Hump Day, October 27th

Many of my friends are looking to the mid-term election with the belief that with the Democrats loosing control of the House and/or Senate, the Obama Administrations move to the left will be stopped in its tracks. I am afraid I just do not think that will happen. I believe we will see the President continue to ignore the majority of the public and attempt to push his agenda through regulation instead of legislation. It is the ultimate end-run around Congress. Our government is now bursting at the seams with bureaucrats no one ever voted for. Now that Congress has passed Obamacare, and your health is officially a matter for the government to fret over, public health activists will take charge during what may amount to a two-year “lame duck” White House. Mr. Obama still has some slimy people in key positions in the Administration. One example is Cass Sunstein, an animal-rights-law activist serving as Obama’s “regulatory czar.” He’s a former Harvard law professor and co-author of a book called “Nudge.” In his job, Sunstein is capable of shaping literally thousands of regulatory outcomes. He’s a fan of “paternalistic libertarianism.” Sunstein doesn’t believe in necessarily forcing you to do anything. He just wants to change the “architecture” of choices in America so we’re all practically forced to do lots of things. In a 2007 Harvard speech, Sunstein argued in favor of entirely “eliminating current practices such as greyhound racing, cosmetic testing, and meat eating” in the name of animal rights. He also favors giving cats, dogs, cows, pigs, and chickens legal personhood in court. “Animals should be permitted to bring suit,” Sunstein says, “with human beings as their representatives.” Imagine pigs suing farmers to prevent their inclusion in a BLT. And say goodbye to that wished-for cancer cure, since every lab rat will have a lawyer on speed dial. The other half of Obama’s public health one-two punch is Thomas Frieden at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Before he was appointed to head the CDC, Frieden ran New York City’s Health Department , where he and Michael Bloomberg presided over an experimental nanny state. They banned trans fats. They tried to motivate people to drink water by taxing soft drinks. They pushed for limits on the amount of salt in everything New Yorkers eat. Thomas Frieden is now the federal government’s chief health officer. And the coming ObamaCare bureaucracy has a newfound interest in keeping us all in tip-top shape, even (especially!) when the proverbial “pursuit of happiness” leads us to take calculated risks with donuts, buttered popcorn, and high-octane soda pop. Then again, our national swing toward double-digit unemployment might make this entire discussion moot. Who can afford to eat these days? The president and first lady, of course, will continue extolling the virtues of the overpriced farmers’ market near the White House, but for those of us who don’t enjoy being led by the nose toward organic kale, what we eat remains our business. Wouldn’t it be nice if the government understood that?

An Idaho family that operates a roadside pumpkin stand is scared out of its gourd after a state tax collector showed up and tried to squash the business. The Lewiston Tribune reports the Idaho State Tax Commission has called for the closure of a family's pumpkin stand in Lewiston, a mill city along the Snake and Clearwater rivers. Dan and Kami Charais told the newspaper that a Tax Commission employee informed them the stand was in violation of laws and had to shut its doors. The couple says their 4- and 6-year-old children had been carving out a niche for themselves in the local jack-o-lantern market - to raise money for school sports, they say. A Tax Commission representative told the newspaper that even goods sold at roadside stands are taxable and that the stand did not have a proper permit.

Here is a fun clip -listen carefully to Harry Reid as he mentions that he has saved the US economy:

Live Long and Prosper...