9 Circuit Court Of Appeals: It’s A-OK For Schools To Restrict The American Flag So As Not To Offend

But of course. Can’t have legal American citizens waving and wearing the American flag and Offending Mexicans waving and wearing the Mexican flag on Cinco De Mayo, a mostly made up holiday celebrated in one tiny Mexican province, and only celebrated here in the U.S. in order to get drunk

(Daily Caller) It’s official: the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued an order declining a request for an en banc hearing in a case involving four students in at a California high school who were sent home for wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo.

The full slate of Ninth Circuit judges has thus agreed with a lower district court and with a trio of appellate judges that officials at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, Calif. could censor students who wanted to wear flag-emblazoned shirts.

The federal appeals court issued its denial of an en banc hearing on Sept. 17 — Constitution Day.

Most awesome! Denying the 1st Amendment on Constitution Day.

This issue goes back to May 2010, when several students wore American flag shirts, and the principal of the school told the students to either turn them inside out or go home because the shirts were “incendiary”. Nothing was said to any of the Mexican students flying the Mexican flag. The previous year, there was a verbal confrontation after a US flag was raised to counter the Mexican flag being flown. The 9th Circuit had ruled that it was OK to restrict the use of the American flag because of “potential violence”.

The practice of limiting one group’s free speech rights because that speech might cause another group to react violently is known as a “heckler’s veto.” It is understood by free speech enthusiasts to have a chilling effect on First Amendment rights.

Can’t have Mexican students offended, ya know.

(Fox News Latino) William Becker, a lawyer representing the students called Wednesday’s decision “outrageous” and said he’d likely take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“(We) will not allow the politically correct judiciary to insult our flag,” he wrote in his blog.

But, in his blog, Becker said wearing an American flag to school is a symbol of patriotism, not aggression.

“The American flag is not a symbol of racism or division,” Becker said. “It is the symbol of freedom and unity. Americans have fought and died to protect that flag, and now we are told to conceal it so we don’t offend Mexican aliens, some of whom entered this country illegally.”

He also notes in his blog

Judge O’Scannlain’s excoriated his fellow judges in a searing dissenting opinion, stating:
The freedom of speech guaranteed by our Constitution is in greatest peril when the government may suppress speech simply because it is unpopular. For that reason, it is a foundational tenet of First Amendment law that the government cannot silence a speaker because of how an audience might react to the speech. It is this bedrock principle—known as the heckler’s veto doctrine—that the panel overlooks, condoning the suppression of free speech by some students because other students might have reacted violently.

Yeah, but some people were Offended, so, restriction of speech is required. This is Liberal World.

Read: 9 Circuit Court Of Appeals: It’s A-OK For Schools To Restrict The American Flag So As Not To Offend »

Obamacare Final Enrollment Number: 7.3 Million

Which has Politico’s Jennifer Haberkorn jumping up and down while clapping her hands like a giddy schoolgirl in a 1960’s sitcom

7.3 million in Obamacare plans, beats CBO forecast

The administration’s announcement that 7.3 million people are now enrolled in health insurance plans on the Obamacare exchanges immediately ignited a new round of arguments about the success or failure of the health law.

The figure — which is the number who had signed up and paid as of mid-August — is a drop from the 8 million who had chosen plans but not necessarily paid by mid-April. But it’s much higher than the 6 million that the Congressional Budget Office forecast would be covered this year, a number that seemed unattainable when the botched launch of HealthCare.gov slowed signup to a crawl last October.

Of course, not mentioned is that the CBO’s original forecast was for 7 million signups. This still means that the number was beaten, but 1.3 million more has more impact in making Ocare look super wonderful than .3 million.

The figure is complex to unravel. The number came from the health insurers, who told the Obama administration every month how many people are covered by Affordable Care Act plans. A CMS official said Thursday that in prior monthly reports, the numbers varied widely, but recently stabilized.

It includes some of the 8 million who signed up in the regular season, minus those who didn’t pay or dropped out for some reason, such as deciding that they didn’t like the coverage or getting a new job with insurance. It also includes those who signed up in the “special enrollment” period because of changes in their job or family situation that affected their insurance coverage.

Interestingly

[Medicare Chief Marylin] Tavenner refused to break down the figures and other CMS officials said they couldn’t do so, either.

Sounds familiar. Team Obama trots out a number, but cannot back it up with actual figures.

