The American Jingoist

Patriot’s Post

Chronicle

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The Foundation

“Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.” –Samuel Adams

The Demo-gogues

Former Rep. Eric Massa

Political bathhouse: “I was in the congressional gym, and I went into the showers which, by the way, I for the life of me can’t figure out why they took all the shower curtains off the shower stalls in the congressional shower. The last thing I want to look at is my fellow colleagues naked, but they don’t have shower curtains down in the gym, and I’m sitting there showering naked as a jaybird and here comes Rahm Emanuel not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest yelling at me because I wasn’t going to vote for the president’s budget. Do you know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man?” –former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY), who is accused of sexually harassing male staffers and resigned Monday

More accusations: “Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil’s spawn. He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive.” –Eric Massa

Changing the tune: “I wasn’t forced out. I forced myself out.” –Massa on Tuesday night

Non Compos Mentis: “[W]e have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), confirming that too much Botox can kill brain cells

Tell a lie often enough: “Health insurance reform is about jobs. This legislation alone will create 4 million jobs.” –Pelosi, repeating her lie from the summit

Changing the climate: “What we have to do is go on the offensive. [The science on climate change] has been maligned and misinterpreted, and we need to fight back… [P]eople [need to] stop being moved by these talk show [hosts] and start looking for the facts themselves.” –Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)

It’s all about jobs: “What we are talking about is a jobs bill. It is not a climate bill. It is a jobs bill, and it is a clean air bill. It is a national security, energy independence bill.” –John Kerry on cap-n-tax

“[E]very decision, every debate, no matter how important it is, with the same question: ‘What does this mean for the next election? What does it mean for your poll numbers? Is this good for the Democrats or good for the Republicans? Who won the news cycle?’ That’s just how Washington is. They can’t help it. They’re obsessed with the sport of politics.” –Barack Obama, who isn’t a bit different

“Today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good.” –Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (See the video.)

Editorial Exegesis

“The strange case of New York Democrat Eric Massa keeps getting stranger. Rep. Massa resigned last week under a cloud of ethics charges, but he now claims he was pushed out for opposing health care reform. Massa claims he’s being investigated by the House Ethics Committee on trumped-up charges that he sexually harassed a male aide. If true, it shows the White House and Congress are indeed being run the ‘Chicago Way’ — with bluster, threats and even physical intimidation. Wasn’t this administration supposed to be different? Let’s be clear: We don’t know for sure the White House did anything illegal. But if any of Massa’s claims is true, it speaks volumes about the thuggery of an administration desperately trying to pass its wildly unpopular health care bill. For his part, Massa says Obama aide Rahm Emanuel went ballistic when he dared to vote against ObamaCare last November. With health care hanging by a string, Emanuel and the House leadership bullied him into resigning last Wednesday, Massa now claims. ‘Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill,’ the one-term congressman told radio station WKPQ Sunday. ‘And this administration and this House leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill. And now they’ve gotten rid of me, and it will pass. You connect the dots.’ … White House and House Democratic leaders have all issued denials. So, for now, the political row has a ‘he said-she said’ quality. But if what Massa says is even partly true, and it certainly seems plausible, this is gangsta politics, Chicago-style — a case of political bullies making an example of someone to get others to fall into line. Al Capone would be proud.” –Investor’s Business Daily

Upright

“The more we come to rely on government, the fewer freedoms we will enjoy. Government will start dictating what we can own, eat and drive, how much of our money they will let us keep, how we run our businesses, how many — if any — guns we can own, and what we may and may not say. Oh, wait! They are already doing that. To preserve freedom we must fight for it.” –columnist Cal Thomas

“True rights, such as those in our Constitution, or those considered to be natural or human rights, exist simultaneously among people. That means exercise of a right by one person does not diminish those held by another.” –economist Walter E. Williams

“With their backs to the wall, Democratic leaders are preparing a complicated plan to pass their national health care bill. Standing in the way are Democrats who oppose the bill, whether on principle or out of fear that voting for a wildly unpopular measure will spell defeat for them in November. If you think House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is going to let them off easy, allowing them to kill the party’s top policy priority in more than a generation — well, that’s not gonna happen. Democrats who are considering voting against the bill are about to experience arm-twisting, threats, and pressure like they’ve never experienced.” –columnist Byron York

“In my entire career, I have never been as confounded as I am over President Obama and the Democratic leadership’s obsession with a piece of legislation that not one major national poll has shown to be popular. … So I have to ask, why are the president and the leaders of Congress willing to see their entire party and a multitude of other policy proposals go down in flames over something that the public can’t stand? … Folks, this is nothing more than a power grab. It’s an effort to take one of the most essential elements of every person’s life — their health — and put it under the control of government.” –columnist Matt Towery

“The president cannot show us he is looking out for our interests and our future by forcing a quick, partisan vote on an issue that will impact not only this time but generations to come. This is especially true since he was so adamant in his opposition to using this very parliamentary measure in governance during his campaign. And he cannot show us that he is listening when polls show that only 35-40 percent of Americans support this bill.” –radio talk-show host Michael Reagan

Dezinformatsia

Delusions from a parallel universe: “Campaign promises are about getting elected; once there, they are quickly forgotten. Courage is not a word you hear very often in discussions about politics. Not Barack Obama. Whether or not you support or even understand his health care plan — and the polls suggest that right now most Americans don’t — you must admit this: Obama is a man who does everything humanly possible to keep his promises. He promised health care reform, and he is risking his presidency to deliver it. If that’s not courage, what is?” –political commentator Susan Estrich (Try blind ideology.)

Oh no! “Now that we have finally arrived at the do-or-die moment for Obama’s signature issue, we face the alarming prospect that his presidency could be toast if he doesn’t make good on a year’s worth of false starts. And it won’t even be the opposition’s fault. If too many Democrats in the House defect, health care will be dead.” –New York Times columnist Frank Rich

Propaganda FAIL: “John Patrick Bedell, whom authorities identified as the gunman in the Pentagon shooting on Thursday, appears to have been a right-wing extremist with virulent antigovernment feelings.” –Christian Science Monitor staff writer Peter Grier (Oops, Bedell was a registered Democrat and an anti-Bush 9/11 “truther.”)

