Now this from the LA Times - "Mardi Gras beads cause environmental hangover."   

Forcing contraception on Catholics is one thing; but for Pete's sake man, leave the beads alone. 

Ignore this at your peril.  For a view into a second Obama term, look no further than this Mardi Gras joy killer, right on the heels of the HHS determining that a lunch packed by a preschooler's mom did not meet HHS standards.  The lunch included a turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice.

Hemming us in on all sides requires an ever encroaching bureaucracy and the taxes necessary to fund it.  President Obama just delivered his fourth trillion-plus dollar budget, which coincides with the lowest level of adult labor force participation since 1983, at 63.7%.  In response to complaints of crowding out and suffocation by overregulation and taxation, the Obama administration has responded with the divisive class politics of demonizing business and "fair-sharing" the wealthy.

If the reader is tempted to believe the meddling intrusions of "good government" types have any real benefit, recall that it wasn't so long ago that we were forced to buy "water-saving" toilets that we now flush twice as much for the same result.  And, of course, we are on the cusp of being made to buy "environmentally safer" light bulbs that expose humans to toxic substances upon being broken.  Who decided humans weren't part of the environment?

Seen in this light, Bishop William Lori's "Parable of the Kosher Deli" was not only an accurate comment on the contraception edict, but also a prophecy of a second Obama term:

Once upon a time, a new law is proposed, so that any business that serves food must serve pork. There is a narrow exception for kosher catering halls attached to synagogues, since they serve mostly members of that synagogue, but kosher delicatessens are still subject to the mandate.

The Orthodox Jewish community-whose members run kosher delis and many other restaurants and grocers besides expresses its outrage at the new government mandate. And they are joined by others who have no problem eating pork-not just the many Jews who eat pork, but people of all faiths-because these others recognize the threat to the principle of religious liberty.

They recognize as well the practical impact of the damage to that principle. They know that, if the mandate stands, they might be the next ones forced-under threat of severe government sanction-to violate their most deeply held beliefs, especially their unpopular beliefs.

Meanwhile, those who support the mandate respond, "But pork is good for you. It is, after all, the other white meat." Other supporters add, "So many Jews eat pork, and those who don't should just get with the times." Still others say, "Those Orthodox are just trying to impose their beliefs on everyone else."

Convinced of their moral and intellectual superiority and of the righteousness of their cause, nothing is off limits for the President and his friends.  This is particularly true of their method, one that is wholly reliant on demonizing those who disagree.  Oppression will continue to come in the now familiar divisive Obama rhetoric, as always clothed in rights talk - revelers versus the environment, Catholics versus women, mothers versus their preschoolers, one versus the ninety-nine and kosher delis versus pork eaters.

The 2012 election is all about freedom.  If once re-elected, no one will be safe from the whim of the high priest of the enviro-religious, baby killing, plaintiff lawyer, spendaholic, food Nazi cult of know-betters.  Everyone can and will be an oppressed minority of some sort, whether Catholic, a pre-schooler's mom, a businessman, the jobless, a kosher deli man or a victim yet to be identified.  Undoubtedly, the more politically popular intrusions will come before the election, with unpopular intrusions of all sorts to be unleashed once Barack Obama is reelected.