(Video) “A Progressive’s Guide to Political Correctness”

From Prager University, here’s George Will in a very amusing video wherein he imagines the ideal PC universe:

It’s funny because it’s so true. 

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Supreme Court puts Obama’s “climate saving” power plant regulations on hold

This is great news on several fronts, but especially for supporters of limited government and regulatory restraint (such as me), who’ve often viewed the EPA as an arrogant, tyrannical, and arguably unconstitutional agency.

Watts Up With That?

From the skeptics and common sense win one department…

Tanner’s Creek Power Station in Lawrenceburg, IN – closed in 2015 by new EPA regulations. Photo by A. Watts

A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday abruptly halted President Obama’s controversial new power plant regulations, dealing a blow to the administration’s sweeping plan to address global warming.

In a 5-4 decision, the court halted enforcement of the plan until after legal challenges are resolved.

The surprising move is a victory for the coalition of 27 mostly Republican-led states and industry opponents that call the regulations “an unprecedented power grab.”

By temporarily freezing the rule the high court’s order signals that opponents have made a strong argument against the plan. A federal appeals court last month refused to put it on hold.

The court’s four liberal justices said they would have denied the request.

The plan aims to stave off the worst predicted…

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C.S. Lewis understood the Left very well, indeed

It’s hard to find a better description of  one of the key characteristics of the Left –from mild progressive to hard-core communist– than this:

In other words, the Left believes it has figured out History, is certain that it flows in just one direction and where it ends, and that they themselves are the ones best able to facilitate this. Whether you want it or not.

Or, as I like to say, “God save me from those who want to save me.”

Via someone on Twitter, can’t recall who. 

Man, I wish I had bought firearms stocks in 2007

“America’s Number One Gun Salesman”

Because Obama would have made me a millionaire by now. Check this headline at PJMedia:

“Obama Urges Citizens to Stand Up Against the National Rifle Association”

It seems the Gun Salesman-in-Chief has come back from his vacation bound and determined to do by “executive action” (read: constitutionally questionable orders) what he cannot get through Congress: further restrictions on the natural right of Americans to keep and bear arms for self-defense. As usual with him and his allies, he set the NRA up as a straw-man:

In the address, Obama went on to urge citizens to stand up against the groups like the National Rifle Association, with which he has had a contentious relationship since entering office.

“The gun lobby is loud and well organized in its defense of effortlessly available guns for anyone,” he said. “The rest of us are going to have to be just as passionate and well organized in defense of our kids.”

Of course, Obama has had that “contentious relationship” because he continues to attack the very rights the NRA was established to protect. It would be noteworthy if the relationship were amicable.

Naturally, Obama left many things unsaid in his address. First, absolutely none of the terrible massacres that have taken place in recent years would have been prevented by anything Obama and the gun-control lobby are proposing. Not Sandy Hook, not Virginia Tech, not Charleston, and not San Bernardino. In the case of San Bernardino, the killers were Muslims waging jihad, one of whom was utterly missed by the Obama administration’s vaunted screening system as she entered the country. California’s notoriously strict gun laws did nothing to stop her and her husband from acquiring their weapons. More laws won’t stop the next mass murders, either.

But that really isn’t the point of what Obama and the gun-control lobby are trying to do, or, at least, “for the children” is more a political club with which to pound Second Amendment advocates than it is an actual goal. If it were a real goal, he’d mention the horrific homicide rate in Democrat-controlled Chicago, again with some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.

That, however, would be politically inconvenient.

What Obama and his allies really want is control and a monopoly on deadly force for the State. Push hard enough, and they’ll say that what they have in mind for “reasonable regulations” is “something like Australia.” And there’s your clue: Australia’s response to the massacre in Tasmania was confiscation of most firearms via a mandatory buyback program. That is what Obama wants.

To do so, he uses the tried and true tactic of his community-organizing training as developed by Saul Alinsky:

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

The target to “personalize” is the NRA — “The NRA keeps our kids in danger!” And though he hasn’t attacked individuals (yet), he has by extension smeared the membership of the NRA, American citizens one and all.

That’s what a community organizer does: organize one faction and set them against others to achieve his goals.

And that is apparently what the president of the United States plans to do over the next year.

To us.

 

So-Called Paycheck Fairness Was the Nuttiest Idea at the Democrats’ debate

Remember what Margaret Thatcher said; it applies to the Democrats: They would rather everyone were poorer, as long as the gap between rich and poor were narrower. We would rather *everyone* be richer, and the “gap” be damned. The difference is crucial and fundamental.

International Liberty

Normally I’m very happy to work for the Cato Institute, both because it is a principled and effective organization.