Rather racist: “One, part of the undertow in the coming election is going to be President Obama’s leadership. And the Republicans will make a case and a lot of independents will buy this argument. ‘Listen he just hasn’t been, look at the health care bill. It was his number one priority. It took him forever to get it through and he had to compromise it to death.’ And a version of, ‘Listen he’s a nice person, he’s very articulate’ — this is what’s been used against him — ‘but he couldn’t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.’” –HDNet’s Dan Rather trying to put words in Republicans’ mouths

Newspulper Headlines:

Now All We Have Left Is Change: “Closure of Hope Plant to Cost 50-60 Jobs” –Associated Press

We Blame Global Warming: “Obama Turns Up Heat for Health Care Overhaul Plan” –Associated Press

Wide Ends, Poor Hardest Hit: “Obesity Hits New York’s Poor Neighborhoods Hardest” –Reuters

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “Subprime Mortgage Crisis Hits Whorehouses” –Human Events

Bottom Stories of the Day: “Gore Still Hot on His Doomsday Rhetoric” –Boston Globe

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Village Idiots

You don’t say: “I have thus far failed, and our world has thus fair failed to respond adequately to this crisis.” –Algore on his efforts to educate the world about climate change

Unsolicited advice: “I understand you may be looking to replace Rahm Emanuel as your chief of staff. I would like to humbly offer myself, yours truly, as his replacement. I will come to D.C. and clean up the mess that’s been created around you. I will work for $1 a year. I will help the Dems on Capitol Hill find their spines and I will teach them how to nonviolently beat the Republicans to a pulp. And I will help you get done what the American people sent you there to do.” –from an open letter to BO from crockumentarian Michael Moore

Useful idiot: “Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it. … [T]ruly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.” –actor Sean Penn on his buddy Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan dictator (No wonder they get along so well!)

In need of remedial history: “Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as ‘yellow, slant-eyed dogs’ that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what’s going on today?” –actor Tom Hanks promoting his upcoming HBO miniseries “The Pacific”

Somehow not comforting: “Believe me, if we were charting this administration as a political exercise, the first thing we would have done would not have been a massive recovery act, stabilizing the banks and helping to keep the auto companies from collapsing. Those would not even be the first hundred things he would want to do.” –White House adviser David Axelrod

Short Cuts

“Nancy Pelosi, the speaker and leader of the San Francisco Democrats, says her members ‘are very excited about what comes next.’ For many of them, that’s ‘excited’ as in ‘hysterical.’” –Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

“So there was President Obama giving his bazillionth speech on health care, droning yet again that ‘now is the hour when we must seize the moment,’ the same moment he’s been seizing every day of the week for the past year, only this time his genius photo-op guys thought it would look good to have him surrounded by men in white coats.” –columnist Mark Steyn

“President Obama met with ten House Democrats opposed to the health care bill. He did all he could to get their votes. He promised to campaign for them in their districts and when that didn’t work, he threatened to campaign for them in their districts.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“These self-anointed intellectuals are people who think that those who believe in God and Jesus Christ, those who ‘cling to their guns and their religion,’ are a lower form of animal life, while they, themselves, have no problem whatever accepting Obama as a messiah and, in the past, deifying the likes of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Let’s face it, when you kneel in a church, you’re accepting that there is something greater and wiser than yourself in the universe. When, on the other hand, you kneel to a left-wing politician, you’re merely emulating Monica Lewinsky.” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

Brief

Monday, March 8, 2010

The Foundation

“No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.” –Alexander Hamilton

Liberty

“While American politicians and intellectuals have not reached the depths of tyrants such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler, they share a common vision. Tyrants denounce free markets and voluntary exchange. They are the chief supporters of reduced private property rights, reduced rights to profits, and they are anti-competition and pro-monopoly. They are pro-control and coercion, by the state. These Americans who run Washington, and their intellectual supporters, believe they have superior wisdom and greater intelligence than the masses. They believe they have been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Like any other tyrant, they have what they consider good reasons for restricting the freedom of others. A tyrant’s primary agenda calls for the elimination or attenuation of the market. Why? Markets imply voluntary exchange and tyrants do not trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. Therefore, they seek to replace the market with economic planning and regulation, which is little more than the forcible superseding of other people’s plans by the powerful elite. We Americans have forgotten founder Thomas Paine’s warning that ‘Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.’” –George Mason University economics professor Walter E. Williams

Insight

“Obviously there is no need of fighting to overcome this single tyrant, for he is automatically defeated if the country refuses consent to its own enslavement: it is not necessary to deprive him of anything, but simply to give him nothing; there is no need that the country make an effort to do anything for itself provided it does nothing against itself. It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit, or, rather, bring about, their own subjection, since by ceasing to submit they would put an end to their servitude. A people enslaves itself, cuts its own throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or, rather, apparently welcomes it.” –French judge, writer, political philosopher Etienne de la Boetie (1530-1563)

Re: The Left

“The abuse of federal political power to intervene in areas such as Americans’ private health care could exist only in a nation that no longer holds its leaders accountable to its constitution and that has governmental leadership that regards itself as above its people and its constitution. Sadly, I was listening to an interview the other day in which President Barack Obama described the U.S. Constitution as ‘an imperfect document … a document that reflects some deep flaws … (and) an enormous blind spot.’ He also said, ‘The Framers had that same blind spot.’ In so doing, the president established a rationale and justification for disregarding the Constitution. Even worse, he placed himself above the Constitution and those ‘blind Framers,’ who just couldn’t see the big picture as he does today. After all, he’s the constitutional scholar, and the Framers were just, well, the creators of the document!” –columnist Chuck Norris

The Gipper

“The path we will chart is not an easy one. It demands much of those chosen to govern, but also from those who did the choosing. And let there be no mistake about this: We have come to a crossroad, a time of decision and the path we follow turns away from any idea that government and those who serve it are omnipotent. It is a path impossible to follow unless we have faith in the collective wisdom and genius of the people. Along this path government will lead but not rule, listen but not lecture. It is the path of a Creative Society.” –Ronald Reagan

Opinion in Brief

“What was really going on at the [health care] summit was reflected in the persistent, obviously pre-arranged, transparently false theme among the Democrats that, hey, you know, we are not really that far apart, there is really a lot of agreement. That was meant to set the Republicans up so the Democrats could say afterward that the Republicans refused to support Obamacare simply for partisan, political reasons, or because they really were in the pocket of industry, and so the Democrats are justified in ramming it through without them, through reconciliation. That was the real point and goal of the summit. That didn’t work because the Republicans were surprisingly good in articulating their reasons for opposing the legislation, and those reasons resonated strongly with the American people. By giving the Republicans such a high profile forum to express these reasons and their far more common sense alternatives, the summit backfired into yet another disastrous loss for Obamacare.” –columnist Peter Ferrara

