The Flag is Gone? Did You Notice?

Photo ID Required For Re-Opened White House Tours, Obama Still Opposes Showing One To Vote…

America rejoiced when the White House announced it would re-open for tours after cuts to funding from sequestration. But in a blatant display of irony, visitors to President Barack Obama’s home must show a government-issued photo ID to enter, but not to vote.

Obama Rewrites Rule To Let Unions Avoid ObamaCare Tax

By John Nolte
While millions of Americans deal with the fallout of ObamaCare in the form of increased premiums prices and cancellations, the New York Post reports that President Obama has already moved to protect his Big Labor allies from paying their "fair share." After publicly refusing to do so, the Administration has quietly "sneaked in a rule that would let some labor unions off the hook for an ObamaCare tax."

The tax, known as the reinsurance fee, requires self-insured organizations, such as unions and some large companies, to pay $63 for each covered member and an additional $63 for each additional family member on a health plan.

The fee was expected to raise $25 billion over three years, with the funds going to insurance companies to offset the cost of covering pre-existing conditions and other mandatory benefits.

At a fundraiser, Obama makes a chilling admission about the courts

Yep, at a fundraiser in Texas last night, President Obama said his administration is “remaking the courts.”
Here’s the full quote for context via a WhiteHouse.gov transcript:

We were able to reform our financial system so that the likelihood of taxpayer-funded bailouts is a lot less than it was. We were able to expand funding for young people going to college. We were able to expand national service for young people who want to serve. We fought long and hard for consumer protections that weren’t there before.
As Lisa mentioned, we are remaking the courts. I know that we’ve got some lawyers here, and here in Texas sometimes people feel a little frustrated about the pace of appointments here in Texas. But you should know that in addition to the Supreme Court, we’ve been able to nominate and confirm judges of extraordinary quality all across the country on federal benches. We’re actually, when it comes to the district court, matching the pace of previous Presidents. When it comes to the appellate court, we’re just a little bit behind, and we’re just going to keep on focused on it.

The White House Fable Factory

By Michelle Malkin
Now that true horror stories of Obamacare's wrecking ball are finally reaching the public, the White House doesn't like "anecdotes." Live by tale-telling; die by tale-telling.
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney huffed that stage-four gallbladder cancer survivor Edie Littlefield Sundby's personal account in The Wall Street Journal of seeing her health insurance plan canceled and her access to doctors cut off was "sensational." Not a shred of compassion for her predicament. No sorrow for her loss. Must. Attack. Messenger.
There are millions out there like Sundby who are using Facebook, Twitter, Twitchy.com and a new website called MyCancellation.com to share their plights. White House flacks and hacks are working overtime to "debunk" their experiences, bash insurance companies and deride individual market consumers losing their plans as stupid dupes whose stories don't add up.
Here's the thing. This Alinsky-steeped administration has relied on an endless stream of sensationalized, phony personal dramas to sell Obamacare. Last month, Organizing for Action (previously Obama for America) promoted the "success story" of Chad Henderson, a supposedly random young person who miraculously enrolled in Obamacare while everyone else in America experienced major tech meltdowns and sticker shock.Turned out Lying Chad was actually an OFA volunteer who hadn't really enrolled in Obamacare yet because he was "joking." No matter. Yesterday, Obama appeared before OFA to solicit even more stories from the group to help propagandize Obamacare. A refresher course on the White House Fable Factory's greatest hits

Veteran Banned From Daughter's School After Posting Pic Of Weapons Permit on Facebook

In what I’d call a severe case of overreacting, Army veteran Tanya Mount was banned from her disabled daughter’s elementary school after she posted a photo of her concealed weapons permit online.
The mother, who often volunteered at the school, said she was approached by a police officer near campus one day and warned that Principal Janina Dallas had filed a “no trespass order” against Mount.

Jewish dad questions homework assignment, gets investigated for being a 'neo-Nazi'

By Todd Starnes
Josh Barry, of Camp Hill, Penn., wants to know why the president of the local teacher’s union thinks he’s a neo-Nazi after he complained about a classroom assignment that he believed to be biased.
“I’m Jewish and my wife is half-black, half-white,” Barry told me in a telephone interview. “I am the furthest thing from a neo-Nazi.”

Common Core Lessons Are Bringing Politics Into the Classroom

By Leah Barkoukis
There’s been no end to the criticism Common Core has received—and this lesson for an English class is a good example why:

It's exactly what critics of the Common Core school curriculum warned about: Partisan political statements masquerading as English lessons finding their way into elementary school classrooms.
Teaching materials aligned with the controversial national educational standards ask fifth-graders to edit such sentences as “(The president) makes sure the laws of the country are fair,” “The wants of an individual are less important than the well-being of the nation” and “the commands of government officials must be obeyed by all.” The sentences, which appear in worksheets published by New Jersey-based Pearson Education, are presented not only for their substance, but also to teach children how to streamline bulky writing.

North Carolina school district rejects ‘In God We Trust’ posters

By Todd Starnes
“In God We Trust” may be the official motto of the United States but school officials in western North Carolina say it has no business in classrooms.
The Watauga County School District refused to allow members of the Watauga American Legion Post 130 to hang posters in schools promoting the national motto because it might be unconstitutional.