The CBO is forecasting 13 million for this signup period. It will be interesting to see how high the premiums and deductibles go, as well as what effect there might be on corporate insurance policies, as in, how many keep them and how many dump them.

Of course, wasn’t the whole point of this venture to make sure that the 30-45 million without health insurance purchased insurance? And, if your deductible is an average of $5081, do you really have insurance, when you cannot afford to pay?

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Obamacare Final Enrollment Number: 7.3 Million »

If All You See…

…is the awesome public transportation mode called “subway”, which everyone should be forced to take, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is A View From The Beach, with a post on fear and loathing on Chesapeake Bay.

Read: If All You See… »

Say, What’s The Greenest Way To Get Drunk?

A deep, deep question over at Grist, where they’re continuing to attempt to ruin everything, as Ask Umbra attempts to answer this question

Q. Is beer or hard cider most environmentally friendly? Actually, scratch that – of ALL the alcoholic beverages, which is least taxing on the environment? Jake

Umbra: I periodically receive this question, or versions of it, from earnest tipplers all over the country. And also from all over my social events, where acquaintances tend to approach me after their third cocktail with a worried look on their faces. I usually begin with an examination of variables such as the carbon footprint of freight shipping versus pesticides used during farming versus energy intensiveness. That’s about when the acquaintance will make an excuse to leave, and funny, the host usually misplaces my invitation to her next party.

No, seriously. Periodically receives. People ask her all the time. This is what Warmists are concerned with.

Interestingly, there are some actual real environmental concerns discussed in the article, as well as others, such as water usage. But, of course, instead of considering a real environmental impact, this is all about the Hotcoldwetdry impact. Wankers.

Read: Say, What’s The Greenest Way To Get Drunk? »

Awesome: 3 Ways To Build Deep Public Support On Hotcoldwetdry

Warmists are Very Concerned over public support for Doing Something about “climate change” waning in recent years, and are hoping that Sunday’s climate change march in New York City will reinvigorate the movement. The UK Guardian’s Adam Corner offers 3 ways to rebuild that support, because, otherwise, we are doomed, despite almost 18 years of The Pause

This weekend marks a crucial turning point for climate change campaigning across the world. The People’s Climate March (expected to attract hundreds of thousands in New York, and smaller crowds in London and elsewhere) is the beginning of a journey that will end in Paris, December 2015, when UN negotiators have a chance to improve on the dismal outcomes of the now infamous Copenhagen talks five years ago.

Can’t wait to see the photos of all the trash they leave behind

But we have to learn from our mistakes, and ask what could be done differently this time. Here are three important ideas for re-inspiring public support – in the hope that the road to Paris has a happier ending than the long bus journey to Copenhagen:

1. Strike the right balance between ‘brightsiding’ and apocalypse

Scaring someone is certainly likely to attract their attention, but with an issue as intangible, distant and all-encompassing as climate change, it is also likely to leave them feeling unable or unwilling to take steps to reduce the threat they feel. It is much easier – as we can all attest – to ignore it.

Good luck with this. Especially since there will be tons of doom and gloom on display at the march, along with lots of apocalyptic prognostication about fossil fuels in between all the Warmists taking fossil fueled travel to get to and to leave NYC.

2. Redouble efforts to engage across the political spectrum

Like the NHS, or any other major, ongoing intervention by governments for the public good, regulating the world’s carbon emissions can only happen with support from across the political spectrum. But a fiery and deepening polarisation has gripped the Australian and American political systems on climate change. A recent poll of Westminster politicians found that among Conservatives – and only among Conservatives – sceptical views are still rife.

Shouting at Conservatives that they are wrong, irrational, or misguided is not going to help. Climate change is still seen as toxic and left-wing to many on the centre-right.

Again, good luck with this. Start with the notion about “ongoing intervention by governments for the public good“, which simply means more taxation and control of citizen’s lives by Government, more Progressive policies, and you can immediately expect the center and the right to say “no thanks!” Plus, let’s fact it, Leftists are nasty people. They are virtually incapable of being civil.

3. Nurture communities of conviction – this is not a problem to face as individuals

In his new book, Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains are Wired to Ignore Climate Change, my colleague George Marshall argues that our inability to grasp and respond to the issue of climate change is fundamentally related to the lack of social infrastructure for sharing, validating and strengthening our beliefs about this challenge.