Culture

“Much, if not most, of health care depends on what individuals do in the way they live their own lives — including eating habits, alcohol intake, exercise, narcotics and homicide. A study some years ago found that Mormons live a decade longer than other Americans. But nobody believes that Mormons’ doctors are that much better than other doctors. When you don’t do a lot of things that shorten your life, you live longer. That is not rocket science. Americans tend to have higher rates of obesity, narcotics use and homicide than people in some other countries. And there is not much that doctors can do about that. If those who make international comparisons were serious, instead of clever, they would compare the things that medical science can have a great effect on — cancer survival rates, for example. Americans have some of the highest cancer survival rates in the world, and for some particular cancers, the highest. When you can get to see a doctor faster, and get treatments underway without waiting for months, while the cancer grows and spreads, you have a better chance of surviving. That, too, is not rocket science. But it is also something that you are not likely to see featured in most of the media, where people are promoting their own pet notions and agendas, instead of giving you the facts on which you can make up your own mind.” –economist Thomas Sowell

Political Futures

“America is, quite simply, a Center-Right country. Many have cited polling data showing that self-described conservatives outnumber liberals two to one. But that’s not nearly so telling as the fact that self-identified conservatives have outnumbered liberals in every year since 1968; when combined with self-proclaimed moderates, the country is enduringly 65 to 75 percent moderate-to-conservative. As president, Bill Clinton initially governed as if he’d won a more Left-leaning mandate than the voters intended. Clinton admitted in a 1995 interview with the then-columnist Ben Wattenberg that he’d gone astray philosophically. With the help of Machiavellian pollster Dick Morris, Clinton recalibrated to the center and saved his presidency. No surprise that [Obama Chief of Staff Rahm] Emanuel’s most politically formative years were spent as a Clinton strategist. Yet Obama has indicated that he never considered the Clinton model appropriate or appealing. He wants to be ‘transformative’ like Ronald Reagan. But such a transformation requires an electorate willing to be and capable of being transformed.” –columnist Jonah Goldberg

For the Record

“The deficit for last year was $1.4 trillion. The deficit rose as a share of the gross domestic product from 3.1 percent in 2008 to 9.9 percent in 2009, the highest deficit as a share of GDP since 1945. The projected deficit for the fiscal year that ends in September is another $1.3 trillion. So much for all that fiscal sanity blather from Team Obama in ‘08. How dishonest. … [Sen. Jim] Bunning pushed the stop button on the perpetual federal spending machine by holding up a $10 billion package to extend (yet again) unemployment benefits and keep cash flowing to the highway trust fund. Mirabile dictu, he insisted that the Congress should find the money to pay for this — for example, in unspent ’stimulus’ money — instead of just adding another multibillion-dollar layer to the deficit lasagna. Break out the smelling salts. The network nightly news crews tried to manufacture instant outrage, earning their reputation as the enablers of incessant and unrestrained deficit-building. … Bunning was right to say if the Congress can’t find any place in the federal budget to trim away a measly $10 billion, they won’t stop spending anywhere. But the media on this story aren’t really on the side of the taxpayers (and debt payers). They’re on the side of Team Obama and the debt builders. … Bunning [wasn't] proposing job cuts — or even spending cuts. He’s using a hold and demanding that legislators of both parties put up or shut up when they declare they’re for ‘pay as you go’ budgeting.” –columnist L. Brent Bozell

Reader Comments

“Mark Alexander’s ‘Second Amendment… was a great article. The comment on the Times article is correct. It does not expand the right, it validates it. The comment on the fall of the murder rate in DC is also very good. The fact that the murder rate has dropped has nothing to do with the right to bear arms. However, is sure shows that armed citizens have a direct effect on the murder rate.” –Jericho

“Mr. Alexander’s commentary on the Second Amendment and the upcoming Supreme Court case reflects a clarity of thought and adherence to constitutional precept that goes beyond anything I’ve ever read on the subject. Our right to keep and bear arms is a principal bellwether for our freedom. Abridgment of that right is like losing the canary in a mineshaft.” –Mike

“You guys must not be hearing. President Obama has never said anything about taking our guns away. Guns only kill people. Ask any law enforcement officer and they will tell you guns should be banned. From reading this website all I hear is hate. How about doing something constructive for a change. Do you want to see our President assasinated [sic]? That’s what guns are about.” –James

Editor’s Reply: Our readers have sufficiently taken James to task for his ignorance.

“You are wrong about Obama planning to jam health care down our throats. Those people standing behind Obama in the white coats are proctologists; you’ve got the point of entry wrong.” –morefandave

The Last Word

“Once the state swells to a certain size, the people available to fill the ever expanding number of government jobs will be statists — sometimes hard-core Marxist statists, sometimes social-engineering multiculti statists, sometimes fluffily ‘compassionate’ statists, but always statists. The short history of the postwar welfare state is that you don’t need a president-for-life if you’ve got a bureaucracy-for-life: The people can elect ‘conservatives,’ as the Germans have done and the British are about to do, and the left is mostly relaxed about it because, in all but exceptional cases (Thatcher), they fulfill the same function in the system as the first-year boys at wintry English boarding schools who for tuppence-ha’penny or some such would agree to go and warm the seat in the unheated lavatories until the prefects strolled in and took their rightful place. Republicans are good at keeping the seat warm. A big-time GOP consultant was on TV crowing that Republicans wanted the Dems to pass ObamaCare because it’s so unpopular it will guarantee a GOP sweep in November. Okay, then what? You’ll roll it back — like you’ve rolled back all those other unsustainable entitlements premised on cobwebbed actuarial tables from 80 years ago? Like you’ve undone the Department of Education and of Energy and all the other nickel ‘n’ dime novelties of even a universally reviled one-term loser like Jimmy Carter? Andrew McCarthy concluded a shrewd analysis of the political realities thus: ‘Health care is a loser for the Left only if the Right has the steel to undo it. The Left is banking on an absence of steel. Why is that a bad bet?’ Indeed.” –columnist Mark Steyn

Digest

Friday, March 5, 2010

The Foundation

“If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.” –Thomas Jefferson

Government & Politics

When Reconciliation Doesn’t Mean Getting Along

The Tel-O-Prompter of the United States

Reconciliation is still the buzzword on Capitol Hill as Democrat “leaders” Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi try to figure out how to ram ObamaCare down our throats. Not that they see it that way; as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer put it, “That’s not ramming something through with a majority. It is doing what democracy calls for.” Well, this isn’t a democracy, it’s a republic: and the Founders set it up that way for a reason.

