Jonah Goldberg: Liberals are Culture War Aggressors

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Photo Credit: Alex Wong, Getty Maybe someone can explain to me how, exactly, conservatives are the aggressors in the culture war? In the conventional narrative of American politics, conservatives are obsessed with social issues. They want to impose their values on everyone else. They want the government involved in your bedroom. Those mean right-wingers want to make “health care choices” for women.

Now consider last week’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to consider two cases stemming from Obamacare: Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius and Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores. Democratic politicians and their fans on social media went ballistic almost instantly. That’s hardly unusual these days. But what’s revealing is that the talking points are all wrong.

Suddenly, the government is the hero for getting deeply involved in the reproductive choices of nearly every American, whether you want the government involved or not. The bad guy is now your boss who, according to an outraged Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., would be free to keep you from everything from HIV treatment to vaccinating your children if Hobby Lobby has its way. Murray and the White House insist that every business should be compelled by law to protect its employees’ “right” to “contraception” that is “free.”

Birth control not a right

I put all three words in quotation marks because these are deeply contentious claims. For starters, the right to free birth control — or health care generally — is not one you’ll find in the Constitution. And even if you think it should be a right, that is hardly a settled issue in American life.

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Feinstein: Jihadists Will Stop Hating the West Only When they Achieve Shariah Law

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Photo Credit: APYesterday was a red letter day–or perhaps it should be called an Islamic green letter one–for U.S. intelligence. For the first time I can recall, the top legislator on a congressional oversight committee actually made clear what motivates our enemies in what used to be called euphemistically the “War on Terror,” and what Team Obama now dubs even more opaquely as the effort to “counter violent extremism.”

This breakthrough came in the course of a joint appearance on CNN’s State of the Union by the chairpersons of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), respectively. The media seized on the ostensibly big news from their remarks: bipartisan agreement that the United States is at greater risk of terrorist attack today than two years ago.

But important, ominous, and accurate as that assessment is, it was not the most important point made by these two respected lawmakers. Instead, it was Sen. Feinstein’s observation in response to a question about what causes the “hatred” that makes our situation more perilous:

There is a real displaced aggression in this very fundamentalist jihadist Islamic community, and that is that the West is responsible for everything that goes wrong and that the only thing that’s going to solve this is Islamic shariah law.

What makes this incontrovertible statement so noteworthy? It is the fact that the intelligence community is not allowed to say it. Under Obama administration guidelines, for intelligence officers–and for that matter, law enforcement, Homeland Security and military personnel–to talk about Islamic jihadism and shariah as the motivation for terrorism can be a career-ending offense.

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Rand Paul: Americans Trading Liberty for False Security (+video)

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Photo Credit: APIn the opening pages of Ray Bradbury’s famous novel Fahrenheit 451, protagonist Guy Montag asks: Wasn’t there a time when firemen used to put out fires? They laugh at him, rebuke him and say: Everybody knows firemen start fires.

Montag knew this. Montag’s father and his grandfather had been firemen. It had been his duty for many years to start fires. He knew it was his duty to burn books, but this day would be different.

Montag arrived on the scene to do his job but found a woman who wouldn’t leave. He complained that she had all of her books but still wouldn’t leave. Undeterred, Montag proceeds with the other firemen to douse her books—and her—with kerosene. The woman shouts out and goads them. She is indignant that they would touch her books at all, and she still wouldn’t leave. She says to them: “Play the man, Master Ridley; today we will light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, that it won’t be forgotten.”

They keep dousing her with kerosene and she says it again: “Play the man, Master Ridley. Today we will light such a candle.”

In the book, the reference is lost on the firemen who simply continue to do their job.

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Obama: “We’re Not Repealing it as Long as I’m President”

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Photo Credit: The Hill President Obama declared Tuesday that ObamaCare “is working” and that “we’re not going back,” as the White House looked to reboot its efforts to sell Americans on the president’s signature healthcare law.

Obama said that “poor execution” of the rollout of HealthCare.gov had “clouded” the benefits of the bill but said he would not allow technical glitches to undermine a program that was providing financial security for many Americans.

“If I’ve got to fight another three years to make sure this law works, that’s what we’ll do,” Obama said.

“We’re not repealing it as long as I’m president,” he added. “I want everybody to be clear about that. We’ll make it work.”

The president, flanked by supporters who had benefited from aspects of the law, vacillated between a defense of his much-criticized program and a sales pitch intended to highlight some of ObamaCare’s benefits for ordinary families.

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Video: Um, No, Obama Hasn’t Signed Up For ObamaCare Yet, but… He will, eventually…

Expert Testifies to Congress that Obama’s ‘Ignoring Laws’ Could Lead to Overthrow of Government (+video)

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Photo Credit: C-SpanDuring a congressional committee hearing about the constitutional limits imposed on the presidency and the implications of President Barack Obama’s disregard for implementing the Affordable Care Act as written, one expert testified that the consequences of the president’s behavior were potentially grave. He said that the precedent set by Obama could eventually lead to an armed revolt against the federal government.

