Wednesday ~ The Front Page Cover

 The Front Page Cover 
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened"
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Featuring:
A threat to freedom of speech 
at the Supreme Court
George F. Will
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"Rise up together as one voice"
"Be careful where you stand"
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 Britain's Climate Change: Slashing Wind, Solar Subsidies  
Next Monday, many of the world's nations will meet in Paris to begin discussing ways to hamstring their economies to fight global warming. To sanitize loose lips-Joe Biden, the summit is a big deal. For the most part, governments want to cut back emissions severely, and the best way to do that is by making energy more expensive so people use less of it. Remember, Barack nObama promised his policies would cause electricity rates to "necessarily skyrocket." But leftists also primarily target  particular sources of electricity — namely coal and any other fossil fuel. Wind and solar are all the rage among ecofascists. So it's a somewhat humorous coincidence that just before the festivities kick off in Paris, leaders in London are slashing subsidies for wind and solar, favoring instead a push toward natural gas. The Washington Post is apoplectic: "[T]he decision to cut hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of support for renewable energy at home, with a planned 87 percent reduction in subsidies for solar power, threatens to undermine Britain’s international authority, while showing just how difficult it can be for a developed nation to break a centuries-long addiction to fossil fuels." Or perhaps it could be simple economics. We support an all-of-the-above approach to energy production so long as it's the free market doing it. If the economics of wind and solar require massive subsidies to even hope to compete with traditional energy sources — and they currently do — then basic economics is going to eventually rule the day.
          As a final note, it's worth mentioning that Britain's wind farms often do more damage than good. Just saying.  -The Patriot Post
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 Louisiana Goes Blue. Or Does It?  
Most reports suggest Louisiana Republicans suffered another blow this weekend. Not only did Governor Bobby Jindal recently end his presidential campaign, meaning his political talents won't be brought to the White House, but a conservative won't be filling his vacated seat. On Saturday, Republican Sen. David Vitter dropped the gubernatorial election to John Bel Edwards, a state Democrat lawmaker, by a 12-point margin — 56% to 44%. The sting hurts even more considering Vitter was long believed to be a shoo-in. Ultimately, however, a prostitution scandal from 2007 and a well-resonating message from Edwards derailed Vitter's chances.
          Which brings us to a few critical points. This wasn't, as some newspapers surmise, a "Republican loss" so much as it was a reflection on values. As Hot Air notes, "If you dropped [Edwards] anywhere else in the country he'd be a Republican." Indeed, The New York Times describes Edwards as "a Catholic social conservative from a family of rural law enforcement officers who graduated from West Point and served eight years of active duty in the Army." The Wall Street Journal similarly writes, "Mr. Edwards, a former Army Ranger, neutralized the usual GOP cultural advantages by opposing abortion and defending gun rights."
          We can think of a few worse candidates — like Senator Vitter. Commentator Erick Erickson points out, "Vitter was a terrible, terrible candidate. ... Republican primary voters want an actual conservative and at this point would rather go down fighting than sell out to candidates posing as Democrat-lite. Conservatives can win, but not with guys like Sen. David Vitter as their standard bearer." Most importantly, he adds, "[R]unning against Barack nObama with nothing to offer has to be done with good candidates, not men accused of paying for prostitutes' abortions."
          That's not to say Edwards is a bona fide conservative leader. The Journal notes that Edwards "was a favorite of teachers unions and the plaintiffs bar, and we'll see if he now does their bidding to roll back school choice and block much-needed tort reform." That said, Republicans demonstrated their frustration with establishment incumbents and voters chose someone they believe to be the most qualified leader, regardless of that candidate's party affiliation.  -The Patriot Post
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 Princeton Ousts Woodrow Wilson  
Yet another student protest, yet another racist thrown under the bus. Except this one actually was racist — he just also happened to be a Democrat president and a father of the "progressive" movement. "The Black Justice League at Princeton had demanded that the president acknowledge the racist legacy of Woodrow Wilson and remove his name from buildings on campus, mandate 'cultural competency' courses for all faculty and staff, and provide cultural space for black students on campus," The Washington Post reports. "President Christopher Eisgruber immediately agreed to the idea of a cultural space Wednesday night, but declined to sign the demands and promised to continue talking with students about the other ideas."