ESPN Analyst: 'Star Spangled Banner' a 'War Anthem,' Shouldn't Be Played Before Games

By Ben Shapiro
On ESPN’s Around the Horn, frequent guest Kevin Blackistone of the Dallas Morning News said that football games should not include the singing of the national anthem beforehand, as that added to the “military symbolism.” He actually called the Star-Spangled Banner a “war anthem.”

CBS News: ObamaCare About to Hit Employer-Provided Insurance

By John Nolte
With his credibility shot, CBS News has apparently decided to not take President Obama's latest ObamaCare promise at face value. Now that millions whom the president reassured could keep their insurance are losing it, CBS dug into Obama's latest reassurance about the 80% not in the individual market, and also found that that's not exactly true. The truth is that a so-called "Cadillac Tax" is about to turn millions of employer-based plans into something a little closer to a "junk plan."

Indiana Senate leader working toward U.S. constitutional convention

The leader of the Indiana Senate has invited lawmakers from every state to join him Dec. 7 at Mount Vernon, George Washington's Virginia home, to discuss the state-led process for crafting amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Senate President David Long, R-Fort Wayne, asks in a letter written to fellow legislative leaders that each state send a bipartisan group of three delegates to the "Mount Vernon Assembly."
He said the meeting will lay the groundwork for a Convention of the States that would, when established by Congress, propose amendments to change various provisions of the Constitution.

I Am Now a Dissident (and You Should Be, Too!)

By Joe Herring
dissident n. a person who opposes official policy, esp. that of an authoritarian state.

We live in a nation where the constitutionally respectful are becoming increasingly outnumbered by those who neither understand the underpinnings of our founding nor recognize the benefits that flow from those foundational values.

In place of legitimate constitutional scholarship in our educational system, we see a systematic and unrelenting effort to overturn the original concepts of our Constitution in favor of some "living" replacement -- an "updated" document made for a diverse and evolving population, or so we are told.

Those who hold offices created by the Constitution itself are the very people using the power of those offices to usurp constitutional authority and undermine its place in American law.

After Obama utilized his entire first term to levy insult after insult against the rule of law in our nation, we conservatives appealed to our fellow citizens to vote with us to halt his lawlessness. We discovered to our eternal dismay that we -- not they -- are the minority.

Abraham Lincoln said:

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

This role has fallen to us now. We are both more and less than the citizens we were before 2012. We have become dissidents. In our own land. We are, however, in good company. After all, Jesus was a dissident.

But let's look at a more approachable example for our time: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

....So, what can we learn from Solzhenitsyn?

Stories teach better than arguments. People may not understand the "takings clause" of the Constitution, but they will become incensed about a story of government forcing people from their homes.
Teach with stories, not just with information. Stories internalize truths we recognize, but don't fully understand. A story is accessible to anyone, regardless of education or political inclination. After all, Hollywood was built on exactly that, and we know the extent of their cultural power.

To that end, here are some pieces of advice.

1) Never underestimate the power of mockery.

It is irrational and, as such, irrefutable.  It allows for the bludgeon of humor to strike your opponent without drawing blood.  Mockery does all its damage on the inside, unnerving your opponent and derailing his arguments.

2) Learn from Solzhenitsyn's methods.

Focus on the result of a policy or initiative, and force those responsible to explain and defend it.  Solzhenitsyn didn't simply decry Communism.  He illustrated the brutality, and forced Communists to explain why it must be that way.

3) Know your stuff.

No one can be knowledgeable about everything, so pick your battles, do your homework, and know more than your opponent.  This is how you poke the bear without getting mauled.  Embarrass your opponent into either admitting he knows less than he should or lying to cover up his deficiency.  Either way, you have the upper hand, and he will forever be on the defensive with you.

4) Always remember: volume is not a substitute for facts.

A whisper will drown out the sounds of armies, if that whisper is the truth.  Make them squirm as they try to defend the indefensible.  Remember always: the tyrant's greatest weakness is his belief that he has no weaknesses.  Exploit that.

Those who will oppress their fellow citizens are not imported from another land for the purpose.  They are your neighbors already.  They are your friends and family, and in some cases, they might even be you.

These government employees will rationalize their assistance in the confiscation of liberty as "simply doing their jobs," as did the members of the National Park Service when they followed the petulant orders of the president to close open-air memorials during the recent government shutdown.

Even the most complicit bureaucrat often believes to the end that he is serving the people, even if that "service" results in the abrogation of liberty, or ultimately, life.

While the bureaucrat may feel a vague sense of molestation as he follows orders he knows to be wrong, he will in the end side with his pension and benefits time and again, until, as Solzhenitsyn describes it, "the arrest is made."

Solzhenitsyn writes in Gulag:

At what point, then, should one resist? When one's belt is taken away? When one is ordered to face into a corner? When the policeman illegally crosses the threshold of one's home? The arrest consists of a series of incidental irrelevancies, of a multitude of things that alone do not matter, and there seems no point in arguing about any one of them individually...and yet all these incidental irrelevancies, taken together implacably constitute an arrest.

Our arrest is in ObamaCare. Our arrest is in an abusive and rogue IRS, and a myriad of other government scandals ignored and unpunished. Our arrest is found in every mewling surrender our "representatives" negotiate with the lawlessness of anti-constitutional governance.

Our belts have been taken. We are facing the corner, and the state is approaching the door. Civil disobedience is the right of every free citizen when faced with injustice. Embrace that right, and make the most of your new status. Be a dissident.