Tag: oppression

A new federal law has now confirmed the ownership by astronauts of their souvenirs.

9:26 am

A new federal law has now confirmed the ownership by 1960s astronauts of the equipment they saved as souvenirs from their missions.

Sadly, the law excludes moon rocks given as gifts by NASA to astronauts and NASA employees, as well as any material given to astronauts in the post Apollo era, which means we should continue to see midnight raids by NASA bureaucrats of the homes of retired NASA employees to confiscate objects they thought they owned.

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More films about Mohammad in the works.

2:37 pm

Good for them: More films about Mohammad in the works.

Not surprisingly, both filmmakers fear violence from the religion of peace.

Both filmmakers are closely guarding details of their productions due to security concerns. They decry “Innocence of Muslims” as historically inaccurate, offensive and of poor quality. In the wake of its release, Yousef has been scrambling to meet with his investors — whom he describes as a mix of Egyptians and Americans — and ensure that they’re still on board.

Sina, for his part, said he had been exploring ways to hide the identities of the producers and actors in his movie and said he would not reveal the planned location for the movie shoot. He described his investors as a handful of Persian atheists who live in Los Angeles. “I’ve become more secretive,” said Sina, who insists that his goal is not to incite Muslims but to persuade them.

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A Texas court has ruled that the owners of a wrongfully killed pet can recover “sentimental” or “intrinsic” damages.

12:46 pm

A Texas court has ruled that the owners of a wrongfully killed pet can recover “sentimental” or “intrinsic” damages.

The case stems from a lawsuit brought by Kathryn and Jeremy Medlen against Carla Strickland. Around June 2, 2009, the Medlen’s dog Avery escaped from their backyard and was picked up by animal control. Jeremy went to the animal shelter to retrieve Avery but didn’t have enough money with him to pay the fees. He was told he could return for the dog June 10, and a “hold for owner” tag was placed on Avery’s cage.

On June 6, Strickland, a shelter employee, made a list of animals that would be euthanized the following day. She put Avery on the list, despite the “hold for owner” tag, and the dog was euthanized the next day. When the Medlens returned to claim Avery, they learned what had happened.

I have no sympathy for the veterinary organizations that are opposing this ruling, claiming it will raise costs. From what I can gather, they face no risk if they simply do their job properly. In the case above, the dog was wrongfully killed, and thus the shelter should pay for that error.

A side note: If this precedent gets accepted, it will act as a deterrent to police departments who presently think the only way to handle a homeowner’s dog is to shoot it on sight. If you are a cop and you wrongfully kill a dog, this ruling will make you liable for a lot more than the dog’s mere market worth.

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According to a poll of small business owners, more than 60% will either drop their employee healthcare plans or make their employees pay far higher fees when Obamacare goes into effect in 2014

4:27 pm

Repeal it! According to a poll of small business owners, more than 60% will either drop their employee healthcare plans or make their employees pay far higher fees when Obamacare goes into effect in 2014.

The worst part of this story however is this:

Pollster Bill McInturff noted that the combination of a bad economy, greater regulations and increased economic uncertainty have forced 24 percent of the firms polled to lay off workers, 23 percent to tap their own savings to stay open and 11 percent to kill health coverage for workers. “The climate in Washington is a concern to them,” said McInturff. Dan Danner, president of NFIB added: “Why would I invest in this environment?”

Those polled were so down on President Obama and Congress that many said they wouldn’t start a business today. Asked if they would start a new business, 55 percent said no. Among the reasons they cited were high taxes, health care costs, regulations and an uncertain economy.

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More than a thousand pastors have resolved to defy the IRS and preach politics from the pulpit before the election.

10:36 pm

Good for them: More than a thousand pastors have resolved to defy the IRS and preach politics from the pulpit before the election.

“The purpose is to make sure that the pastor — and not the IRS — decides what is said from the pulpit,” Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the group, told FoxNews.com. “It is a head-on constitutional challenge.” Stanley said pastors attending the Oct. 7 “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” will “preach sermons that will talk about the candidates running for office” and then “make a specific recommendation.” The sermons will be recorded and sent to the IRS.

“We’re hoping the IRS will respond by doing what they have threatened,” he said. “We have to wait for it to be applied to a particular church or pastor so that we can challenge it in court. We don’t think it’s going to take long for a judge to strike this down as unconstitutional.”

First of all, the IRS has always enforced this oppressive regulation very selectively. Black churches for example have been allowed to preach Democratic Party politics for decades, without any threats from the IRS.

Second, the regulation really does make no sense. What right does the IRS have deny these religious leaders the freedom to participate in the political debate? Free speech is free speech. To threaten their tax status just because they express their opinions for or against a candidate seems quite oppressive, the kind of thing petty dictators do when they want to shut their opponents up.

