Friday Free For All: Lord of the Flies Slapped Down by Federal Appeals Court

Image via Gateway Pundit

The big news out of Washington, today is very good news for freedom lovers, via AoSHQ: Obama’s Appointment To The NLRB Declared Unconstitutional:

You can read the entire decision here. The decision was unanimous.
Gabe’s analysis:

Short version: individuals, companies, and (unlikely, but possible) unions who don’t like any of the NLRB actions after the “recess” appointments can win lawsuits if the NLRB tries to enforce its decrees.Also, Cordray is likely to face a similar challenge.

Since the judges ruled that the appointments are illegal, the board no longer has a quorum to operate.

Flashback via The Right Scoop: Levin rips Obama, says those affected should sue to challenge ‘recess’ authority:

Levin tears into Obama’s statement from today where he said that he wouldn’t let a minority in the Senate stop him from getting his appointments, saying that the road to a dictatorship is paved with poisonousness language like this…

Levin later suggested to all those affected by the decisions of this new CFPB board and the NRLB, to sue them and challenge their authority because he says they are acting ultra vires…

Fred Wszolek, Townhall: The NLRB Makes the Case Against Itself:

The Board is currently operating with three members of the same political party without the constraint imposed by a former long-standing practice that required a Board of at least four members to issue a major decision. That practice, followed with rare exception since 1947, added credibility to major Board decisions because it assured participation in the decision of a member from the minority party. The practice was discontinued by current Chairman Mark Pearce and former Chairman Wilma Liebman in a 2010 decision in which they denied that the practice ever existed.

Also, one of the three NLRB members, Richard Griffin, is enmeshed in controversy over his former role as general counsel of the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE). According to Fox News, “[t]he rap sheet for members of the International Union of Operating Engineers reads like something out of ‘Goodfellas.’ Embezzlement. Wire fraud. Bribery. That’s just scratching the surface of crimes committed by the IUOE ranks.”

Griffin was recently named as a defendant in a federal racketeering lawsuit. According toThe Wall Street Journal, the complaint “describes a ‘scheme to defraud [the local] out of revenue, cost savings and membership,’ by means of kickbacks, bribery, violent threats and extortion. The suit names dozens of IUOE officials as defendants, and Mr. Griffin is highlighted in a section describing embezzlement and its subsequent hush-up.”

In sum, there are ample reasons for lawmakers in Washington to follow through on their rhetoric to pare down the size of government. Reducing the appropriation given an over-funded, out-of-control National Labor Relations Board is a logical place to start.

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Mediaite has the scoop of the century: Reporter On Obama’s ‘Amateurish’ Press Corps: ‘When They’re Near Him, They Lose Their Minds’:

Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings, author of the BuzzFeed special book on the 2012 campaign Panic 2012, joined Martin Bashir on Thursday where he revealed that journalists who covered President Barack Obama during the campaign were sometimes so overcome by his presence that they would “lose their minds” and behave in “juvenile” and “amateurish” ways. Among other anecdotes, Hastings admitted that he once had the opportunity to ask the president hard questions, but was so similarly moved by his presence that he only asked “soft” questions.

You don’t say? I guess the cat is out of the bag about the media’s slobbering love affair with this President, now eh?

John Nolte: Be Afraid: Media Will Never Hold Obama Accountable for Anything:

Over the last twenty years, I have watched the American media closely, and in doing so become aware of patterns in the media’s behavior. While the media have always been biased against the GOP and in favor of Leftists, there were still certain things you could count on.

For instance, whether you were Republican or Democrat, you would always pay a heavy price for lying to the media. Also, once a Democrat was safely elected, the media weren’t afraid to give that particular pol grief, should events warrant.

Bill Clinton is a perfect example. After he was safely settled into the early part of his first term, the media dug into Whitewater and Hillary’s extraordinary overnight success in cattle futures. After Clinton was safely reelected, and once Drudge let the cat out of the bag, the media beat Clinton up over his affair with Monica Lewinsky … at least until impeachment became a possibility.

My point is that, once upon a time, the media were still biased and unwilling to damage a Democrats’ electoral chances, but at least under certain circumstances we could expect Democrats to be held accountable for wrongdoing.

No more.

We really must find a way to go over their heads, Ace argued, yesterday:

And I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m truly alarmed about it: What we are witnessing is the full and seamless fusion of media power with government power.