Accompanied by his teleprompter, Barack Obama began a renewed push for a vote on the health care bill by Easter when he met a group of people wearing lab coats in the Rose Garden on Wednesday (and he accused Rep. Eric Cantor of using a “prop” by bringing the 2,400-page bill itself to last week’s health care summit). Obama claimed that “new and improved” legislation “incorporates the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans.” As we said Tuesday, however, the problem isn’t whether the bill is “bipartisan.” A few Republican ideas sprinkled in won’t fix it. The problem, at its core, is that a plan for Congress to take over one-sixth of the U.S. economy is unconstitutional.

In the face of all evidence, the teleprompter continued, “I don’t believe we should give government bureaucrats or insurance company bureaucrats more control over health care in America.” Huh? Giving government bureaucrats control over health care in America is precisely what Obama is proposing to do.

For all the talk about reconciliation in the Senate, the House vote may be the more important one. The Associated Press reports, “The House passed health overhaul legislation by a narrow 220-215 vote in November, but since then several Democrats have defected or left the House. To avoid a filibuster in the Senate that Democrats can’t defeat, Obama is now pushing the House to approve the Senate’s version of the bill, along with a package of changes to fix elements of the Senate bill that House Democrats don’t like, including a special Medicaid deal for Nebraska and a tax on high-value insurance plans that is opposed by organized labor.”

If Pelosi is able to strong-arm the Senate bill through the House with a bare majority, Senate reconciliation becomes moot. With three vacancies, Democrats need just 217 votes for passage, and there are a handful of Democrats who voted “no” in November who now say they’re undecided. On the other hand, 12 pro-life Democrats, led by Bart Stupak of Michigan, say they’re prepared to switch sides and scuttle ObamaCare if sufficient protections against abortion funding aren’t put in place. The Senate bill doesn’t meet their benchmark.

Never underestimate this president’s lack of shame, though — or his penchant for Chicago-style politics. For example, Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT) voted against ObamaCare in November, but he is now “undecided.” So on Wednesday, Obama nominated Jim’s brother Scott to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Offering jobs for playing the White House way is nothing new, and Scott Matheson is, to be fair, a well-credentialed nominee. However, even the appearance of selling judgeships for health care votes would give pause to a more honorable president.

As for leftist sentiment, perhaps MSNBC host Ed Schultz best summed it up this week, saying, “[S]mall government has never gotten anybody any health care.”

“The Republicans have a choice,” Schultz declared. “Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way. … We have people in need and they need to be helped.”

Memo to Ed: If government would get out of the way, those people might be able to help themselves, as our Founders intended. Democrats aren’t about to let that happen because it really isn’t about helping those in need.

Video of the Week

Barack Obama didn’t always think ramming through health care “reform” with reconciliation was a good idea. In fact, he once preached against it. See the video

This Week’s ‘Braying Jenny’ Award

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) recently explained what “bipartisanship” means, along with claiming Democrat camaraderie with the Tea Party:

The health care bill “can be bipartisan even though the votes might not be bipartisan. Because [Republicans] have made their imprint on this,” she said.

Meanwhile, she also claimed that Democrats “share some of the views of the Tea Partiers in terms of the role of special interests in Washington.” Good luck with that outreach, Nan.

News From the Swamp: Rangel’s Time Is Up

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) temporarily stepped down as Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee this week after being admonished in an ethics report for accepting corporation-financed trips to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008. Rangel laid down the gavel only after Republicans threatened to force a formal vote calling for his removal. It wasn’t the first time GOP House members have tried to get him to step aside for his numerous ethical lapses, but it was the first time that such a move had gained Democrat support.

After the report’s release late last week, Rangel initially refused to step down, claiming he had no knowledge that the trips were out of line. That’s a stretch. Nancy Pelosi noted in an interview that Rangel’s actions weren’t “something that jeopardized our country in any way.” Apparently she doesn’t think that ethically challenged and possibly illegal behavior by elected public officials is a harmful thing, at least not when Democrats do it. She had become Speaker in large part for her call to end the “culture of corruption” in Republican-controlled Washington. When it comes to extending that promise to her own party, her “principles” are checked at the door.

Rangel still believes that he will return to the chairmanship of Ways and Means, but his troubles are not over. He still faces ethics inquiries into unpaid taxes on vacation property, fundraising efforts, and his use of rent-stabilized apartments in his Harlem district for government purposes.

Bunning’s Rise and Fall

If Democrats pass a bill but then refuse to be bound by its conditions, was it ever really passed? Apparently, only one senator had the fortitude to say “yes.” Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) drew national media attention and bipartisan attacks from his colleagues this week by daring to call Democrats on their bluff of passing a pay-as-you-go (pay-go) policy — allegedly requiring that new discretionary spending be offset by spending cuts or tax increases — and then summarily ignoring it.

At issue was the 30-day extension of unemployment and health benefits — measures which will add $10 billion to the nearly $1.6 trillion federal deficit. For days, Bunning held up a vote on the measure, noting that Democrats need to live up to their pay-go promise. He even offered a solution (which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rejected) of using $10 billion of the $500-plus billion in unspent stimu-less funds to offset the measure.

Against the backdrop of our astronomical deficit, $10 billion is, sad to say, a drop in the bucket. But it’s not the first drop. Unfortunately, a deal reached Tuesday night convinced Bunning to let the $10 billion bill come to a vote, and it passed 78-19. Yet the process illustrates that — surprise! — Democrats don’t care a whit what they say about controlling spending. Until they’re held accountable, their votes will be as meaningless and empty as their promises.

New & Notable Legislation

On Thursday, the House passed a $35 billion “jobs” bill by a 217-201 vote. It combined the Senate’s $15 billion bill (passed last week) with $20 billion in federal highway programs, and Democrats reluctantly amended the measure to conform to pay-as-you-go budget rules. The U.S. economy shed another 36,000 jobs in February with headline unemployment holding steady at 9.7 percent. But no worries — federal government payroll increased by 7,000 jobs.