In fact, when you think about it, the regulation’s basic consequence was to shut these religious leaders up. Much like the “equal time” regulation that was used for decades to shut up conservative thought on the radio and television airwaves, this IRS regulation has effectively banned religion from the political process. Our Constitution might forbid Congress from setting up an official religion, but it does not forbid people of religion from using their moral teachings to try to influence elections. As I say, free speech is free speech. They are citizens like everyone else, and have the right to express their ideas and to try to persuade people. And in a free society, no one is obliged to listen to them or be convinced by them,

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A Texas school district has banned the use of religious signs at football games, even if created entirely and freely by the students.

10:26 am

A Texas school district has banned the use of religious signs at football games, even if the signs were created entirely and freely by the students.

[According to Kevin Weldon, the district’s superintendent], legal counsel recommended that religious activities not be carried out, even if the are being organized and implemented by students. “Per the advice of TASB Legal, please do not allow any student groups to display any religious signs or messages at school-sponsored events,” the superintendent wrote in a letter to parents who are involved in organizing extracurricular activities.

So, according to the legal counsel for this school district, freedom of religion and speech is outlawed at any government event. What a crock.

The good news is that the students are refusing to back down, and intend to display even more signs at future events.

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The cost of regulations is 80 times higher than OMB’s estimate, according to the estimates of each individual government agency.

10:09 am

We’re more doomed than we know: The cost of government regulation is actually 80 times higher than OMB’s estimate, according to the estimates made by each individual government agency.

“While OMB officially reports amounts of only up to $88.6 billion in 2010 dollars,” said Crews, “the non-tax cost of government intervention in the economy, without performing a sweeping survey, appears to total up to $1.806 trillion annually.”

The $1.8 trillion number comes from looking at the estimates made by each agency and then adding them up.

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Obamacare: a program in disarray.

3:51 pm

Obamacare: a program in disarray.

The critical regulations outlining what the Obamacare insurance benefit will look like was supposed to be out more than six months ago. Now it looks like this regulation won’t be dropped until after the election.

The author then describes each component of the law that is failing in one way or the other. I especially like this paragaph:

The crown jewel of Obamacare’s effort to contain healthcare costs, the creation of Accountable Care Organizations, is so unwieldy that major provider groups have said they won’t participate. The idea is to consolidate doctors, turning them into employees of large systems, and then pay these systems lump sums of money to take care of groups of patients. A letter from 10 major medical groups that previously ran similar programs said, “it would be difficult, if not impossible” to accept the financial design created by Obamacare. In another rebuke, an umbrella group representing premier medical organizations said 90 percent of its members wouldn’t partake.

None of this is a surprise to those who opposed this turkey of a law. We were right to oppose it, and we are right to want it repealed.

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The French prepare for a vibrant debate on free speech from the members of its Islamic community.

9:53 am

The French prepare for a vibrant debate on free speech from the members of its Islamic community.

The worst part of this story isn’t that we expect Muslims to riot because someone said something they don’t like. The worst part is how eager many liberals are to lend these violent thugs quisling support.

Update: If you want to see some of those new Mohammad cartoons from the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, go here.

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The French magazine whose offices were firebombed last year after publishing an issue ridiculing Mohammad is about to do it again.

2:55 pm

Go for it! The French magazine whose offices were firebombed last year after publishing an issue ridiculing Mohammad is about to publish another issue doing the exact same thing.

Charlie Hebdo’s latest move was greeted with immediate calls from political and religious leaders for the media to act responsibly and avoid inflaming the current situation. Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault issued a statement expressing his “disapproval of all excesses.”

The magazine’s editor, originally a cartoonist who uses the name Charb, denied he was being deliberately provocative at a delicate time. “The freedom of the press, is that a provocation?” he said. “I’m not asking strict Muslims to read Charlie Hebdo, just like I wouldn’t go to a mosque to listen to speeches that go against everything I believe.”

I say, good for the magazine Charlie Hebdo. And more publications should join in! If a lot of people make fun of Islam and Mohammad, it will make it very difficult for the religion-of-peace’s firebombing and rioting mobs to keep up.

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A Florida family now faces fines for hosting weekly Bible study sessions in their home.

11:05 am

A Florida family now faces fines for hosting weekly Bible study sessions in their home.

Shane and Marlen Roessiger, of Venice, Fla. are facing a $250 per day fine for hosting Friday night prayer and Bible study gatherings that are attended by as many as 10 people. “It is difficult to understand how it is illegal to have a prayer meeting on Friday night with a half dozen people but it is alright if I invited the same group on Monday evening to watch Monday night Football,” Roessiger said. The Roessigers are also facing a fine for putting a small sign in their front yard.

