Failed Democrat Pol Sues Critics for "loss of livelihood"

Failed Democrat Pol Sues Critics Over Election Loss - Peter Roff (usnews.com):

When voters in Ohio's 1st Congressional District threw Democrat Steve Driehaus out of office after only one term, he did not bow out gracefully. No, he decided to get even. So he did what anyone does in today's culture: he sued somebody.

Charging that its activities contributed to his defeat and thus to his "loss of livelihood," Driehaus is suing the Susan B. Anthony List, a group that supports pro-life candidates for Congress and which has been one of the leading and most effective organizations involved in the fight to cut off federal funding to Planned Parenthood.

During the 2010 elections the Susan B. Anthony List engaged in a campaign to identify and call out a group of allegedly anti-abortion-rights members of Congress who provided the margin that allowed President Barack Obama's reform of the nation's healthcare system to get through the U.S. House of Representatives. The Susan B. Anthony List said their vote in favor of the law, which did not include any pro-life protections, amounted to a betrayal of their pro-life principles.

According to Driehaus, who was one of that group, what the Susan B. Anthony List said in its public communications amounted to a malicious lie that contributed to his defeat. Amazingly, rather than laugh the suit out of court U.S. District Court judge Timothy S. Black, an Obama appointee, is allowing it to go forward. ...

Driehaus's suit is breaking new legal ground and may already be having a very chilling effect on political speech. It goes directly at the heart of our First Amendment protections and criminalizes what is at least a difference of opinion. And it's curious that the case has not received more attention from the national press.

What is equally curious, however, is why Judge Black has allowed the case to move forward and why he did not recuse himself from it since, as Barbara Hollingsworth reported Friday in The Washington Examiner, he apparently is the former president and director of the Planned Parenthood Association of Cincinnati. As seeming conflicts of interest go this one is a real humdinger.

As I posted, "Democrats to America: Just Shut Up!"

It's no surprise that Judge Black decided to hear the case. Democrats on the bench are neither appointed nor sitting to apply the laws fairly and impartially. The "progressive" agenda does not allow for it. Instead, the entire progressive array embraces "anarcho-tyranny."

The late Samuel Francis coined and defined the word "anarcho-tyranny":

What we have in this country today, then, is both anarchy (the failure of the state to enforce the laws) and, at the same time, tyranny—the enforcement of laws by the state for oppressive purposes; the criminalization of the law-abiding and innocent through exorbitant taxation, bureaucratic regulation, the invasion of privacy, and the engineering of social institutions, such as the family and local schools; the imposition of thought control through "sensitivity training" and multiculturalist curricula, "hate crime" laws, gun-control laws that punish or disarm otherwise law-abiding citizens but have no impact on violent criminals who get guns illegally, and a vast labyrinth of other measures. In a word, anarcho-tyranny. [...]

The laws that are enforced are either those that extend or entrench the power of the state and its allies and internal elites ... or else they are the laws that directly punish those recalcitrant and "pathological" elements in society who insist on behaving according to traditional norms—people who do not like to pay taxes, wear seat belts, or deliver their children to the mind-bending therapists who run the public schools; or the people who own and keep firearms, display or even wear the Confederate flag, put up Christmas trees, spank their children, and quote the Constitution or the Bible—not to mention dissident political figures who actually run for office and try to do something about mass immigration by Third World populations.

There is on the whole not much to admire about Francis's body of work, but he hit the 10-ring here. Considering that he died in 2005, it is impressive how he was a precursor to much of today's criticism of the political class.

Democrats to America: Just shut up!

It seems that the administration and some of its allies in Congress simply want you and me to just shut up on certain topics - a range that is sure to be expanded if they get their way.

"Shame on you! Shut up! Just shut up!"

First, Politico reports that the Hillary-headed State Department is coordinating with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation - a cartel of 56 Islamic states - to stifle Americans' rights to talk or write about Islam as they want to.

The State Department began a three-day, closed-door meeting Monday to talk about U.S. free speech rules with representatives from numerous Islamic governments that have lobbied for 12 years to end U.S. citizens’ ability to speak freely about Islam’s history and obligations. ...

The more realistic explanation for the three-day event, [activist Andrea] Lafferty said, is that administration officials, progressives and OIC officials are tacitly cooperating to gradually stigmatize speech that is critical of Islam.

Lafferty pointed to a July statement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in which she said that free speech will be protected, but the U.S. government will “use some old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming, so that people don’t feel that they have the support to do what we abhor.”

Second: Democrat US Representatives Theodore Deutch, Peter DeFazo, Alcee Hastings, and Jim McDermott, and Democrat Senator Bernie Sanders are introducing resolutions for a Constitutional amendment that would take scissors to the First Amendment. Eugene Volokh explains, also here.

But nothing is new about all this. Consider the administrations new fascination with bullying.