          Wilson believed in a malleable Constitution and a virtually all-powerful executive. In fact, he was in many ways the originator of the elite administrative state in which know-it-all bureaucrats make thousands of decisions that solve problems in wreak havoc on our lives. He was also quite a racist. But as David Harsanyi writes, "Like most progressives of his era, Wilson wasn't merely a common racist, he embraced the pseudo-scientific eugenics that would haunt millions. After his election, he didn't only say terrible things — 'There are no government positions for Negroes in the South. A Negro's place in the corn field' — he institutionalized racism in the federal government, segregating the civil service in 1913. He personally fired 15 out of 17 black supervisors appointed to federal jobs, while his postmaster general and Treasury secretary segregated their departments. He's the only president that I know of who's ever celebrated the Ku Klux Klan in the White House."
          But you know something? We'll bet these same student protesters are big fans of Planned Parenthood, which was founded by a eugenicist by the name of Margaret Sanger. Heck, Planned Parenthood still gives out media awards with her name on them. She and Wilson were peas in a pod on the issue, but you won't hear that at Princeton.  -The Patriot Post
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 Clinton: GOP should 'just get out of the way'  
{CURT MILLS} ~ Hilly Clinton, who listed "Republicans" as her enemy in the first Democratic debate, wasted no time laying into her longtime foil at Saturday's North Charleston, S.C., "Jamboree."... Referring to Republicans' repeated attempts to repeal nObamacare in Congress, Clinton said, "Honestly, I don't know why they do this. They're driven by political ideology, not by taking care of people." "I want to build on, and make improvements in the Affordable Care Act and I will stand against any Republican effort to repeal it," Clinton said, highlighting a recent campaign tact of wholeheartedly embracing and highlighting President nObama's signature, but most controversial, legislative achievement. She is way way out of touch with what is happening to nObamacare. Its going to fail on its own.       http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/clinton-gop-should-just-get-out-of-the-way/article/2576916
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 Bill Rape Accuser Blasts ‘Evil’ Hilly: ‘Shame on you!’  
{breitbart.com} ~ In one of her first media appearances in nearly a decade, Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who famously accused Bill Clinton of rape... is now speaking out against Hilly Clinton’s candidacy for president. “Shame on you, Hilly, that’s disgusting,” Broaddrick said of Clinton’s attempt to run for high office in part on women’s issues. “Shame on you, Hilly. It’s time to be truthful,” she added. During the exchange with Klein, the notoriously media-shy Broaddrick accused Clinton of complacency in covering up her husband’s alleged sexual crimes and indiscretions. “I think she has always known everything about him. I think they have this evil compact between the two of them that they each know what the other does and overlook it. And go right on. And cover one for the other,” she said.      http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/22/exclusive-bill-rape-accuser-blasts-evil-hillary-shame-on-you/?AID=7236
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 U.S., Australia On EA-18G Growler Communications-Jamming System 
{Megan Eckstein} ~ The Navy is working with the Australian Department of Defense to improve a component of the EA-18G Growler avionics suite to help locate and jam enemy communications... Under the “AN/ALQ-227/Communications Countermeasures Set Low-Band Geolocation Capability Project Arrangement,” the U.S. and Australia will spend about $8 million each – plus non-monetary contributions such as experts, lab space and test ranges – to develop this particular capability, according to a two-page report sent to Congress in late October. This research project falls under a 2007 memorandum of understanding between the U.S and Australian defense departments, a 20-year agreement that paves the way for maritime research, development, test, evaluation and prototyping efforts. http://news.usni.org/2015/11/20/u-s-australia-cooperating-on-ea-18g-growler-communications-jamming-system-upgrade?utm_source=USNI+News&utm_campaign=37303d0e42-USNI_NEWS_DAILY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0dd4a1450b-37303d0e42-231491269&mc_cid=37303d0e42&mc_eid=3999f18767
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 Iran's Elite Forces Enduring Rising Casualties in Syrian Offensive   {investigativeproject.org} ~ Fearing the overthrow of Bashaar Al-Assad's regime, an emboldened Islamic Republic of Iran has drastically increased its involvement in Syria... despite suffering heavy losses among its elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). That finding is detailed in a new report by Raz Zimmit of the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. Since the 2011 start of Syria's civil war, Iran has directed the military campaign to maintain the Assad regime's control over Damascus and strategic strongholds in the north. Until recently, Iran's presence in Syria resembled interventions in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen – involving several hundred advisors and thousands of Shi'ite fighters – including Hizballah – under the direction of the IRGC's Quds Force. However, Iran deployed 1,500-2,000 of its own troops to support Syria's northern military offensive launched in early October.