Gee, maybe they should riot and kill people instead. That way the government would call them members of the religion of peace and let them practice their religion freely.

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A Justice department official today refused to rule out the possibility of passing a law that would criminalize speech against any religion.

11:59 am

A Justice department official today refused to rule out the idea of passing a law that would criminalize speech against any religion. With video.

The exact wording of the question: “Will you tell us here today that this administration’s Department of Justice will never entertain or advance a proposal that criminalizes speech against any religion?”

Despite being asked the question four times, the official consistently refused to answer the question directly. In other words, the Obama administration would consider criminalizing speech against religion. Or to put it more bluntly, they don’t believe in freedom of speech.

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Congress is on a pace this year to pass the fewest laws in a single year since World War II.

10:15 am

Gridlock is good! Congress is on a pace this year to pass the fewest laws in a single year since World War II.

Just 61 bills have become law to date in 2012 out of 3,914 bills that have been introduced by lawmakers, or less than 2 percent of all proposed laws, according to a USA Today analysis of records since 1947 kept by the U.S. House Clerk’s office.

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Obama cracks down on free speech.

8:24 pm

Obama cracks down on free speech.

In order to spare themselves the sort of critical scrutiny to which they are unaccustomed, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have fallen in with the absurd claim that violence has broken out in eleven Muslim countries, and terrorists armed with RPGs and (reportedly) mortars carried out a military operation to assassinate a U.S. ambassador, as a result of a 14-minute YouTube video. As always, Obama’s first priority is to point the finger of responsibility elsewhere.

So the Obama administration cracked down on the Christian who made the film–essentially an amateur production–which is critical of Islam, but no more so than many Hollywood productions have been of Christianity. The federal government sent Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies to bring the filmmaker into custody on the pretext that his uploading the movie trailer to YouTube may have violated the terms of his probation on a bank fraud conviction. That led to the famous photo of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula being taken into custody.

Shameful, disgusting, and inexcusable. The Obama administration is essentially attacking American citizens for the evils committed by Islamic radicals half a world away.

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The Obama administration has delayed deployment of 50 Marines to protect its embassy in Khartoum because of objections of the Sudanese government.

2:49 pm

The Obama administration has pulled back the deployment of 50 Marines to protect its embassy in Khartoum because of objections of the Sudanese government.

In other words, the Obama administration is more willing to obey the orders of the Sudan government than it is willing to protect the lives of U.S. citizens abroad.

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Disgrace in Benghazi.

9:22 am

Disgrace in Benghazi.

The men who organized this attack knew the ambassador would be at the consulate in Benghazi rather than at the embassy in Tripoli. How did that happen? They knew when he had been moved from the consulate to a “safe house,” and switched their attentions accordingly. How did that happen? The United States government lost track of its ambassador for ten hours. How did that happen? Perhaps, when they’ve investigated Mitt Romney’s press release for another three or four weeks, the court eunuchs of the American media might like to look into some of these fascinating questions, instead of leaving the only interesting reporting on an American story to the foreign press.

For whatever reason, Secretary Clinton chose to double down on misleading the American people. “Libyans carried Chris’s body to the hospital,” said Mrs. Clinton. That’s one way of putting it. The photographs at the Arab TV network al-Mayadeen show Chris Stevens’s body being dragged through the streets, while the locals take souvenir photographs on their cell phones. A man in a red striped shirt photographs the dead-eyed ambassador from above; another immediately behind his head moves the splayed arm and holds his cell-phone camera an inch from the ambassador’s nose. Some years ago, I had occasion to assist in moving the body of a dead man: We did not stop to take photographs en route. Even allowing for cultural differences, this looks less like “carrying Chris’s body to the hospital” and more like barbarians gleefully feasting on the spoils of savagery.

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“Those who produced the movie should be tried and killed.”

8:28 am

Islamic tolerance and justice: “Those who produced the movie should be tried and killed.”

Notice he didn’t simply say “Put them on trial,” which would have been bad enough, arresting someone for something he said. He wants them “tried and killed.” In other words, no trial in an Islamic nation is worth the electrons we use to read about it. They are merely kangaroo courts. If an Islamic preacher declares that you are guilty, you are guilty.

Which makes his other statements calling for peaceful demonstrations completely worthless and absolutely bullcrap. What is really going on is that they are now terrified that all that good U.S. money is going to be cut off, and want to placate the naive idiots in the U.S. To quote Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky):

“My position is not one penny more for Libya or Egypt or Pakistan until they act like our allies,” Paul said on the Senate floor Thursday. “Some say we’ve got to keep sending it. Fine. Let’s send it when they act like our allies. Let’s send it when they start behaving like civilized nations and come to their senses.”

As they used to say in the 1960s, “Right on!”

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