Suddenly bullying in schools, which has been with us for as long as there have been schools, has been elevated to a "crisis." When this happens, people who were not born yesterday look for the agenda. And we find it written in large capital letters, in a scheme to impose "gay-straight alliances" on unwilling Catholic and private Christian schools, and otherwise extend the reach of "LGBT" propaganda into places where it is especially unwelcome.

This political method is itself a ripe example of bullying. Victimhood status is declared on behalf of a favoured group, emotionally-loaded examples of apparent victimizing are publicized, and the "crisis" is declared. Powers are sought by activists on behalf of such victims.

Those who resist their power grab are demonized. This is the way every "progressive" cause is advanced. It works, because no one could want to be publicly tarred.

And so New York Democrats have announced that the First Amendment is a privilege (presumably, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution should now be called, "The Bill of Privileges").

AND YET, PROPONENTS OF A MORE REFINED FIRST AMENDMENT ARGUE THAT THIS FREEDOM SHOULD BE TREATED NOT AS A RIGHT BUT AS A PRIVILEGE – A SPECIAL ENTITLEMENT GRANTED BY THE STATE ON A CONDITIONAL BASIS THAT CAN BE REVOKED IF IT IS EVER ABUSED OR MALTREATED.

(All caps in original)

These processes are all examples of Leftist mind control at work. Remember that Leftism is the ideology that people have too much freedom with which to make too many stupid choices. And so the Left's fascination and natural affinity with absolutist Islamic governments. They both want to decide what we proles may think and say.

More examples:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/overkill-on-internet-piracy/2011/12/11/gIQA9TK6nO_blog.html

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/198687-internet-piracy-bill-a-free-speech-kill-switch

Good on yer, Mr President

I have criticized the president for many things, but fair is fair: when his administration does something good, I should not ignore it. And in this case, it is the Federal Communications Commission scrapping 83 rules and regulations regarding use of the public airwaves.

FCC finally kills off fairness doctrine - Brooks Boliek - POLITICO.com

Biggest thing to celebrate:

The FCC gave the coup de grace to the fairness doctrine Monday as the commission axed more than 80 media industry rules.

Earlier this summer FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski agreed to erase the post WWII-era rule, but the action Monday puts the last nail into the coffin for the regulation that sought to ensure discussion over the airwaves of controversial issues did not exclude any particular point of view. A broadcaster that violated the rule risked losing its license.

Why lay the credit at President Obama's feet?

Monday’s move is part of the commission’s response to a White House executive order directing a “government-wide review of regulations already on the books” designed to eliminate unnecessary regulations.

Also consigned to the regulatory dustbin are the “broadcast flag” digital copy protection rule that was struck down by the courts and the cable programming service tier rate. Altogether, the agency tossed 83 rules and regs.

So a laurel and hearty handshake to you, Mr. President.

Educational Obamacare

This is what happens when the federal government's Dept. of Education takes over college student loans: Dept. of Education breaks down Stockton man's door | news10.net

STOCKTON, CA - Kenneth Wright does not have a criminal record and he had no reason to believe a S.W.A.T team would be breaking down his door at 6 a.m. on Tuesday.

"I look out of my window and I see 15 police officers," Wright said.

Wright came downstairs in his boxer shorts as a S.W.A.T team barged through his front door. Wright said an officer grabbed him by the neck and led him outside on his front lawn.

"He had his knee on my back and I had no idea why they were there," Wright said.

According to Wright, officers also woke his three young children ages 3, 7, and 11 and put them in a Stockton police patrol car with him. Officers then searched his house.

As it turned out, the person law enforcement was looking for was not there - Wright's estranged wife.

The Blackshirts could not have done it better.

Update: The original page, linked at top, disappeared from News10's site yesterday. I don't know why. (Possibly there was a redirect issue with it.) Now the site has a new page with a new URL for the story, http://www.news10.net/news/article/141108/2/Questions-surround-feds-raid-of-Stockton-home

Once again: everyone must sacrifice!

Here is the chart:

"if you're not willing to touch entitlements, you're going nowhere."

For the umpteenth time, what I said last October:

we voters ideologically approve cutting the budget but operationally don't want it done on our own backs. My parents are in their 80s. Do I really want Medicare to be cut? Baby boomers, of whom I am one, are just starting to retire in large numbers. Guess what's going to happen to Social Security spending? Do we really want those payouts slashed just as we're starting to draw them?

Including government employees, more than 88 million Americans are personally dependent to some degree on government payouts. That's 29 percent of us. Do you really think it is politically possible for even a veto-proof Republican Congress to slash those programs, jobs or benefits enough to make a meaningful dent in the trillion-dollar-plus deficit?

Mark Steyn once wrote that if national financial collapse was a 20-chapter book, Greece was in chapter 19 and America still in chapter two or three. I think we're further along than that, but I agree with his his point that there is still time to reverse course. Time, though, is not the issue. The question is whether we have the will - the will, each one of us, to accept the consequences personally.

