By Nathan Barton

Well, good morning again!  Friday is here, maybe… Lots of things to talk about.

Next up: The zombie Congress! Former Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who heads the conservative Heritage Foundation, is among those worried about House and Senate members who were defeated Tuesday or are retiring from office voting on critical budgetary and national security matters when Congress returns for a lame-duck session next week.  Yes, though he is a pretty worthless politician, I agree with him in this case:  the departing legislators (of either party) and their staffers are NOT adults: they will play the same game the Clintons and crew did when they had to flee the White House for the arrival of W.  I suspect that some would try and do a Gotterdammerung style system, not just with furnishings and offices but with laws and appointments and all the rest.  And unfortunately, McConnell is probably going to let them get away with it.

Ending Washington gridlock largely in Mitch McConnell’s hands now. Mitch McConnell built his ascent to Senate majority leader on voter anger over Washington gridlock that he helped foster while in the Republican minority against President Barack Obama. Now the Kentucky senator will need to convince Tea Party Republicans who thrived on that approach to join him in a new strategy that depends, in part, on making deals with Democrats and the White House. Except, of course, that ending the gridlock is NOT what voters had in mind, no matter what the Dems have been claiming this week: Pray that he does NOT convince the Tea Party movement to join him in his continued betrayal of liberty and freedom.

I am not going to argue with the headline of Freedom Outpost: What is going to change after the elections is WHO is going to screw you, not whether or not you are going to get screwed: Whether you are talking businesses, families, children, men, women, religious institutions, schools, or anything else – even local governments.  This goes along with my comments yesterday about how elections are worthless. But…

In fact, elections are DANGEROUS.  While various pro-gun “pro-liberty” groups (like the undead JPFO) are crowing about victories for self-defense and arms-bearing Americans, in this election, I think that it was marginal at best and will lead to more problems.  The main concern is in Washington State, which joins such tyrannies as Connecticut and Ohio and the United Kingdom in their attempt to give the state a monopoly of force:  there, we can thank the money spent by Bloomberg and his ilk, and the willing and enthusiastic cooperation of the mainstream media in passing one hoploclastic law and keeping an almost-freedom-supporting law from passing.  Now, I expect them to try and repeat the success in other places. Basic human rights should NOT be subject to popular vote any more than to the whims of a monarch or dictator.  How many times must we learn that lesson?

Lady Susan points out that, bad as the news usually is, there are still bright spots of human love and kindness even among the younger, often-contaminated generation, that can remind us of what the Fifty States once were. The story of two competitors giving up their goals to help a third is loving and sweet. The Scrooge-like attitude of the cross-country race event is disgusting.

Circuit Court of Appeals upholds same-sex “marriage” bans in 4 states. The decision by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, coupled with the Puerto Rico decision last week, almost surely means the Supreme Court must take up the issue of whether same-sex couples have a right to marry.  This is indeed what a lot of us have thought that the Nazgul were waiting for, after their refusal to hear the various cases at the beginning of their term in October.  Virtually all of the 33 states (or more) now “offering” same-sex “marriage” have been forced to do so by the courts, so those wanting to prevent this should not hold their breathes.  However, maybe it will lead either to a break-up of the Union (unlikely) or getting government out of the “marriage” business entirely (again unlikely but not totally impossible).

Oh, remember Ebola?  Yeah, that was last week’s scare and news fad, right?  Well, there are rumors of cover-ups, but also rumors that the threat is declining precipitously even in the core countries of the outbreak in West Africa.  I’ve been watching maps and numbers for the last couple of weeks, and it seems that people have stopped getting it, people are healing, and apparently no one is reporting any deaths from it for more than five days. But that isn’t stopping authorities, and not just in the US, from panicking. As in New York City. And Australia and Canada.  Meanwhile others are raising the specter of Lassa fever, as West Africa enters its normal season (although we must consider the source of the reporting). But each year, Lassa is reported to kill four times the number of people who have died so far in this current Ebola outbreak.  We need to remember, diseases kill: you can die from pneumonia and “regular” flu as well as Ebola or Lassa or SARS or mumps or whatever.