Reps. Mike Pence (R-IN) and Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) have proposed a constitutional amendment that would limit spending by the federal government. “With our nation facing a fiscal crisis, it is time to fundamentally change the way Washington spends the taxpayers’ money,” Pence said. The amendment would limit spending to one-fifth of U.S. economic output — the post-World War II average — unless two-thirds of each chamber of Congress determines otherwise, or waive the provision under a declaration of war.

Speaking of money, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) introduced legislation that would place Ronald Reagan on the $50 bill in honor of the Gipper’s 100th birthday next year. His image would replace that of President Ulysses S. Grant, the Union army’s general-in-chief whose administration was one of the most corrupt in our nation’s history. Naturally, many Democrats are opposed. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) cried, “There is no way. There’s absolutely no way. Our currency ought to be something that unites us.” We suppose Sherman has a point. Grant did “unify” the nation — by leading a marauding army through several of its states. He’s right up there with Gen. William T. Sherman in stirring feelings of “unity” down here in the South. Reagan, on the other hand, won two presidential elections by landslide, taking 44 and 49 states, respectively. He also rescued our economy and restored our nation’s dignity after the Carter years, and he led our nation to victory in the Cold War, freeing hundreds of millions of people from communist oppression without firing a single shot. Now that’s unity.

National Security

Patriot (Act) Games

With a magician’s sleight of hand, Democrats have managed to keep all eyes on the health care bill while diverting attention from their standard odious conduct. Last Thursday they quietly reauthorized The Patriot Act (officially, Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001), a law Left-o-crats publicly and loudly condemned during the Bush 43 administration. His Hope-&-Changeness signed the reauthorization bill after the House voted 315-97 to extend the measure.

Three primary sections of the Act remain, including court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on a suspect’s multiple phones; court-approved seizure of records and property in anti-terrorism operations; and surveillance operations conducted against a “lone wolf,” defined as a non-U.S. citizen engaged in terrorism whose link to a recognized terrorist group is not clearly established.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a prime mover in getting The Patriot Act reauthorized, said, “The Patriot Act is a bipartisan bill that has helped save countless lives by equipping our national security community with the tools it needs to keep America safe.” Sessions highlighted the Ft. Hood massacre and the attempted Christmas Day bombing as vivid reminders of the threat The Patriot Act was intended to counter, and he called for a full, long-term reauthorization of the law.

In their typical hypocritical fashion, Democrats managed to show their contempt for America’s front-line homeland security forces, targeting the Central Intelligence Agency by introducing a criminal measure into the bill that bans “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” Of course, “Degrading” isn’t defined and could mean virtually anything the Demo-gogues want it to. In any case, the provision levies a 15-year imprisonment term on any interrogator who violates it.

Also, “waterboarding” — the highly effective, if controversial, method of obtaining life-saving, time-critical information from terrorist detainees, is specifically proscribed (though not defined), independent of the fact that it is not “torture” under any reasonable interpretation of either international or U.S. law. That Democrats pushed to pass this legislation only now, even though the opportunity existed from the moment The Chosen One was sworn in, is an implicit admission that waterboarding was not illegal under U.S. law when used by the Bush administration. The Demos’ low-key approach betrays their need to keep another “inconvenient truth” under wraps.

Finally, House Democrats introduced a host of new restrictions in the reauthorization, as well. These include: “Exploiting the phobias of the individual,” whatever that phrase means; stress positions or threatened use of force to maintain stress positions; deprivation of food, water or sleep; use of military working dogs to intimidate (but not attack) the individual; exposure to “excessive cold” or “cramped confinement,” though neither of these terms is defined; “prolonged” isolation (no, “prolonged” isn’t defined, naturally); and “placing hoods or sacks over the head of the individual.”

Given the Demos’ newly inserted language, we’re surprised — and relieved, at least for the time being — that they didn’t mandate the “lawyering up” of detainees subject to The Patriot Act. As with the presumed-D.O.A. healthcare bill, however, we’ve learned not to count our blessings before they’re hatched, because when it comes to truly foolhardy schemes, the Democrats hatch only the best.

Civilian Trials on Trial

“President Obama’s advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City,” The Washington Post reports. The administration has taken considerable heat for Holder’s November announcement ever since and appears ready for a change of course.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) proposed legislation to prevent the administration from trying KSM and other terrorists in any American community. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has led a similar charge in the Senate, though as part of a compromise to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Naturally, the ACLU is on the terrorists’ side. “If this stunning reversal comes to pass, President Obama will deal a death blow to his own Justice Department, not to mention American values,” said ACLU attorney Anthony Romero.

According to the Post, “Privately, administration officials are bracing for the ire of disappointed liberals and even some government lawyers should the administration back away from promises to use civilian courts to adjudicate the cases of some of the 188 detainees who remain at Guantanamo.” Not disappointed government lawyers! Where will the madness end?

Last week, we noted that the Department of Justice employs as many as nine lawyers who previously worked defending terrorists. Thanks to Fox News, we now know who they are. Presumably, they’re the ones who would be disappointed.

Lockerbie Bomber Getting Better

While the Democrats push to socialize the American medical system, there is relevant news abroad. When the Scottish government released Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi — a.k.a. the Lockerbie bomber — last year, it was because he ostensibly had only three months to live. Megrahi blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. “But six months later,” reports London’s Daily Mail, “al-Megrahi is still living — and doing it in the lap of luxury.”

Though cancer had set in while he was under the British socialized health system, apparently, the treatment Megrahi has received since returning from Libya has put the cancer into remission. According to the Daily Mail, “the British cancer specialist who gave the three-month prognosis was forced to defend his prediction. He insisted that Megrahi remained gravely ill and was not expected to live much longer.”

That reminds us of another British comedy, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” in which a collector of dead bodies makes his rounds during The Plague, calling, “Bring out your dead.” A second man carries a supposedly dead elderly man to the cart, only to have the old man protest, “I’m not dead … I’m getting better.” After arguing over whether he’s really dead (“he will be soon, he’s very ill,” says the second man), they club the poor sap over the head and toss him onto the cart anyway. That’s pretty close to the way the British system actually works. The Lockerbie bomber, after continuing “treatment” under that system, should now be resting comfortably in a British morgue, not running around Scot free.

Business & Economy

GDP, Jobs and Blizzards

When the Commerce Department in January reported a 5.7 percent growth in GDP in the fourth quarter of 2009, Barack Obama crowed that the news “affirms our progress and the swift and aggressive actions that made it possible.” He may wish to retract that statement.

