Two Democratic senators have introduced legislation that would repeal the indefinite detention of Americans authorized by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that was passed in November.

Good for them: Two Democratic senators have introduced legislation that would repeal the indefinite detention of Americans authorized by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that was passed in November.

My only complaint is this: Why did these same two senators, along with 81 other senators and 283 House members vote for this unconstitutional obscenity in the first place?

The Senate’s tea party caucus has introduced a budget plan aimed at balancing the federal budget by 2017.

The Senate’s tea party caucus yesterday proposed a budget plan aimed at balancing the federal budget by 2017.

The news article gives a broad outline of the plan, including some basic changes to several entitlement programs, a freezing of government spending at 2008 levels, and the elimination of four government agencies and the privatization of the TSA. A detailed look will probably find that some of these proposals are poorly thought out or impractical. However, at least these senators are proposing something, unlike the Democrats, who in the Senate have not even introduced a budget for more than three years.

Santorum and Freedom

Santorum and freedom.

People could live with big. It’s too big that’s getting to them. Under the Obama presidency, something outside the norm happened. Amid ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, the $800 billion stimulus injection and a federal spending boom, something snapped in the steady-state relationship between many citizens and Washington. A lot of people feel the government, finally, is really starting to crowd them. It has made them uneasy. For the Santorum audience, the call-and-response word to push back against the unease is “freedom.”

pA man was arrested and now faces 60 days in jail and a $500 fine for holding up a protest sign on the public plaza outside the Supreme Court in Washington.

Freedom of speech alert: A man was arrested and now faces 60 days in jail and a $500 fine for simply holding up a protest sign on the public plaza outside the Supreme Court in Washington.

Video of him shows he was still and quiet and more than 100 feet from the Court entrance. Nonetheless, officers arrested him, charging him with violating a so-called “no speech zone.”

The U.S. debt, graphed to show how it rose or fell since 1981, based on who controlled Congress and the White House.

The U.S. debt, graphed to show how it rose or fell since 1981, compared with who controlled Congress and the White House.

Though to my mind the Republicans have generally been a failure in controlling the growth of government when they held power during the past thirty years, this data shows clearly how far worse the Democrats have been during this same time period.

The Utah legislature is about to pass a law demanding the federal government release to the state almost fifty percent of the state’s federal land.

Another state vs federal battle: The Utah legislature is about to pass a law demanding the federal government release to the state almost fifty percent of the state’s federal land.

The context here is that, for most western states, the federal government controls almost all of the real estate, and has in recent years increasingly restricted its use to the detriment of local residents. The legal maneuvering here is a push back by the state.

Play offense

Play offense.

Instead of bowing and scraping to the Islamic supremacists and feebly protesting that we’re not really racists and hatemongers and all the other calumnies and canards they throw at us, we should be taking the fight to them, and standing up and saying, “You are fronting for the most oppressive ideology on the face of the earth. You are fronting for evil. You are carrying water and running interference for the denial of free speech, the denial of the freedom of conscience, the institutionalized oppression of women, the subjugation of non-Muslims, and worse. You’re fronting for stonings, amputations, the murder of apostates, the treatment of women as possessions of men, the madness and senseless violence that we see in this furor over the Quran-burnings, and more. You shout us down on campuses and do everything you can to make sure we are not heard in the public square. And you call us fascists? You are the quintessence of fascism.”

Boycotting the boycotters.

Boycotting the boycotters.

I’ve said little about the Rush Limbaugh kerfuffle this week, mostly because I consider the whole thing to be a manufactured scandal created by the Democrats to distract everyone from their effort to squelch religious liberty. However, this fake scandal has now morphed into a campaign to destroy Rush Limbaugh, which when you consider it is quite consistent with the Democratic Party’s general lack of respect for freedom and personal liberty. First they came after the church, now they are going after one of the more important commentators in the conservative movement.

It doesn’t matter whether you agree with Limbaugh. What matters is that this effort to destroy him is really an effort to silence any criticism of Obama and the liberal/leftwing agenda. Such attacks cannot be supported under any condition. These cowardly businesses that are fleeing Limbaugh, and thus are supporting a leftwing form of McCarthyism, should be made to suffer for this cowardice.

The Iranian government today executed a Christian pastor because he refused to renounce his religion and convert to Islam.

Updated and bumped: As noted by one of my readers, Pastor Nadarkhani is still alive. The hanging reports are false. Not that this really changes anything. The man is still in prison and threatened with death simply for being Christian.

The tolerance of Islam: The Iranian government today executed a Christian pastor because he refused to renounce his religion and convert to Islam.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops is issuing a flyer to be distributed at Masses over the March 3-4 weekend that asks their congregation to voice their opposition to the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate.

We’ve only just begun: The U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops is issuing a flyer to be distributed at Masses over the March 3-4 weekend that asks congregations to voice their opposition to the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate.

Because of Obamacare, child-only health plans have been discontinued nationwide.

Repeal it: Because of Obamacare, insurance companies nationwide have stopped offering child-only health plans.

Jared Wolfe, executive director of the Texas Association of Health Plans, said it is not because insurers do not want to cover children. The federal health care overhaul [Obamacare], and in particular the pre-existing condition language, has been interpreted to mean that insurers must write a policy for any child who applies, Mr. Wolfe said. That effectively ensures that only sick children will apply for benefits, he said — an unworkable financial scenario for insurance companies.

This happened in New York state back in the 1990s. The state legislature decided to help everyone by mandating that no insurance company could deny insurance to anyone, no matter how sick they were. The result: there was no point buying insurance until you were sick, which meant there was no way the insurance companies could make any profit at all. Instantly the insurance field shrunk, with many companies (including my own) abandoning the state.

But then, who cares? We live in amazing times, when a President can simply order — on his personal authority and without any basis in law — that insurance companies must provide free contraceptives, without anyone having to pay for their manufacture. Who knew what things were possible before Obama was President?

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