The media used to hide it a bit, in their actions; they would temper their scorn of conservatism, throw them a bone now and again just to prove they were capable of such a thing.

No longer. The media no longer hides it in their actions. They are fully fused with the Obama Administration and DNC. The only way in which they do hide it is by simply lying when confronted about it: They’ll issue a snide denial, then go about doing precisely what it is they were accused of doing.

This is dangerous and unhealthy. I keep banging this drum but honestly, some patriotic billionaires do have to band together to purchase or build a media outlet. The outlet would be founded upon a simple premise: that it is dangerous and ultimately fatal for democracy for media power to fuse with government power, that the adversarial press is vital.

Fox alone isn’t enough. For one thing, any venture needs competition; Fox doesn’t really have competition, not for the audience it’s targeting.

For another thing, frankly, look: Fox is often pitched too low to do any good with any but the already-alarmed. (Which I consider to be possibly a function of a lack of competition.)

The media considers its adversarial function to consist of serving as adversaries to critics of Obama and the Democrats; thus Terry Moran shaming himself by rushing out to ask what right a Senator has to question the Secretary of State on matters of foreign policy.

They do not consider themselves required to exert any adversarial pressure on governmental power itself (at least not so long as it is held by socialist Democrats; why sure, they’ll rough up John Boehner!).

This is dark, and dangerous, and will lead to horrors. It always has lead to horrors before.

We’ve been having this same discussion at my house. Conservatives everywhere need to focus on this problem, because make no mistake. A President presiding over of the worst economy since the Depression would never have been reelected without the MSM running interference for him.

Some argue that conservatives need to get better at “messaging”.

Rusty Weiss shared his ideas at Freedomworks: Low-Information Voters, Low-Information Politicians:

It’s the messaging, stupid.

Much has been made since the past election cycle regarding the GOP’s inability to reach out to voters.  While doing so, many are focusing on the voter themselves, or as Rush Limbaugh refers to them – the low-information voter.

Time Magazine editor, Richard Stengel, explained that his magazine’s choice of Barack Obama as ‘Person of the Year’ stemmed from his ability to get people that “aren’t interested in politics” to like him.  Or as Limbaugh explained, he is the first politician capable of garnering votes from people “who don’t care about anything and who aren’t paying attention”.

But can we really place blame on the low-information voter’s lack of desire in engaging in complex policy discussions, or should we be focusing on the precision effectiveness of the messenger – the low-information politician?

The low-information politician presents a two-headed problem for Republicans.

First, their mass appeal to the low-information voter translates to an uncanny effectiveness for Democrats at the ballot.  The left runs on policies and platforms lacking in substance, but overrun with sound bites and clichés.  Every single political issue is broken down into a three or four word clip that can easily be digested by a populace which now sports an average attention span of 8 seconds.

Keep reading…

William L. Gensert of the American Thinker also says: It’s the Message, Morons

Look… it’s the message, morons — at some point, the opposition has to stop being cowed by Barack and his minions and stand up and tell the president:

“You lie.”

It doesn’t matter what the press says, controlling the narrative is about aggression. See Chris Christie — he is immensely popular, despite being the one Republican most responsible for 4 more years of Barack, with his unabashedly effeminate prancing arm in arm with Obama during Sandy.

Or… look at Barack; he doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks.

Barack Obama must be opposed, vocally and vociferously on all fronts — confronted and ridiculed, just as he does to his opposition, just as Christie does.

It doesn’t matter what the media says — they have smeared their lipstick in service of Barack for a long time and will continue to do so — we will never win with them.

When we dare to stop caring how successful we look to people, caring people will dare to look at us as successful.

I heartily applauded Joe Wilson after his “you lie!” outburst. “It had to be said.”  My only regret was that he felt the need to apologize,  afterward. Calling a liar a liar  is nothing to be ashamed of – and this president’s gross dishonesty should be pointed out by our Republican leaders as often as it occurs.

The Joe Wilson of the 2012 campaign was Romney’s Press Secretary, Rick Gorka. After watching his boss get ambushed by a gaggle of Obama fanboys (aka reporters) at Pilsudski Square in Poland — just a hundred yards from where the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, he exploded:

“Kiss my ass; this is a holy site for the Polish people,” said aide Rick Gorka. “Show some respect.”

Gorka then told a reporter to “shove it.”