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 loose lips-Joe Biden Fills In, Lies Like nObama...  
{rickwells.us} ~ With Hussein nObama off in Malaysia busily demeaning the American people as reactionary bigots, the responsibility for delivering the weekly insult fell to his willing partner in crime, loose lips-Joe Biden... loose lips-Biden’s almost as good at lying straight-faced to the American people and doesn’t have the associated gag reaction that comes reflexively with the opening of Hussein nObama’s putrid facial orifice. It’s loose lips-Bidens’ job to convince us to abandon our natural instincts of self-preservation in the pursuit of a “higher, enlightened and totally idiotic” liberal ideal of coexistence with the authoritarian terrorist butchers and Islamists.       http://rickwells.us/archives/22664
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 Repubs and Dems Join to Criticize the nObama Foreign Policies  
{Onan Coca} ~ Over the weekend several high-ranking and influential Republicans and Democrats went on the important national media shows to criticize the nObama administration’s misguided foreign policy plans... Chris Christie told CNN’s Jake Tapper that nObama had “no credibility” when it came to ISIS. In fact, Christie said that nObama is “often wrong, never in doubt” on ISIS.
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The nObama team probably wasn’t surprised to get criticized by Christie, but they were likely blown away by the next attack they faced on CBS. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), appeared on CBS’ Face the Nation to chide the administration’s approach to fighting ISIS.
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 TSA is Not Doing Anything to Keep Us Safe  
{leanrightamerica.org} ~ For good reason, the national spotlight has turned once again to the dangers of Islamic terrorism. Why the spotlight ever went anywhere else might be a matter for some deliberation, but that’s a topic for another day... For now, it’s good to know that we are finally paying attention to what’s important: our greatest enemy. Unfortunately, just talking about it isn’t enough. It’s time to take hard action. And it’s especially time to stop lying to ourselves about the quality of our security precautions. The Transportation Security Agency, formed in the years after 9/11 as a way to prevent anything like that from ever happening again, is a complete waste of money. The billions we have spent on the agency should have improved security to some degree. Has it? Then why did an internal TSA drill show that – out of 70 attempts – 67 banned items found their way past the officials?
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 Congress Votes to Raid Fed’s Slush Fund to Pay for Highways  
{Bob Adelmann} ~ In its never-ending quest to spend money it doesn’t have, but not wanting to raise taxes, especially during the current election cycle... on Thursday, November 5 Congress passed a $325-billion, six-year transportation bill that is to be financed by selling off some of the country’s strategic petroleum reserves and raiding the Federal Reserve. In its editorial complaint about the bill, the Washington Post said that the bill “takes money out of one government pocket — the Fed — and puts it into another — the highway program.” The implication is that Congress should use “real” money, taken by force from the American taxpayer, whether he likes it or not, instead of using “paper” money created by the Fed out of nothing. It’s hardly a distinction. The Fed has, for the last 102 years, been a gigantic money printing press that has morphed — via “mission creep” — into the government’s largest and most invasive federal agency, with its actions affecting every financial transaction undertaken by every American every time he or she spends a dollar. Sold initially back in 1913 as the “lender of last resort” for banks that got themselves into trouble, the Fed has since the Great Depression become Congress’ “lender of first resort” when taxpayers refused to be mulcted further directly through tax increases.
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 ‘What the government calls extremism is simply being a good Muslim’ 
{themuslimissue.wordpress.com} ~ A group of British women have been exposed as ISIS sympathisers who are promoting extremist ideology in the UK and encouraging ‘impressionable young girls’ to travel to Syria... Their behaviour came to light following a 12-month undercover investigation which saw a team of Muslim reporters infiltrate the group’s inner circle. The three ISIS supporters are seen glorifying jihadis, telling young Muslim women that Britain is waging war against them and using racially abusive language to describe Jews and Israelis.