According to the Associated Press, while the economy actually showed a 5.9 percent growth rate, it isn’t expected to last. The National Association for Business Economics forecasts a 3 percent growth rate or similar in the first three quarters of 2010, and PNC Financial Services Group Chief Economist Stuart Hoffman labeled the recent spike “a one-hit wonder.” The reason is that the driving force behind the growth wasn’t consumers but businesses needing to restock inventory previously depleted to save dollars. In fact, manufacturing accounted for about two-thirds of the growth. Meanwhile, consumer spending grew at just 1.7 percent, significantly below the 2.8 percent rate of the previous quarter, and headline unemployment remains high at 9.7 percent of those seeking work.

Ever the fact-innovators, however, Democrats have found a new scapegoat for the dismal job numbers: winter storms. Yes, indeed, White House Economic Advisor Larry Summers noted, “The blizzards that affected much of the country during the last month are likely to distort the statistics. So it’s going to be very important … to look past whatever the next figures are to gauge the underlying trends.” In other words, ignore the numbers and draw whatever conclusions are most convenient — which is what the White House has been doing for the past 13 months.

Regulatory Commissars: Foreclosure Overhaul Proposed

Barack Obama’s most recent economic policy trial balloon is a moratorium on foreclosures. Under the proposal, a lender could not foreclose on a homeowner until the loan was 60 days in default, and the borrower was screened for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). Mr. President, those steps are already being pursued because lenders desire payment, not properties.

Leftists have no tolerance for federalism. To a Democrat, the state capital is AA Minor League, while Washington is the Majors. But lending and remedies for loan default are state-level issues, and therein should reside the authority to modify the law and its implementation procedure.

As it is, foreclosure doesn’t typically begin until a loan is 90 days past due — four unpaid installments. When a loan default occurs (first missed payment), the lender initiates a series of past-due notices. If payments are not then remitted, a demand acceleration letter is sent. If the loan is backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, or is an FHLB fixed-rate loan, the demand acceleration letter cannot be sent until the borrower is 60 days past due. Along with the demand letter, a counseling letter is sent, notifying the borrower of the availability of financial counseling. Upon receiving these letters, the borrower has another 30 days to take some form of action, be it bringing the loan current, contacting the lender to make a modified payment plan, or contacting an attorney to initiate a bankruptcy filing. Finally, when the loan is 90 days past due, provided that all of the required notices have been sent, foreclosure can be initiated.

We noticed that Obama’s trial balloon didn’t include any regulatory relief for lenders trying to work with troubled borrowers. Rather, we suspect that lenders will continue to take the brunt of Obama’s “misconceptions” about lending practices. He apparently believes that lenders love to foreclose on borrowers, which is nonsense. By definition, a foreclosure means that something has gone terribly wrong. Despite his claim to be “an ardent believer in the free market,” Obama’s actions speak far more loudly. To him, government is always the solution.

Around the Nation: Public Debt Bombs

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once observed, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” One facet of that problem has arrived in the form of unfunded liabilities for public “servant” benefits. According to the Pew Center, a $1 trillion gap exists between $3.35 trillion in pension, health care and other retirement benefits promised to current and retired state employees as of fiscal year 2008 and the $2.35 trillion available to pay them. That’s $1 trillion in unfunded liabilities that must be resolved through higher taxes in concert with drastic benefit reductions.

Not without irony, President Obama’s adopted home state of Illinois is in the worst shape of all, managing to fund only 54 percent of those benefits while carrying an astounding unfunded liability of more than $54 billion.

Similar data from the crucibles of democracy also show a strong correlation between states with concentrations of liberals and a state’s budgetary health. The five states in the worst financial shape are all bastions of leftist policies — California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey and New York. Each shares strong appetites for public sector unions and pricey social programs. Illinois, again, is in the worst financial condition, with per-capita debt of $1,877 and unfunded pensions of $17,230. Moody’s rates Illinois’ general obligation just ahead of dead-last California. On the other side of the equation, three of the top five fiscally healthiest states are conservative states (Utah, Nebraska and Texas), while the other two (New Hampshire and Virginia) are swing states.

Considering the unchecked acceleration of the federal government’s looming fiscal Armageddon, voters must ask themselves this November if they wish to call the tune and deal with the issue before debt becomes uncontrollable. Allowing this current crop of suicidal spenders two additional years is an unacceptable alternative.

Culture & Policy

Climate Change This Week: Gore Comes Out of Winter Hibernation

In the wake of the recent irrefutable counterattack on climate change “science,” one would think that those who have forecasted the end of civilization would be running for the hills, or — at the very least — quietly dropping their phony claims and stepping aside in light of, well, the inconvenient truth. But leave it to Al Gore to make even more excuses for years of incompetence and dishonesty, and leave it to the New York Times to provide him a platform from which to pontificate.

And pontificate he did, in a weekend op-ed worthy of Michael Moore in terms of pure, unadulterated horse pucky. The former vice president once again wailed that we will face an “unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.” He should just come clean and tell us what he really means: redistributing the wealth, from our pockets to his.

Gore also valiantly defended those of his brethren exposed in the Climategate scandal, referring to the UK’s University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit e-mails as “stolen.” (As if that somehow justifies the corrupt content therein.) He further claimed the abused scientists involved had succumbed to the pressure of climate skeptics, blatantly ignoring that for years other scientists who questioned climate change found themselves either silenced or blacklisted.

He even went so far as to blame the U.S. Senate, by way of stalling the Obama administration’s cap-n-tax scheme, for other world leaders’ lack of commitment at the Copenhagen Summit. China, Gore confides conspiratorially, was really gung-ho about limiting its carbon emissions until the big, bad U.S. decided to take the low road.

The government Gore and others like him envision is a danger to our Essential Liberty. Preserving a government that encourages both a free market and free thinkers can mean not only the difference between prosperity and ruin, but literally between life and death. We need only to compare the recent earthquakes in Chile and Haiti to tell us this. The earthquake in Chile registered 8.8 on the Richter Scale, which was hundreds of times more powerful than the one that struck Haiti, but due in part to Chile’s superior infrastructure and wealth, only 708 people were killed, as opposed to more than 220,000 in the third-world Caribbean nation. Thankfully, more people are starting to realize that we cannot take our prosperity and our way of life for granted, and that includes vigorously confronting opportunistic charlatans like Al Gore.