Climate change is a dealt with almost exclusively in private. With barely any public or political discourse against which to calibrate our own views, we can easily come to convince ourselves that hardly anyone shares our positive views about climate change solutions, when in fact a majority does.

Say what? The issue is constantly on the front burner. Everything is blamed on “climate change”. It’s not private in the least. It should be, in terms of the believers practicing what they preach, which should have been the fourth way to build deep public support. Why in the heck should I believe what you’re selling when you seemingly do not believe strong enough to even make token changes in your own lives?

Lefties may like being sheep led by people who are deluding them, following the popular trends as pushed by their political masters, all without realizing the damage the Progressive policies will do to their own lives, but the rest of us are rational, thinking, and thoughtful, and refuse to become involved with this junk science escapade. The real data does not support the hysteria and doomy prognostication of Warmists, and, 100 years from now, people will be laughing over the idiocy of Warmists.

Meanwhile, another Guardian article has the headline Climate change is real. Want to live? It’s up to people like you. Nothing apocalyptic about that.

Read: Awesome: 3 Ways To Build Deep Public Support On Hotcoldwetdry »

Australia Stops ISIS Beheading Plots

Wasn’t ISIS supposed to simply be a localized Middle East problem?

(ABC News) Police said they thwarted a plot to carry out beheadings in Australia by supporters of the radical Islamic State group by detaining 15 people and raiding more than a dozen properties across Sydney on Thursday.

The raids involving 800 federal and state police officers — the largest in the country’s history — came in response to intelligence that an Islamic State group leader in the Middle East was calling on Australian supporters to kill, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said.

Abbott was asked about reports that the detainees were planning to behead a random person in Sydney.

“That’s the intelligence we received,” he told reporters. “The exhortations — quite direct exhortations — were coming from an Australian who is apparently quite senior in ISIL to networks of support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country.”

Several of the Islamists made an appearance in court, and we learn

Commonwealth prosecutor Michael Allnutt alleged the plan to commit the act was designed to “shock, horrify, and terrify” the community.

“I don’t think I’ve seen much worse,” he said. (snip)

While the claims remain unconfirmed, it’s understood the plot involved abducting a random Australian, execute them by beheading in a public place, possibly Martin Place in Sydney’s CBD, and film the act and post on social media.

The ABC reported suspects arrested in Brisbane had purchased machetes, balaclavas and military fatigues.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said today’s events reminded Australians “how close to home the threat of terrorism can be”.

The Australian government thinks there are at least 100 citizens actively supporting Islamic extremism and extremist groups. It may not seem like much, but what can one person do with a bomb or an illegal “assault rifle”? Gun grabbers here in the U.S. want to restrict everyone’s rights, and even confiscate weapons, every time a shooting occurs.

Meanwhile, we learn that a Yemeni born NY State resident, Mufid A. Elfgeeh, was arrested in May and “faces three counts of trying “to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization” (namely, ISIS), one count of attempting to kill officers and employees of the United States, two counts of having an unregistered firearm silencer and one for possessing guns or silencers “in furtherance of a crime of violence.”” Interestingly, the police seemed to understand his links to ISIS way back in early 2013, when they started their investigation. Why didn’t our president understand the danger?

Ed Morrissey notes This is one reason why the rise of a terrorist state is not just a local issue, or a regional issue. Terrorist states do not want to just be “left alone,” but will spread their terror and destruction until stopped. There is plenty of room for rational and legitimate debate on the most effective way to deal with ISIS and its genocidal army, but ignoring it or shrugging it off as a problem for the Arabs to solve won’t do anything but make our options much more limited and much more costly when we finally do deal with the problem.

The Jawa Report notes the French busting an ISIS recruiting ring.

ISIS has also released a new video threatening attacks on the US

Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has released a new video warning the United States that ISIS fighters are ready and waiting if President Barack Obama sends troops, as his top general said may happen if the current strategy of airstrikes fails.

The slick, 52-second video entitled Flames of War shows militants blowing up tanks and images of wounded U.S. soldiers. It then shows a clip of Obama saying that combat troops will not be returning to Iraq, ending with a text overlay that reads “fighting has just begun.”

The House voted to authorize the use of force to aid Syrian rebels, 273-156, with 71 Republicans and 85 Democrats voting against. The Senate is supposed to vote on it today, probably after Harry Reid yammers at the Koch brothers for being on his lawn.

