And folks wonder why I blog anonymously

I’ve always said its primarily to protect my husband’s Miliary career. Very true. It’s also out of a sense of need to guard my family, apparently a darn good reason these days as Stacy McCain has had to move his family to ensure their safety after exposing a well-funded lefty radical who happens to be a convicted bomber (no joke). Said convicted bomber, Brett Kimberlin, has already harassed, intimidated and stalked other bloggers–for telling the truth–to the point that attorney Aaron Worthing (who did blog under a pseudonym) and his wife both lost their jobs. Scary, no? The Lonely Conservative rightly calls the situation “horrible.”

Michelle Malkin Labels this what it is: an assault on free speech.

Hit Stacy’s tip jar, and do what you can to help Worthing. Liberals a la Streisand keep cretins like Kimberlin floating in donations. Let’s support our own in the fight againstthese who wish to silence truth.

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A little Friday night fun, Fluke edition

I’ve long been a fan of Remy, and though I prefer his singing voice to the rapping variety, this is fun:

A little Mark Steyn to reinforce the idiocy of Sandra Fluke’s demands:

All of us are born with the unalienable right to life, liberty and a lifetime supply of premium ribbed silky-smooth, ultrasensitive, spermicidal, lubricant condoms. No taxation without rubberization, as the Minutemen said. The shot heard round the world and all that.

[…]

Ask the Greeks how easy it is for insolvent nations to wean the populace off unaffordable nanny-state lollipops: When even casual sex requires a state welfare program, you’re pretty much done for.

No, the most basic issue here is not religious morality, individual liberty or fiscal responsibility. It’s that a society in which middle-age children of privilege testify before the most powerful figures in the land to demand state-enforced funding for their sex lives at a time when their government owes more money than anyone has ever owed in the history of the planet is quite simply nuts.

At least Remy’s just asking for cough drops. And I do hope Mr. Steyn doesn’t mind the pairing with a rapper.

UPDATE: linked by Pundette as a “Recommended Read,” (with a much better title, btw). Thanks!

Does the First Amendment include the right to knowingly lie about military service?

Has it really come to this? From the LA Times:

Xavier Alvarez told of playing hockey for the Detroit Red Wings, marrying a Mexican starlet, piloting a helicopter in Vietnam and suffering gunshot wounds while rescuing the American ambassador during the Iran hostage crisis. All were lies.

He got into legal trouble, however, when he stood up at a water board meeting in Pomona in 2007 and described himself as a retired Marine who had received the Medal of Honor.
He joined a number of men who lied about their military service and claimed medals they did not win. More than a third of “Who’s Who” profiles that listed top military honors could not be confirmed through military records, a Chicago Tribune investigation found in 2008.

The Supreme Court will take up Alvarez’s case Wednesday to decide whether the 1st Amendment protects not just the freedom of speech but a right to lie about military honors.

In my southern hometown, a dude like this was exposed once. I remember it vividly because he–a man holding an elected political position–proudly proclaimed his honorable military service from every rooftop he could. Heroic deeds. How heroic to lie, eh? This is so much of a problem that it’s now illegal to do. That apparently rubbed Xavier Alvarez, who then sued (seriously?!) after he was fined for breaking a federal law.

Congress enacted the Stolen Valor Act in 2006 to make it a crime to falsely claim a military honor. And Alvarez, once he was exposed, was convicted and fined $5,000.

But his “everyone lies” defense won at the U.S. 9th Circuit of Appeals, which struck down the law on free-speech grounds on a 2-1 vote. It would be “terrifying,” said Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, if the government’s “truth police” could go after people for the “white lies, exaggerations and deceptions that are an integral part of human intercourse.”

What has Limbaugh always called the 9th? The 9th Circus? That’s it. No wonder. And now we have a boob whose headed to the Supreme Court to fight for his right to lie–oh, ‘scuse me, his “exaggeration and deception” that’s apparently “an integral part of human intercourse.”

Vile. But maybe the judge is right. Why fine a man beyond shame? I’d throw him into a room full of pregnant military their children halfway through a deployment instead. We know how to handle his kind.

Just sayin’.

H/t: Hot Air headlines

Have a party at home, just make sure you don’t talk about God!