On Tuesday, Michael Cannon, Cato Institute’s Director of Health Policy Studies, testified before a congressional committee about the dangers of the president’s legal behavior.

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Administration Struggles to Sign Up Young ‘Invincibles’ for ObamaCare

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Photo Credit: Mike SheltonPreliminary figures suggest the Obama administration is falling far short of its goal of signing up the young, healthy and uninsured for ObamaCare.

It’s a problem that could undermine the rollout of the law even more than the glitch-ridden website.

Experts say the health care program needs 40 percent of all enrollees to be between 18 and 34 years old — a prized demographic known in the industry as the “young invincibles.” They are considered young, healthy and relatively cheap to care for and are necessary to subsidize older and more expensive enrollees.

While the administration isn’t releasing numbers, of the six states that are keeping score, only 28 percent fit into the young and healthy demographic.

Fox News spoke with some Los Angeles residents in that age group, who said for them, buying health insurance just doesn’t make economic sense.

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Some NSA Opponents Want to ‘Nullify’ Surveillance With State Law (+video)

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Photo Credit: US News The National Security Agency has an Achilles heel, according to some anti-surveillance activists. The key vulnerability, according to members of the OffNow coalition of advocacy groups: The electronic spy agency’s reliance on local utilities.

The activists would like to turn off the water to the NSA’s $1.5 billion Utah Data Center in Bluffdale, Utah, and at other facilities around the country.

Dusting off the concept of “nullification,” which historically referred to state attempts to block federal law, the coalition plans to push state laws to prohibit local authorities from cooperating with the NSA.

Draft state-level legislation called the Fourth Amendment Protection Act would – in theory – forbid local governments from providing services to federal agencies that collect electronic data from Americans without a personalized warrant.

No Utah lawmaker has came forward to introduce the suggested legislation yet, but at least one legislator has committed to doing so, according to Mike Maharrey of the Tenth Amendment Center. He declined to identify the lawmaker before the bill is introduced.

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Train Engineer ‘Was Nodding Off and Caught Himself Too Late,’ Union Rep Says (+video)

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Photo Credit: CNN The engineer who was involved in Sunday’s New York train derailment apparently “was nodding off and caught himself too late” before the accident that killed four people and injured 67 others, a union representative who has been meeting with the man told CNN on Tuesday.

Anthony Bottalico, the union representative, said engineer William Rockefeller Jr. recognizes his responsibility in the incident.

“I think most people are leaning towards human error,” Bottalico said.

Rockefeller’s lawyer, Jeffrey Chartier, characterized what happened as “highway hypnosis.” He said his client had had a full night’s sleep before the crash, and that Rockefeller had no disciplinary record.

In a brief conversation with investigators, Rockefeller said that moments before the derailment of the Hudson Line train in the Bronx he was “going along and I’m in a daze. I don’t know what happened,” according to a law enforcement official familiar with that conversation.

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Report: Kansas City Middle School Prohibited Students from Posting ‘See You at the Pole’ Fliers

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Photo Credit: Tim Pearce, Los Gatos/flickrAn Arizona group has filed a federal lawsuit accusing a suburban Kansas City middle school of violating a student’s First Amendment rights by prohibiting the student from handing out fliers promoting a prayer event.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian group based in Scottsdale, Arizona, that advocates for religious rights, contends a counselor at Robert E. Clark Middle School in Bonner Springs violated the student’s rights to free speech and equal protection by refusing to allow the student to post fliers promoting the Sept. 25 “See You at the Pole” event, a national event in which teens pray around their school flagpoles.

The group contends in the lawsuit filed Nov. 26 in federal court in Kansas City, Kansas, that the counselor told the student the fliers, which contained Bible verses, could not be posted or distributed at school because of their religious content. The ADF, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the student identified only as “K.R.,” also said the district has a policy banning distribution of religious materials on school grounds but allows other types of materials to be posted and distributed.

“This denial of K.R.’s religious materials, while permitting secular posters, flyers, and materials from other students, constitutes viewpoint discrimination, which is unconstitutional in any type of form,” the lawsuit said.

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Restaurant Union Serving up Protests for Higher Wages

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Photo Credit: watchdog.orgThe Restaurant Opportunities Center, a union front and ACORN knockoff, is extending its reach by working with other groups to stage protests in 100 cities Thursday.

In a push for a higher minimum wage and more union members, ROC is also hiring a national campaign director to shepherd the center’s multimillion-dollar budget, partially plumped by taxpayer dollars.

Though registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a nonpartisan nonprofit, ROC is closely aligned with the Democratic Party and Big Labor, notably the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO, said Mike Paranzino, spokesman for the group ROC Exposed.

With her insider credentials, ROC co-director Saru Jayaraman was at the White House in May to participate in an unannounced strategy session on raising the minimum wage.

Watchdog.org reported in August that ROC had a presence in a dozen cities. According to the center’s job posting, its new campaign director will supervise “22-23 local organizations around the country.”

Building on earlier protests at fast-food restaurants, ROC and its fellow travelers vow to mount demonstrations in 100 cities Thursday. Among the targets: Washington, D.C. and Boston, whose city councils are considering minimum wage hikes.

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