Gorka subsequently called a pair of reporters to apologize, saying he lost his cool.

Go watch the tape and tell me he wasn’t justified in reacting the way he did. No apology was necessary. We are not going to make friends with these people. They need to be defeated. You do that by being big and bombastic like Chris Christie – and being brutally honest like Rick Gorka and Joe Wilson. Not cowering in the corner and tailoring your messaging to  please the corrupt ObamaMedia.

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CNS News: Number Of Nation’s Sheriffs Refusing To Enforce Unconstitutional Gun Laws Snowballs:

From Florida to California, a growing number of the nation’s sheriffs are standing up to gun control measures proposed by both the administration and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

Many law enforcement officials have written letters to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden voicing their concerns over what they believe is an effort to infringe upon the Second Amendment.

In New Mexico, 30 of the state’s 33 county sheriffs have reminded state lawmakers that they are under oath to support the U.S. Constitution, and that includes the Second Amendment.

CNSNews.com previously reported that 28 of the 29 sheriff’s in Utah sent a letter to President Obama stating that they will not enforce any new gun laws they believe to be unconstitutional.

Keep reading…

Doug Ross: NEW YORKERS TO ANDREW CUOMO: Molon Labe:

It would appear that many New Yorkers — including some law enforcement officials — are prepared to tell Governor Andrew Cuomo and his merry band of Statists to stuff their unconstitutional gun ban.

After Democrats in New York rammed a sweeping assault on the right to keep and bear arms through the legislature that failed to exempt police officers from the draconian restrictions, gun owners and even some lawmakers are planning what has been dubbed potentially the largest act of civil disobedience in state history. According to news reports, gun rights activists are urging everyone to defy far-left Governor Andrew Cuomo’s new registration mandate while daring authorities to “come and take it.”…

…Preparations are already being made for mass resistance. “I’ve heard from hundreds of people that they’re prepared to defy the law, and that number will be magnified by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, when the registration deadline comes,’’ said President Brian Olesen with American Shooters Supply, among the biggest gun dealers in the state, in an interview with the New York Post.”

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Okay, this is what’s called a CLUE….Weasel Zippers: Communist Party USA Cheers On Obama’s Gun Grab…

Via New American:

It should come as no surprise that the Communist Party USA is on board with President Obama’s plan to attack Americans’ right to keep and bear arms as a means to “end gun violence.” A cardinal feature of communist regimes, like all dictatorships, is the prohibition of private ownership of arms, creating a monopoly of force in the hands of the State.

In a January 18 article, People’s World, an official publication of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), declared that “the ability to live free from the fear or threat of gun violence is a fundamental democratic right — one that far supercedes any so-called personal gun rights allegedly contained in the Second Amendment.”

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Weasel Zippers:  Obama Appoints Another White Man To His Inner Circle, Denis McDonough Tapped To Be Next Chief Of Staff…

Via US News:

Another day, another white man apparently heading for a promotion in President Obama’s inner circle.

This time it’s Denis McDonough, the current deputy national security adviser who is expected to be chosen by Obama as the new White House chief of staff.

Pay no attention to the guy’s skin color –  that’s a deflection of the real story, which is his involvement in Obama’s biggest scandal and cover-up:

FLASHBACK to June 2012:  Sipsey Street Exclusive: The Strategic Communicator. “Tough Guy” Denis McDonough, “Obama’s single most influential foreign policy adviser” and the Fast & Furious Cover-up.

As early as October 2009, officials in both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Drug Enforcement Administration objected through their respective chains of command about weapons smuggling and related confidential informant operations in the Republic of Mexico on the part of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including what the world has come to know as Operation Fast and Furious, according to previously reliable sources familiar with the intelligence operations of the United States.

Because of the refusal of the ATF and FBI at lower levels to allow “deconfliction” with the CIA and DEA, these complaints, according to the sources, were eventually forwarded to the National Security Council of the White House, including Kevin O’Reilly, a State Department employee seconded to the NSC,O’Reilly’s boss Dan Restrepo, then Director of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the NSC and Denis McDonough, then NSC’s head of Strategic Communication and since then promoted to the Deputy Director of the National Security Council. McDonough, described in one biographical sketch as a “tough guy” and “Obama’s single most influential foreign policy adviser,” is also a personal friend and “basketball buddy” of the President of the United States.

The result, said one source, “The word came back from NSC, ‘butt out.’”