What is this, Communist Russia?

Via American Spectator, the latest reminder that your home is not your own:

An Orange County couple has been ordered to stop holding a Bible study in their home on the grounds that the meeting violates a city ordinance as a “church” and not as a private gathering.

Homeowners Chuck and Stephanie Fromm, of San Juan Capistrano, were fined $300 earlier this month for holding what city officials called “a regular gathering of more than three people”.

That type of meeting would require a conditional use permit as defined by the city, according to Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), the couple’s legal representation.

The Fromms also reportedly face subsequent fines of $500 per meeting for any further “religious gatherings” in their home, according to PJI.

“We’re just gathering and enjoying each other’s company and fellowship. And we enjoy studying God’s word.” Stephanie Fromm told CBS2.

Rick Moran’s comment:

This is not an isolated incident. It’s happening everywhere. Property rights trampled, religious freedom abridged, free speech stifled, the right to assembly curtailed. This is not a left issue or right issue. It is an American issue. And it’s time we wake up before the Constitution starts gathering dust in warehouse somewhere – forlorn and forgotten.

Pretty much, no?

The rot of totalitarianism starts with localities creating these inane intrusions on rights. No one stands up. No one complains. And the rot spreads.

The city argues that these regular gatherings for 50 or more cause traffic problems. If I were to hedge a bet, if the couple were holding an orgy in the home and inviting 50 of their besties over to join the fun, the city could care less. And the ACLU would be involved if that weren’t the case, blasting the town and the neighbors for being such prudes, to deny the right of homeowners to congregate freely and have sex with multiple partners twice weekly.

The couple lost the appeal to the city. (Of course, as the city stands to gain financially). They plan on taking the case to the state Supreme Court. I shudder to think the law as it stands will be upheld.

H/t: Memeorandum

Linked by Pundette as a “Recommended Read.” Thanks!

UPDATE: Tina Korbe at Hot Air draws the same bedroom analogy:

Mrs. Fromm was rightly incensed at the city government’s intrusion into her living room. “I should be able to be hospitable in my own home,” she said. Had it been her bedroom, libs would have leaped to her defense, but as it was, no such luck for the lady.

 

Howard Zinn’s legacy: American students fail history, don’t care

Howard Zinn’s advice to teachers:

Don’t obey the rules… you have to play a kind of guerrilla warfare with the establishment in which you try not to be fired… You have to depart from the curriculum… outside the lines that are set for us by the school administration, or the politicians.” 

Leftist teachers don’t have to be renegades, departing from the curriculum because Zinn’s brand of Marxist social-justice anti-American revisionist history is part of the curriculum in many schools:

According to the Oxnard Union High School District, Zinn’s on the California Department of Education Recommended Reading List.   

He’s taught at the San Lorenzo Unified School District Re-Entry Intervention Program, which targets kids coming back to school after being expelled, students with ten or more days of suspension who are on track for expulsion, students coming back to school from Juvenile Hall – in short, the worst of the worst.  This makes perfect sense – after all, what better way is there to teach borderline-criminal kids about good citizenship than pillorying America and giving them delusions of victimhood? 

He’s taught in the Los Angeles Unified School District, at the Stern Math and Science School, where teacher Benjamin Weber’s curriculum is designed to focus on various minority groups struggling against the repressive evil of the American system. 

He’s taught throughout the Seattle School District; in 2002, pressure from liberal interest groups forced the school district to adopt Zinn’s work in a stated attempt to include “cultural diversity” in the curriculum.  Not coincidentally, the district came up with an action plan that included “more aggressive recruitment of minority teachers, better training of teachers about students’ varied cultural backgrounds, and racially proportionate admissions of students to special education and ‘highly capable’ programs.”  He’s also taught in the Philadelphia School District, which recommends all of his books. 

The list goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

Is it any surprise after decades of union-run education, of multiculturalism at the expense of civics, that students have no real knowledge of history?

Among our present crop of high school seniors, only one in four scored at least “proficient” in knowledge of U. S. citizenship. Of all the academic subjects tested, civics and the closely linked subject of history came in last: “a smaller proportion of fourth and eighth graders demonstrated proficiency in civics than in any other subject the federal government has tested since 2005, except history, American students’ worst subject.”