In related news, the University of Tennessee is giving Gore an honorary doctoral degree because, gushed Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek, “his work has quite literally changed our planet for the better.” Both the publisher and managing editor of The Patriot Post hold advanced degrees from the University of Tennessee and, accordingly, have submitted protests. (Our editors did actual research for their degrees.)

This Week’s ‘Al-pha Jackass’ Award

“From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption. After all has been said and so little done, the truth about the climate crisis — inconvenient as ever — must still be faced.” –Gore, the populist potentate of eco-theology

The “rule of law” is certainly not an “instrument of human redemption,” nor is it what Gore is advocating.

Village Academic Curriculum: A 360-Degree Turnaround

It’s no secret that America’s schools are failing to educate, and a succession of presidents have attempted to address the issue through the federal government with little to show for it. Barack Obama became the latest to step into the realm of education reform by putting $900 million in taxpayer money on the line, promising our most troubled school districts “turnaround” grants if they could come up with a model plan to bring their schools up to snuff.

Under the new proposal, districts have a number of different models from which to choose, among them the “turnaround” model where the principal and half the staff are replaced, the “restart” model of closing and reopening a school under charter-style management, and the “closure” model where kids are simply uprooted to different schools within the district. Districts will compete against others in their state for a share of the grant money.

Since most of these schools happen to be in large city districts (read: pockets of heavily Democrat voters) one could argue this is simply a payoff, throwing money at a problem that money itself doesn’t address. Many of these models can thus be readily compared to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

One thing missing from the proposal is the concept of school choice for long-suffering parents, akin to the DC voucher program. Since education unions look at vouchers the way Superman eyes kryptonite, it’s a sure bet that any such suggestions will be a no-go for securing the federal dollars. Our hunch is that while a number of new cushy administrative jobs will come from this program, few competent high school graduates will be saved or created under this federal boondoggle.

To Keep and Bear Arms

Three people were shot during a gun battle involving alleged burglars in Harris County, Texas. During the late morning hours on Feb. 19, two armed suspects forced their way through a homeowner’s front door. Fortunately, the homeowner was also armed. Shots were exchanged and the homeowner was struck, but one of the suspects was killed. The other suspect, a juvenile, attempted to find refuge at a neighbor’s house. That neighbor said, “He told me that he had gotten shot and to call his mother. I thought he was just crazy.”

Police soon arrived and the youth was taken to the hospital. The condition of the homeowner remains unknown. According to another neighbor, this is the same area that had recently been hit by several robberies. It is still unclear whether those recent crimes were related.

And Last…

The television show “America’s Most Wanted” will mark its 1,000th episode this weekend on Fox. Since its inception, the show has assisted in the capture of more than 1,100 fugitives, as well as reunited 43 missing children with their families. Perhaps this success is why Barack Obama has decided to sit for an interview with host John Walsh for the episode. At first, this interview seemed rather odd, if only because Walsh rarely interviews suspects, but then we remembered that Obama always does interviews before big TV events. Besides, he’s trying to garner votes for health care and by golly, if he needs law enforcement assistance to get it done, so be it. Indeed, the nation would be well served if Mr. Walsh posted pictures of Capitol Hill’s “Most Wanted.” We suspect, come November, many of those Beltway troublemakers will be brought to justice.

Second Amendment — Still ‘The Palladium of Liberties’

By Mark Alexander · Thursday, March 4, 2010

“The ultimate authority … resides in the people alone. … The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition.” –James Madison

James Madison’s words regarding the “ultimate authority” for defending liberty (Federalist No. 46) ring as true today as in 1787, when he penned them.

Likewise, so do the words of his appointee to the Supreme Court, Justice Joseph Story, who wrote in his 1833 “Commentaries on the Constitution,” “The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”

In recent decades, the “enterprises of ambition” and “usurpation and arbitrary power” among Leftist politicians and their corrupt judicial lap dogs have become malignant, eating away at our Essential Liberty and our constitutional Rule of Law. This has never been more so than since the charlatan Barack Hussein Obama duped 67 million Americans into seating him in the executive branch.

Now more than ever, armed Patriots must stand ready, in the words of Patrick Henry, to “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.”

In June 2008, the Supreme Court, by a narrow 5-4 vote (Scalia, Alito, Roberts, Thomas and Kennedy), reaffirmed, in District of Columbia v. Heller, that the people’s inherent right to keep and bear arms is plainly enumerated in our Constitution. The Court ruled that the Second Amendment ensures an individual right, that DC could not ban handguns, and that operable guns may be maintained in the homes of law-abiding DC residents.

This was an important decision affirming the plain language of our Second Amendment and its proscription against government infringement on “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

However, Heller pertained to a federal district, and while our Bill of Rights has primacy over state and municipal firearm restrictions, a Supreme Court case to give judicial precedent to that primacy has yet to be decided.

In his dissenting opinion in Heller, 89-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens expressed concern that the case “may well be just the first of an unknown number of dominoes to be knocked off the table,” should “the reality that the need to defend oneself may suddenly arise in a host of locations outside the home.”

One might only hope!

This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in McDonald v. Chicago, the next test case for the Second Amendment, which will determine if Chicago’s onerous gun restrictions are in violation of the Constitution’s plain language prohibition of such regulations by states and municipalities.

Otis McDonald, the 76-year-old plaintiff in this case, is challenging Chicago regulations that make it unlawful for him to keep a handgun in his home for self-defense.

My colleague Dave Hardy, a scholar of constitutional law, particularly the Second Amendment, summarized the arguments as follows: “McDonald v. Chicago illustrated the dichotomy between a government of laws and a government of men. One wing of the Court (perhaps the majority) looked to the essential enumeration of the right to arms; the other seemed to argue that since they, as powerful individuals, did not care for the right, or thought it was one of the Framers’ bad ideas, they could disregard it.”

That is an apt summary of how all cases are handled by the federal judiciary.

Typical of Leftmedia summations, The New York Times opined, “At least five justices appeared poised to expand the scope of the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to bear arms.”

Expand?

Only the most uninformed opinion would suggest that asserting the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms in Chicago is an expansion of the Second Amendment’s scope. But considering the source…

Mr. McDonald’s lawyers insist that the 14th Amendment’s “privileges or immunities” clause (“no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States”) is grounds for overturning Chicago’s gun restrictions, and those of other states and municipalities across the our great nation.

