of government,” wrote the WHCA.

6TH Graders Told Not To Tell Parents About Political Classwork Assignment

...According to a local clergy, this is the assignment that one of these young sixth grade children was given in class. They were told not to tell their parents about the assignment. I find that part disconcerting right there. The next is the topic: Are you a Republican or a Democrat? I wonder what ever happened to teaching children that they were Americans? Why is there an effort to monitor political opinions so early in a child’s life?
Do the parents in Tupelo, MS need to have a conversation with the school board about monitoring for indoctrination versus education? Why were the children told NOT to tell their parents about the assignment? Is this a pre-test of attitudes with another test to be given later? Is this part of the data driven education, to monitor the attitudes and beliefs of students?
While it may seem far fetched, parent political views are part of the P-20 data collected in data driven schools. Why not the child’s political views?

Why Moderate Establishment Republicans are Killing the GOP

By Wayne Allyn Root
Once again we’re being lied to. The mainstream media wants us to believe that only “moderation, cooperation and compromise” can save the GOP…and America. This is one of the greatest lies ever told.
First of all, moderation won’t save the GOP. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is the GOP has had a long list of moderate “saviors:”
Gerald Ford- LOSER
Bob Dole- LOSER
George H.W. Bush- LOSER (to Bill Clinton)
John McCain- LOSER
Mitt Romney- LOSER
So much for “moderation” winning elections for the GOP. The reality is the Republican Party has had one true conservative in modern history. His name was Ronald Reagan. I was there when my liberal friends at Columbia University called Reagan “loony” “nutty” “extreme” “radical right wing nutcase” and “out of touch with average Americans.” Well that “radical right wing nutcase” won in two massive Presidential landslides. Perhaps the media wants us to forget that.
But wait, there’s more proof that this idea of “moderation” is a stone cold failure. The GOP ran nothing but “moderates” for Congress throughout the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and even 80’s. The result was a permanent Democratic majority in Congress from 1954 through 1994. Moderation resulted in 40 years of unchallenged domination for Democrats.
The facts are in: When Republicans are nothing more than slightly more moderate big government proponents and “Democrat-lite”…THEY LOSE.

HEADSLAM HEADLINES

...At Monday’s rally, according to KIROTV.com, Sawant told hundreds of union activists what they should do if Boeing does indeed build its 777X elsewhere:
“The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine,” Sawant announced to a cheering crowd of union supporters in Seattle’s Westlake Park Monday night.
This week, Sawant became Seattle’s first elected Socialist council member. She ran on a platform of anti-capitalism, workers’ rights, and a $15 per-hour minimum wage for Seattle workers.
Sawant is calling for machinists to literally take-possession of the Everett airplane-building factory, if Boeing moves out. She calls that “democratic ownership.”

Democrats, EPA crack down on wood-burning at home

Only weeks after the Environmental Protection Agency effectively banned 80 percent of the wood-burning stoves money-saving Americans use to heat their homes, the attorneys general of seven states are suing to force the agency to crack down on wood-burning water heaters.

The suit argues that the oldest heating method known to man – and a mainstay of poor, rural homes – is a health hazard,according to CNS News.

Obama's Agenda Depends on Packing the DC Circuit Court

By Ken Kluckowski

...Of the eight judges currently on the D.C. Circuit, four are Republican appointees and four were appointed by Democrats. There are also six senior judges—a semi-retired status where they still hear some cases—a majority of which are conservative. Adding three Obama nominees would strongly tilt the court to the left.
The reason there are so many vacancies on this important court is because Democrats filibustered President George W. Bush’s nominees for years. Three of those nominees—Janice Rogers Brown, Brett Kavanaugh, and Thomas Griffith—were eventually confirmed when Republicans picked up Senate seats in 2004. Others, most notably Miguel Estrada and Peter Keisler, never got the vote they deserved.
The reason Obama is willing to go to such extreme lengths is that the D.C. Circuit will determine how much of Obama’s agenda survives. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, whenever an administrative agency makes a new regulation or issues a ruling, appeals on those executive actions typically go to the D.C. Circuit.
...Now that Obama has declared war on judicial independence, Republicans are planning a counter-strategy. There are 13 federal appeals courts. The D.C. Circuit’s caseload is light, while several other circuits are overloaded. Sen. Charles Grassley and Senate Republicans are proposing moving those three seats to courts that could very much use them. Obama would still appoint those three judges, but not to the D.C. Circuit. It takes legislation to create or move federal judgeships, so this is shaping up as a major part of the battle over courts that are independent of political manipulation.
There are only 80 slots on the Supreme Court’s docket every year. For 20,000 federal appeals each year, whatever the appellate court says is the final word. Obama is hoping that if he can overhaul the judicial balance of the court, his unprecedented claims of federal power might withstand court challenges. From Obamacare to EPA requirements, labor rules, and IRS rules, all these topics and more are going before the D.C. Circuit.
Obama cannot enact major liberal legislation now that he’s lost the House and might also lose the Senate next year. Instead, he’s trying to declare law by executive fiat. Whether he gets away with it likely turns on whether he can change Senate rules and then pack the D.C. Circuit with sympathetic judges.
This attack on the independence of the federal courts should be of concern to all Americans.