With leftists teaching, it’s no surprise. It was the goal all along:

Another [high school student] replied, “I don’t want to belong to any country. It just feels like you are obligated to this country. I don’t like the whole thing of citizen…I don’t like that whole thing. It’s like, citizen, no citizen; it doesn’t make sense to me. It’s like to be a good citizen—I don’t know, I don’t want to be a citizen…it’s stupid to me.”

Global citizen, beholden to no country, responsible for the earth.

A recent Department of Education study found that only nine percent of U.S. high school students are able to cite reasons why it is important for citizens to participate in a democracy, and only six percent are able to identify reasons why having a constitution benefits a country.

If no one can identify why a constitution benefits a country, it’s that much easier to destroy the constitution, no?

Hey, where’s my waiver?

Maybe we should all ask for one, no? Turn the thousands into millions.

Maine is the latest. Yes, as in the state:

The federal government Tuesday granted Maine a waiver of a key provision in President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, citing the likelihood that enforcement could destabilize the state’s market for individual health insurance.

Destabilize the market? How could this be? And since when did the Obama administration give a rat’s rear end about the market? Just sayin’.

The U.S. Health and Human Services department said in a letter it would waive the requirement that insurers spend 80 cents to 85 cents of every premium dollar on medical care and quality improvement. Instead, the letter said, the state could maintain its 65 percent standard for three years, with the caveat that HHS intends to review the figures after two years.

You mean the government dictating what private insurers do can cause problems? Really? How interesting.

In seeking the waiver, Maine Insurance Superintendent Mila Kofman feared that one of three major insurers offering individual plans in Maine would withdraw from the market altogether if the federal requirement remained in place. The insurer, MEGA Life and Health Insurance Co., has 37 percent of the state’s individual market.

MEGA’s departure from the market would carry the “reasonable likelihood of destabilizing the Maine individual market,” with costly ramifications for MEGA’s policy holders, wrote Steven Larsen, an HHS deputy administrator.

Government dictates on private insurers can cause “costly ramifications” for “policy holders”? Translation: Obamacare rules make premiums rise.

Surprise!

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey asks a few questions:

If Maine’s own ObamaCare precursor had worked to achieve cost control, then why does the state ration entry into its public option?  Furthermore, if such a program really does control cost and overhead, then why can’t the state’s insurers meet the arbitrary 80% threshold set by Congress without having to shut down its business?

The waivers may as well encompass the entire United States, since these economic problems will arise wherever ObamaCare is attempted.  Better yet, instead of issuing 300 million waivers, why don’t we scrap the program and start over from scratch — this time with actual reform aimed at eliminating third-party payer interventions rather than expanding them?

What’s the point of the so-called “reform” if everyone is exempt?

A thousand words? Unnecessary.

One works to describe how absolutely wonderful this looks: Hallelujah!  Via Drudge. 

 From Fox, the whopper of the day courtesy the former Speaker:

At her final press conference as House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go.”

The numbers tell a different story.

When the Pelosi Democrats took control of Congress on January 4, 2007, the national debt stood at $8,670,596,242,973.04. The last day of the 111th Congress and Pelosi’s Speakership on December 22, 2010 the national debt was $13,858,529,371,601.09 – a roughly $5.2 trillion increase in just four years. Furthermore, the year over year federal deficit has roughly quadrupled during Pelosi’s four years as speaker, from $342 billion in fiscal year 2007 to an estimated $1.6 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2010.

For more on our new Speaker of the House, see Pundette here and here.  The first steels me against news like this.  Let’s pray the 112th remembers the hows and whys of governance (and the Constitution!) lest their numbers end up in the toilet like Pelosi and her merry band of liars.

 UPDATE: Ah, great minds.

NYE Laundry

Darling pjHusband this morning: What do you want to do to ring in the New Year?

Tired Mom of sick toddler: I don’t care as long as it doesn’t involve vomit.  Fever-free would be grand, too.

Dare to dream.

News from my hung-head coffee perusing for your enjoyment.

