Greenies go blah in the night.

The White House announced Friday that it is shelving a major planned EPA regulation that would have tightened smog standards, dealing a huge blow to environmentalists that had pushed the Obama administration to resist industry pressure to abandon the regulation.

A rare case of the O. admin reversing anti-jobs policy. Only a dozen more BIG ones to go.

Note O’s reasoning:

“I have continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover,” President Obama said in a statement.

Regs slow things down.  So reduce burdens to help econ recover.  One small step for the nation, very big one for O.

Uh-oh, here comes another pol who’s ABOVE POLITICS.

I must say, it looks as if the Big O. blinked. Go Boehner!

Dennis Byrne has found a new church.

I love it when Mark Brown (or any reporter-columnist) discovers his inner cynical self. What we need are more Diogenes and fewer Pangloss.

James Kilpatrick on why Martin Luther King did not deserve a national holiday:

These practical objections provide the least of the objections. Note that of the nine Federal holidays, only two honor specific individuals: George Washington and Christopher Columbus. We have no Federal holiday for such towering figures as Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln.

A decent sense of historical perspective should tell us that Martin Luther King, influential as he was in the field of civil rights, was no John Adams, no John Marshall, no Benjamin Franklin.[No National
Holiday For Dr. King, Miami Herald, August 30, 1983]

Another victory for affirmative action, I guess.

“Rage, rage, against the dying of the featherbed,” says Instapundit, commenting on Wisconsin unions’ ban on Republicans in their Labor Day parades.

Dylan T. has never been more aptly paraphrased. (See “featherbedding.”)

Don’t bet on it, says top man.

Not surprising: Pius X people hold contemporary church in deep suspicion. If it happened, it would be on their terms and would be a very interesting development.

Lost Oak Parker.

Clarence Thomas receives high praise from New Yorker writer:

[T]his year has . . . been, for him, a moment of triumph. In several of the most important areas of constitutional law, Thomas has emerged as an intellectual leader of the Supreme Court. Since the arrival of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., in 2005, and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., in 2006, the Court has moved to the right when it comes to the free-speech rights of corporations, the rights of gun owners, and, potentially, the powers of the federal government; in each of these areas, the majority has followed where Thomas has been leading for a decade or more. Rarely has a Supreme Court Justice enjoyed such broad or significant vindication.

The writer, Jeffrey Toobin, quotes NU law prof Steve Calabresi, a co-founder of the Federalist Society:

Of the nine Justices presently on the Court, he is the one whose opinions I enjoy reading the most, [says Calabresi]. They are very scholarly, with lots of historical sources, and his views are the most principled, even among the conservatives. He has staked out some bold positions, and then the Court has set out and moved in his direction.

What do you know?

(Thanks to News Alert)