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 Gowdy Just Got Hit With A Lawsuit Over A ‘Serious Crime’  
{F. Peter Brown} ~ Bradley Podliska, a former staffer for the House Benghazi Select Committee headed by Trey Gowdy, accused Republicans on the committee in October of inappropriately targeting Hilly Clinton... Some Democrats pounced on the accusation to argue that the Benghazi committee needs to be shut down. Representative Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the committee, stated at the time: “It’s been clear that Secretary Clinton has been the true target of this investigation, and the Republican whistleblower who has come forward only provides further evidence of what has long been evident. It’s time to shut down the Benghazi select committee.” Now, Podliska is back again, suing the panel and Chairman Trey Gowdy for responding to Podliska’s accusations in a way which he alleges defamed his character. The committee was trying to get the truth from a liar, but still got more lies. And now we have another.
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A threat to freedom of speech 
at the Supreme Court
George F. Will
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     {washingtonpost.com} ~ Never has American freedom of speech been attacked so flagrantly, promiscuously and on so many fronts. The most egregious examples come from campuses and Congress. On campuses, censorship proliferates as political advocacy is confined to designated spaces. In Congress, 54 Democratic senators voted last year to amend the First Amendment to empower Congress to regulate the quantity, content and timing of political campaign speech.
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     There are, however, smaller, less visible and hence especially insidious abridgements of the right to make oneself heard. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will decide whether to hear such a case from Texas, where it is a crime for a retired veterinarian to share his advice with people seeking it.
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     Dr. Ron Hines, 72, of Brownsville, is a licensed veterinarian with a PhD in microbiology. He is physically disabled but eager to continue dispensing his healing wisdom worldwide, which he does using the Internet and telephone. He estimates that about 5 percent of those he speaks to are in Texas. He neither dispenses nor prescribes medications. But in 2005, the Texas legislature, with time on its hands and nothing better to do to perfect the state, criminalized such electronic veterinary advice.
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     Students of contemporary government will instantly understand that this was not done to protect pets, none of whom has complained about, or been reported injured by, people like Hines. Rather, the legislature acted to protect those veterinarians who were vocally peeved because potential customers were getting online advice that, even when not free, is acquired at less expense and more conveniently than that gained from visits to a veterinarian’s office.
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     This is rent-seeking, the use of public power to confer private benefits on one economic interest by handicapping another interest. Rent-seeking is what the political class rewards when it is not brooding about why people think the political class is disreputable.
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     Many veterinarians dispense advice on the Internet and on local radio and television programs; Hines is just a small part of a metastasizing menace. So the Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners, which has never received a complaint about Hines, has fined him and suspended his license in order to prevent him from piling up ill-gotten gains, which in his best year totaled $2,800.
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     It is Texas lore: When people wondered why a single Texas Ranger was sent to quell a riot, the ranger said laconically, there’s only one riot. Today, the Texas legislature in all its majesty is challenged by the wee but mighty Institute for Justice. It exists to quell lawless legislators, and it represents Hines.
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     A few kinds of speech — defamation, inciting violence, falsely shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater — are not protected by the First Amendment. But governments increasingly use their power of occupational licensure — the power to regulate entry into a profession — to justify regulating speech pertinent to the occupations. This has even included restricting interior decorating advice.
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     Various appellate courts have rendered conflicting decisions as to when — never, sometimes or always — occupational speech merits First Amendment scrutiny and protection. This is one of the few areas of First Amendment law on which the Supreme Court has not ruled. It has rendered decisions about speech in political campaigns and by students at various education levels, speech in signs, advertising, solicitations and video games. Even if the court remains reluctant to take notice of blatant rent-seeking through speech restrictions, the time is ripe for a clarifying ruling to give maximum protection to speech that, although related to licensed occupations, bears no demonstrable relation to a legitimate government interest in public health and safety. And the ruling should limit the latitude government has to evade First Amendment scrutiny by simply declaring that when it regulates occupational speech it is really regulating conduct.
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     Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision about whether to hear Hines’s case comes as occupational licensure is spreading. And as the use of the Internet and other technologies for the practice of various professions, especially telemedicine, is burgeoning. And as all sorts of speech are being restricted almost casually.
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     Chief Justice John Roberts, writing about race-based government actions (“a sordid business, this divvying us up by race”), has said: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Tuesday the court can begin saying that the way to stop the multiplying abridgements of freedom of speech is to stop them, large and small, beginning with the one preventing Hines from talking about pets.
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