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LifeNews: Hundreds of Thousands Gather for Record-Breaking March for Life:

More than 500,000 people are attending today’s March for Life in a massive attendance that could be well higher than that estimate and set records for the annual pro-life event challenging the mantra of unlimited abortion.

Typically held on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that allowed virtually unlimited abortions at any point in pregnancy for any reason, the march for Life typically sees anywhere from 250,000 to 500,000 people lining the streets towards the Supreme Court building.

Gay Patriot: Pro-Life and Pro-Gay – My Reflections on the March for Life;

I had the honor and privilege to be a part of this year’s March for Life today in Washington, DC.  GOProud organized a group and we were welcomed warmly, despite the frigid temperatures.

Despite the touch of Global Warming, the March was quite personally fulfilling to me.  I’m the one in the back, holding the sign, by the way. Sometimes life has moments that you aren’t expecting and today was one of them.  Please note Michael, the man in front of me in the yellow coat.  He sought out GOProud today because, “I had to be here today.”  I spent a lot of time listening to Michael today and I hope that my listening was as helpful to him as his story was to me.

Keep reading at the link…

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Michelle Malkin: Rotten to the Core: Obama’s War on Academic Standards (Part 1):

This year, I’ll be using my syndicated column and blog space to expose how progressive “reformers” — mal-formers — are corrupting our schools. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to provide you in-depth coverage of this vital issue that too often gets shunted off the daily political/partisan agenda. While the GOP tries to solve its ills with better software and communications consultants, the conservative movement — and America — face much larger problems. It doesn’t start with the “low-information voter.” It starts with the no-knowledge student. This is the first in an ongoing series on “Common Core,” the stealthy federal takeover of school curriculum and standards across the country. As longtime readers know, my own experience with this ongoing sabotage of academic excellence dates back to my early reporting on the Clinton-era “Goals 2000″ and “outcome-based” education and extends to my recent parental experience with “Everyday Math”.

The good news is that grass-roots education and parental groups, brave teachers, and professors are fighting back. See the resource list/links at the bottom of this column and stay tuned for much more.

Michelle Malkin: Rotten to the Core (Part 2): Readin’, Writin’ and Deconstructionism:

Here’s the next installment of my Rotten to the Core series. I’ll continue to post resource/background/activist links at the end of every post. See also the links below to my previous critiques of GOP-led national standards efforts and related posts on dumbed-down curriculum/Everyday Math.

There are many, many amazing grass-roots efforts in the states that have been gaining ground over the past three years and I hope to spotlight as many of them as possible. They’ve been in this fight a long time and their work is indispensable. It’s important to note that the Common Core cheerleaders’ claim that their agenda came from the bottom up is false. Flat-out false.

I’ll also be printing e-mails, feedback, critiques, and responses. Stay tuned, spread the word, get informed, and get active.

One way to get active: Attend one of the events being held during National School Choice Week starting January 27 – the first-ever nationwide, whistle-stop train tour in support of school choice.

The goal of this tour — along with the record-breaking 3,000 events being independently planned for National School Choice Week 2013 — is to demonstrate overwhelming support, and demand, for school choice…while shining a positive spotlight on the hundreds of organizations, thousands of schools, and millions of Americans working every day to increase access to great schools in our country.

The Whistle-Stop tour will stop in Kansas City at Union Station on the 28th.

Join us in the beautiful Great Hall at Union Station for a huge bash to celebrate National School Choice Week 2013. We’ll be celebrating the successes of public charter schools, online and digital learning, homeschooling and public school choice in the Show Me State. The party is free to attend, and includes appetizers and sodas. There will be a cash bar. Please RSVP to attend. Dress is casual.

We’re excited to welcome several special guests, including the following:

Emcee: James Shuls, Show Me Institute
Andrew Campanella, National School Choice Week
Virginia Walden-Ford- School Choice Activist
Lisa Keegan – Former AZ Superintendent
Joe Trippi – Fox News Analyst and Democratic Strategist
Vonnelle P. Middleton, Superintendent/C.E.O. Hope Academy Charter School
Douglas Thaman, Executive Director, Missouri Charter Public School Association
Emani Brown- Hogan Prep student
Dennis Cooper- Hogan Prep student
Student performance: Della Lamb Elementary Choir
Heidi Lynch and student Alex Lynch (Lawrence Virtual School)