Fun stuff happening at Potluck.  Just a Conservative Girl asks if a civil war brews for the GOP.  And Pundette asks if NYC unions did intentionally slow the snow clean up this week, resulting in the death of a newborn.  Another infant dies as a result, too.  Heads should roll.  But since these are union heads not private industry heads, the media won’t care, nor will Big Brother. 

A laugher: Democrat regrets “death-panel” language.

JWF: Our esteemed AG says the Black Panther case a “made-up” controversy.  I’m torn as to which will blow up for the O administration, Black Panthers or Pigford.  What say you?

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air ponders the green-induced government-backed destruction of jobs and food (and countless lives) in California’s Central Valley.  This is shameful.  Victor Davis Hanson writes about California’s self-induced woes regularly, and Ed’s column reminded me of this VDH gem on the Central Valley earlier in the month. Also related: Quite Rightly questions the government’s new role in regulating food “safety.” 

Pundette highlights the idiocy of the WaPo’s wizard of smart columnist, Ezra Klein.  Seems as though the boy-genius doesn’t understand the Constitution because it’s “old.”  Heh.

Katie Couric thinks we need a Muslim “Cosby Show” because we’re all so racist, and it would help build bridges of understanding or some such liberal nonsense.  Hey Katie: Here’s my vote for Cliff.  At least he wasn’t caught building bombs, no?

Liberals are, as expected, pissy over Obamacare unconstitutionality

Heh.  Ezra Klein in the WaPo: 

District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson, a George W. Bush appointee, has, as expected, ruled the individual mandate unconstitutional. So why are health reformers so unexpectedly pleased?

There are two reasons, but first, let’s put this into context. Hudson’s ruling is the third from a district court so far. Previously, Judge Norman Moon found the mandate constitutional, and so too did Judge George Steeh.

Both of whom were Clinton appointees, who did, as expected, rule in favor of government overreach trampling upon the individual freedoms of American citizens.

He continues:

The real danger to health-care reform is not that the individual mandate will be struck down by the courts. That’d be a problem, but there are a variety of ways to restructure the individual mandate such that it doesn’t penalize anyone for deciding not to do something (which is the core of the conservative’s legal argument against the provision). Here’s one suggestion from Paul Starr, for instance. The danger is that, in striking down the individual mandate, the court would also strike down the rest of the bill. In fact, that’s exactly what the plaintiff has asked Hudson to do.

Um, what?  The bill has no teeth sans mandate.  Klein seemingly does the happy dance over the fact that the judge was asked to strike down the rest of the bill or issue an injunction against it and didn’t.  Ed Morrissey explains why:

Fox News is now reporting that Judge Hudson won’t issue an injunction against the entire ObamaCare law, which means that he’s seeing a de facto severability in it.  Without the mandate, though, the system won’t work at all, which gives Congress a big opening to dismantle the rest.

From your lips to God’s ears, Ed.  (And take that, Ezra Klein.  Dismantle the whole damn thing).  For an explanation of “severability” see this.

More from Jacobson and Althouse. 

H/t: Memeorandum.

Update: See also Quite Rightly for a concise explanation and video from Greta Van Susteren.

Update: linked at The Daley Gator.  Thanks!

Maybe it’s just me, part 2

How can the Senate vote on a bill that’s not even written in final form?  Seriously, y’all.  How hard is it to twist someone’s arm to vote for something sans provision abc only to slip it in later? This is just … dirty.

Michelle Malkin has the numbers to call the GOP fence-sitters on this shamnesty for illegal college-age students, aka the DREAM Act.  Why add incentive to illegal immigration?  Hey, my kids will be able to get in-state tuition! 

In other Senate fumblings, it seems ol’ Harry forgot his handy dandy pocket Constitution.  Via Hot Air:

Apparently, no one told Harry Reid to check Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution before passing S510, the food-safety bill that Democrats hailed as a major lame-duck session achievement earlier this week — and which ran afoul of their own party in the House.  Section 107 of the bill raises taxes, and as any Constitutional scholar can attest — or anyone else who has actually read the document that Senators swore to uphold when taking office — only the House of Representatives has that power

Heh.  Senate Democrats already had press releases.  Idiots on parade.  Unfortunately, said idiots make the rules for the rest of us.

Scary, eh?