Will you accept a 10 percent reduction in your federally-sponsored benefits (schools, highways, direct payments, name it)? Will I? And if we will, will the representatives and senators we send to Washington next month have the will to push it through?

I am not persuaded the answer is yes, though I hope I'm wrong.

So far, it does not look like I'm wrong.

Update: Time Mag (!!):

[T]he larger discussion in Washington is about everything except what's important. The debate between Democrats and Republicans on the budget excludes the largest drivers of the long-term deficit — Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare — to say nothing of the biggest nonentitlement costs, like the tax break for interest on mortgages. Only four months ago, the Simpson-Bowles commission presented a series of highly intelligent solutions to our fiscal problems, proposing $4 trillion in savings, mostly through cuts in programs but also through some tax increases. They have been forgotten by both parties, in particular the Republicans, whose leading budgetary spokesman, Paul Ryan, praises the commission in the abstract even though he voted against its recommendations. Democrats, for their part, became apoplectic about a proposal to raise the retirement age for Social Security by one year — in 2050.

Instead, Washington is likely to make across-the-board cuts in discretionary spending, where there is much less money and considerably less waste. President Obama's efforts to preserve and even increase resources for core programs appear to be failing in a Congress determined to demonstrate its clout. But reducing funds for things like education, scientific research, air-traffic control, NASA, infrastructure and alternative energy will not produce much in savings, and it will hurt the economy's long-term growth.

Those great political and social analysts, The Temptations, predicted this 40 years ago:

Libyan jets armed to kill

Here are a couple of photos of the two Libyan air force Mirage fighter jets whose pilots landed in Malta Monday rather than obey orders to attack Libyan protesters.

The second photo tells a story. It is a closeup of the rear of an antipersonnel rocket pod. The pod used by the Mirage fighter is the SNEB pod, the name being the acronym of its manufacturer. Each SNEB pod holds either 18 or 19 rockets, depending on the type.

However, blowing up this image reveals rocket-exhaust nozzles in the mid-twenties count; a better view is in this image. So this appears not to be a SNEB pod. But it is an air-to-ground weapon, which only shows how lethal Qaddafi is willing to be against his own people.

And that means he does not consider them his own people at all.

Endnote: STRATFOR's George Friedman says it is "the military and police coming over to the side of the demonstrators, that makes or breaks a revolution." The problem is that in Libya, the military (the soldiers on the ground, anyway) is not an important player.

The Libyan army is one of the poorest and most neglected security sectors in the government. They are poorly fed , equipped, trained and paid. They are mostly ceremonial and Qaddafi does not trust them. So what we have here are private battalions with each of his sons owning the one named for him. So for example his son Khamees has a battalion belonging to him calling it “Kateebit Khamees.” Each is placed in private super huge barracks situated strategically around Tripoli for situations like these. These battalions are well-equipped, trained and paid and are extremely loyal not to the country but to the leader of their battalion.

So to answer your question the regular army is non-compliant and has mostly sided with the people. Remember they are poorly-equipped and so can be of only limited help. However, the battalions belonging to the regime itself are very much in the fight and are killing people wholesale. Still their numbers are not so great to cover this huge country so it seems they are complemented by mercenaries.

Qaddafi & Sons are protected by their own, private army and mercenaries imported from Africa's southern regions. The national army is unlikely to be a major factor in the outcome.

Meanwhile, President Obama is nothing if not consistent.

Here is the Youtube of the jets landing at Malta.

You can kill him, but you can't circumcise him

"SF May Ban Infant Circumcision"

Self-described "civil rights advocates" say that a ballot proposition to ban circumcision is on track for gathering signatures, meaning that San Franciscans may vote on the measure this November.

Only 7,000 signatures on a petition are required to get the measure on the ballot, a number that will be attained easily. There is no religious exemption, meaning Jewish infants could not be legally circumcised. The proposed law forbids circumcision for any reason for anyone not yet 18 years old.

So let me get this straight: the supreme idol of the liberal left (but I repeat myself) is "freedom of choice," meaning that a woman bearing a male unborn child may have the child killed for no reason other than she wants to. But once the child is born, the state will forbid freedom of choice for her to have him circumcised, even if she happens to be Jewish, whose traditions of circumcision go back more than 3,000 years.

So - free to kill an unborn male child? Yes! Free to circumcise him after birth? No!

Speaking of things affecting Jewish practice, here's the boo-boo of the month:

LONDON - UK budget airline easyJet apologized Tuesday to Jewish customers after the only food choices served on a flight from Israel were ham melts and bacon baguettes.

Passengers who follow the faith's ban on eating pork were forced to go hungry for the four-and-a-half hour journey from Tel Aviv to London.

No doubt once the San Franciscans hear, they'll put up a ballot measure that would compel people to eat pork on airline flights.