But I wondered about my career choices last night because I was stuck with the very unpleasant task of live-tweeting the Democrat presidential debate. Cleaning out septic tanks would have been a more enjoyable way to spend my time.

Of all the crazy things that were discussed (you can see my contemporaneous reactions on my Twitter feed), the Clinton-Sanders-O’Malley support for so-called Paycheck Fairness legislation would be at the top of my list.

Yes, I was irked by the myopic fixation on income inequality, the support for class-warfare taxation, and the reflexive advocacy for more government spending, but messing around with the price system – because of an assertion that women are paid 77 cents for every $1 received by men – is an entirely different level…

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Back To The Dark Ages: Top French Weatherman Fired Over Climate Change Book

Apparently in France, “liberty, equality, fraternity” does not include the liberty to question dominant opinions. Equality does include equal rights of conscience and intellect. And fraternity ends when you question established dogma. Belief in man-caused global warming isn’t science: it’s a cult that demand unquestioning obedience, or you will be punished.

Watts Up With That?

From: France 24, 1 November 2015 (h/t to The GWPF)
A popular weatherman announced Saturday evening he has been sacked by leading French news channel France Télévisions for publishing a book which accused top climate change experts of misleading the world about the threat of global warming.

Philippe Verdier, a household name in France for his daily weather reports on the France 2 channel, announced in an online video that he had received a letter of dismissal.

“My book ‘Climate Investigation’ was published one month ago. It got me banned from the air waves,” said the weatherman, who was put “on leave” from the TV station on October 12.

“I received this letter this morning and decided to open it in front of you because it concerns everybody- in the name of freedom of expression and freedom of information.”

His announcement comes four days after France Télévisions chief Delphine…

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San Francisco middle school principal disrupts student election for not being “diverse enough.”

Lena Van Haren, Educator and Elections Commissar

If California is leading the way toward the nation becoming a banana republic, then San Francisco is the drum major at the head of the parade. Case in point: the Everett Middle School there recently held elections for student government. Great! The kids learn public speaking skills, how to hold office, and participate in a democratic process. One small step in the creation of future good citizens.

Except in progressive San Francisco, where the principal of Everett withheld the election results because the outcome wasn’t racially diverse enough.

The results had been withheld immediately after the election because the principal felt that the winners weren’t diverse enough.

We’ve learned that the majority of the winners were white, despite the fact that the student body is 80% students of color.

The incident happened at Everett Middle School in San Francisco’s Mission District. The voting was held Oct. 10, but the principal sent an email to parents on Oct. 14 saying the results would not be released because the candidates that were elected as a whole do not represents the diversity that exists at the school.

The email went on to say they were thinking of ways to value the students who won, while increasing the diversity of the group.

In other words, the candidates all went out and campaigned, and the voters made their choices. That should be the end of it, right? Content of character, per Martin Luther King, mattering more than the color of one’s skin, right? The student body, 80% of which are “students of color,” freely chose a student government that’s majority White. But ethnicity shouldn’t matter, right? RIGHT??

Wrong answer, class. Just ask the principal:

According to Principal Lena Van Haren, Everett Middle School has a diverse student body. She said 80 percent of students are students of color and 20 percent are white, but the election results did not represent the entire study body.

In other words, democracy and personal preference be damned, it’s the color of skin that really matters. One cannot truly be represented, unless it’s by someone of the same genetic background. Just as the Founders intended, of course.

Some parents, unsurprisingly, were incensed:

Todd David, whose son, Noah, is an eighth-grader at the school, said the principal undermined the democratic process in the name of social justice.

“I think it sends an unfortunate message to students when you say that the people you elected, they’re not representative of you even though you’re the ones who chose them,” he said.

Yeah, such as “the will of the people is important only so long as it delivers results acceptable to progressive elites,” such as middle school principals and other victims of modern teacher-training programs.

More Van Haren wisdom:

“That is concerning to me because as principal I want to make sure all voices are heard from all backgrounds,” Van Haren told KTVU.

Call me hopelessly old-fashioned, but isn’t that what participating in an election does? Again, the minority-majority of the school apparently freely voted for the winners, who just happened to be White. The voters’ voices were heard. And those who didn’t vote expressed their voices, too: they didn’t care.

Message to the administration of Everett Middle School: San Francisco is part of California, and California is a state in the United States of America, not Venezuela. When election results happen, you announce the results and live with it. And you never, ever teach American children that they can be fairly represented only by their own “race.” Leave that racialist, tribalist garbage on the ash heap of history, where it belongs.

And, as for Principal Van Haren, I’m not going to call for her firing, but she definitely needs re-education in democratic politics, Civics, and the rule of law.