Read: Australia Stops ISIS Beheading Plots »

Belle Knox: Hey, Sex Kinda Ruined A Lot Of My Life

This is typically the domain of R.S. McCain, but, hey, I love pointing out that actions can have consequences. Here is a weepy article from the as usual moonbat site called Salon

“A lot of my life has been ruined because of sex”: Belle Knox opens up in a gripping new documentary

A five-part series about the “Duke porn star” offers a more nuanced look at the woman behind the media scandal

“Nuanced” or something. Gripping (double entendre?)!

But in a new documentary series from Condé Nast Entertainment, “Becoming Belle Knox,” those missing details of Weeks’ story are presented in full force. Many of Weeks’ early claims still pop up: She loves what she does, and she makes no apologies for joining the adult industry to pay her Duke tuition. But in the year since she started doing porn, Weeks admits, she has grown a great deal. ”I think my experiences have aged me,” she says in the documentary. “I don’t have the mind of an 18-year-old. I kind of have the mind and the emotional baggage of somebody much, much older than me.” (snip)

Spoiler alert: The five-part series is sad. Not because it presents a portrait of some poor, lost girl who has taken a wrong course trying to find her way, but because it shows in greater detail the burden that sexually empowered women — especially empowered sex workers — are forced to bear. At one point, Weeks says flatly, “A lot of shit in my life has been ruined because of sex.” It’s true, but only partly. A lot of shit in Weeks’ life has been ruined because of her enthusiastic participation in sex — and because of the cultural condemnation that accompanies it.

Read: Belle Knox: Hey, Sex Kinda Ruined A Lot Of My Life »

Minnesota’s Biggest Obamacare Insurer Drops Out Over Massive Costs

Most Obamacare exchanges are already rather limited in the number of insurance providers. Minnesota’s now has one less

(Daily Caller) The largest insurer with the lowest premium rates on Minnesota’s Obamacare exchange is dropping out because the government health-exchange is unsustainable, the company announced Tuesday.

PreferredOne Health Insurance told MNsure, the state-run exchange, Tuesday morning that it would not continue to offer its popular insurance plans on the marketplace in 2015. It’s “purely a business decision,” spokesman Steve Peterson told KSTP-TV. The company is losing money on administrative costs for plans offered on the bureaucratic and glitchy government exchange.

Part of the problem, according to PreferredOne, is that MNsure hasn’t even been able to verify its customers’ information. PreferredOne said that some of its customers have turned out not to even live in Minnesota.

Fifty nine percent of the signups were through PrefferredOne. There are four other companies, all of which are much more expensive.

The Lonely Conservative has more news on the super wonderful most awesome majesty that is Obamacare.

Read: Minnesota’s Biggest Obamacare Insurer Drops Out Over Massive Costs »

If All You See…

…is a rising sea destroying the works of Man, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Jawa Report, with a post noting that Islamaphobia causes Islamic terrorism.

Read: If All You See… »

Oops: New Duke Study Shows Contaminations From Wells, Not Fracking

Blunting the hysteria of anti-fracking forces

(Raleigh N&O) A group of Duke University scientists often accused of anti-fracking bias have published their most definitive research to date linking shale gas exploration with methane gas contamination of drinking water.

But their paper, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, exonerates fracking from the most serious environmental risks. The study blames the water contamination on leaky well shafts near the earth’s surface, not on the process of hydraulic fracturing itself, which takes place thousands of feet underground.

The distinction is critical because fracking foes base much of their opposition to natural gas drilling on the fear that fracturing shale rock poses an environmental danger. They worry that fracturing, or fracking, could cause toxic chemicals and radioactive elements to flow out through fissures and contaminate freshwater aquifers on which residents and farming operations depend.

The findings of the Duke researchers, based on 133 drinking water wells in Texas and Pennsylvania, corroborate claims by the energy industry that the fracturing process alone is not likely to imperil drinking water.

This in no way means that we shouldn’t be cautious and diligent in the push for fracking, nor give up looking at all the different energy methods. What it does show is that certain people have made outlandish accusations based on feelings rather than facts.

Obviously, Warmists/enviro-weenies are not taking this well, as shown by the hysteria in the article comments.

Read: Oops: New Duke Study Shows Contaminations From Wells, Not Fracking »

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