Federal appeals court: Saying “Jesus” during public prayer is unconstitutional Read more at the Washington Examiner:

 

Judge Paul Victor Niemeyer, a judicial conservative regarded as one of the smartest judges on the federal bench, wrote in a strong dissent: “Thus … the majority has dared to step in and regulate the language of prayer—the sacred dialogue between humankind and God. Such a decision treats prayer agnostically; reduces it to a civil nicety; … Most frightfully, it will require secular [authorities] to evaluate and parse particular religious prayers…”

This is yet another instance of a “heckler’s veto,” where one hypersensitive person in a crowd is offended, and makes the whole group conform to the heckler’s demands.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com

Freedom in the 50 States | Mercatus

Freedom in the 50 States | Mercatus: "Executive Summary
This study comprehensively ranks the American states on their public policies that affect individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres. It updates, expands, and improves upon our inaugural 2009 Freedom in the 50 States study. For this new edition, we have added more policy variables (such as bans on trans fats and the audio recording of police, Massachusetts’s individual health-insurance mandate, and mandated family leave), improved existing measures (such as those for fiscal policies, workers’ compensation regulations, and asset-forfeiture rules), and developed specific policy prescriptions for each of the 50 states based on our data and a survey of state policy experts. With a consistent time series, we are also able to discover for the first time which states have improved and worsened in regard to freedom recently."

Leave the Cannoli, Take the Kid . . . - By Julie Gunlock - The Corner - National Review Online

Leave the Cannoli, Take the Kid . . . - By Julie Gunlock - The Corner - National Review Online: "A new report out of Harvard, published in the latest edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, advocates removing dangerously obese children from their homes and putting them in foster care where ostensibly they will lose weight and begin to eat healthily."

Don't let Uncle Sam shoot Tony the Tiger | David Freddoso | Beltway Confidential | Washington Examiner

 

You have probably heard that the Obama administration wants Tony the Tiger to go the way of Joe Camel.

A special interagency working group, composed of several federal agencies, was commissioned by Congress in 2009 to perform a study of how food is marketed to children. It has instead released a set of "voluntary" guidelines for self-regulation in food advertising.

These guidelines hint, in not-so-subtle terms, that food companies must either change their recipes or stop advertising on shows watched by children, which are defined as those with audiences composed of just 20 or 30 percent children. Cereal manufacturers would also have to remove those cartoon mascots from all of their packaging.

Don't let Uncle Sam shoot Tony the Tiger | David Freddoso | Beltway Confidential | Washington Examiner

Exposing the Mindset of Modern Liberalism « Commentary Magazine

 

On ABC’s “This Week”, George Will was on a panel with Georgetown University’s Michael Eric Dyson, Harvard’s Jill Lepore, and Time magazine’s Richard Stengel, all of whom discussed Obamacare and the Constitution. 

In the course of the conversation, Will said this:

The question is, has the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce been so loosely construed that now Congress can do anything at all, that there is nothing it cannot do. Let me ask the three of you. Obviously, obesity and its costs affect interstate commerce. Does Congress have the constitutional power to require obese people to sign up for Weight Watchers? If not, why not?

The other panelists tried to duck Will’s question. To his credit, Will doesn’t allow them to be evasive. In pressing his point, Will elicits some remarkably illuminating answers. “I don’t know the answer to that,” Stengel admits. “It’s open,” according to Dyson.

Will did us the service of exposing the mindset of modern liberalism in the course of roughly two minutes. Two leading progressive are totally at sea when asked whether Congress has the constitutional power to require obese people to sign up for Weight Watchers.

Call it the Nanny State in a nutshell.

Exposing the Mindset of Modern Liberalism « Commentary Magazine