Unfortunately, trying to establish a 14th Amendment precedent in and of itself undermines the authority of our Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

Recall that there was great debate among our Founders concerning the need for any Bill of Rights. It was argued that such a specific enumeration of rights was redundant and unnecessary to the Constitution and that listed (and unlisted) rights might then be construed as malleable rather than unalienable, as amendable rather than “endowed by our Creator” as noted in the Constitution’s supreme guidance, the Declaration of Independence.”

To that end, Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 84, “I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. … For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?”

Madison prevailed, however, and for clarity he introduced a preamble to the Bill of Rights: “The Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution…”

In other words, the Bill of Rights was enumerated to ensure against encroachment on our inherent rights. Read in context, the Bill of Rights is both an affirmation of innate individual rights (as noted by Thomas Jefferson: “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time…”), and a clear delineation of constraints upon the central government.

Note that the Second Amendment is unique in the Bill of Rights in that it expressly asserts the “right to keep and bear arms” is “necessary,” more so than just important, to a “free state.”

But as feared by those who argued such rights should not be recorded, the “despotic branch,” as Jefferson presciently dubbed the judiciary, has endeavored to limit those enumerated rights by way of convoluted and fraudulent precedents.

Likewise, citing the 14th Amendment’s “privileges or immunities” clause suggests the Second Amendment was and remains amendable. That, of course, is an egregious affront to Essential Liberty — but that’s the way the game is played today.

Currently, 41 states issue concealed handgun carry permits, or don’t require them at all, for law-abiding citizens. Seven other states allow local municipalities to determine gun restrictions; Illinois and Wisconsin do not even allow that option.

Much of the debate about the need to infringe upon the right to bear arms is framed in terms of safety. Gun-control advocates argue that more guns equal more crime. Those advocating for more lenient gun laws argue that more guns equal less crime. Only one of these diametrically opposed views can be true.

While the latter group is factually and demonstrably correct, basing Second Amendment arguments on the issue of safety is as fallacious as attempting to assert the 14th Amendment argument.

In an editorial this week, the conservative Washington Times opined, “The year after the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia’s handgun ban and gun-lock requirements, the capital city’s murder rate plummeted 25 percent. The high court should keep that in mind…”

No, they should not.

After all, violence is a cultural problem, not a gun problem, and certainly not a Second Amendment problem.

What each member of the Supreme Court must only keep in mind is the plain language of the Constitution, the Second Amendment and the First Principle of his or her oath: “To support and defend our Constitution,” as should everyone who has taken that oath.

Accordingly, the High Court should find that the gun restrictions in Chicago, and by extension, those in any other state, are in direct violation of the inherent rights of the people “to keep and bear arms.”

Chronicle

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The Foundation

“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic.” –Justice Joseph Story

Editorial Exegesis

Try putting this on your front door

“The year after the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia’s handgun ban and gun-lock requirements, the capital city’s murder rate plummeted 25 percent. The high court should keep that in mind … as it hears oral arguments about a Chicago handgun ban. Gun controllers screamed to high heaven that impending disaster would follow the court’s decision to junk some of the district’s gun controls. One of those screaming the loudest was Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who incorrectly predicted more gun freedom would lead to more death and Wild West shootouts. Instead, in Washington, murder rates rose when the handgun ban was in effect and fell once the regulations were removed. Chicago’s 1982 ban faired no better. The forthcoming third edition of ‘More Guns, Less Crime’ shows that in the 17 years after a ban on new handguns went into effect, there were only two years when Chicago’s murder rate was as low as it was in 1982. The Windy City’s murder rate fell relative to America’s other 50 largest cities before the ban and rose relative to them afterward. … That increase in murder rates isn’t surprising. Every time gun bans have been tried anywhere, murder rates have risen. Whether one looks at Ireland, Jamaica or England and Wales, the experience has been the same. Not only did murder rates fail to decline as promised, but the rates actually increased following gun bans. In general, gun-control laws disarm law-abiding citizens — not criminals who don’t care about the law. The lesson is that freedom and safety go hand in hand.” –The Washington Times

Upright

“[Those] who run Washington, and their intellectual supporters, believe they have superior wisdom and greater intelligence than the masses. They believe they have been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Like any other tyrant, they have what they consider good reasons for restricting the freedom of others.” –economist Walter E. Williams

“In the Democrat leadership, we are not dealing with conventional politicians for whom the goal of being reelected is paramount and will rein in their radicalism. They want socialized medicine and all it entails about government control even more than they want to win elections. After all, if the party of government transforms the relationship between the citizen and the state, its power over our lives will be vast even in those cycles when it is not in the majority. This is about power, and there is more to power than winning elections, especially if you’ve calculated that your opposition does not have the gumption to dismantle your ballooning welfare state.” –columnist Andy McCarthy

“One of the biggest reasons for higher medical costs is that somebody else is paying those costs, whether an insurance company or the government. What is the politicians’ answer? To have more costs paid by insurance companies and the government. … [H]aving someone else pay for medical care virtually guarantees that a lot more of it will be used. Nothing would lower costs more than having each patient pay those costs. And nothing is less likely to happen.” –economist Thomas Sowell

“While Barack Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand new, even more unsustainable entitlement at the health care ’summit,’ thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split-screen – because they’re part of the same story. It’s just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They’re at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is further upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided, instead, that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe.” –columnist Mark Steyn

“Too many Americans now believe that the checks they receive every month from the unemployment office — like the checks they get from the welfare office, from Medicare, from Social Security — are inalienable rights. They are not.” –columnist Ben Shapiro

Insight

“Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.” –American essayist, philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

“The freedom now desired by many is not freedom to do and dare but freedom from care and worry.” –American writer and historian James Truslow Adams (1878-1949)

Dezinformatsia

Apologists for ramming ObamaCare through: “What [Barack Obama] really wanted to do [with the health care summit] was convince the American people, and more importantly wavering Democrats in Congress, that the Republicans are the ‘Party of No.’ They won’t compromise and he now has no choice but to move ahead with Democrats alone.” –CBS’s Chip Reid

“What the Democrats have to do now is pass the bill. Put back the public option, since it’s their bill, and pass it…. The president has to drop his George B. McClellan mask and become Ulysses Grant. Be ruthless.” –ABC’s Sam Donaldson

“The Democrats in the White House who are pushing for this [reconciliation] strategy, pushing for passage, say that once this does pass, the country will get it. Democrats will be unified. They’ll get a huge benefit.” –ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on ObamaCare

Arrogance: “President Obama is so much smarter and a better communicator than members of Congress in either party. The contrast, side by side, is almost ridiculous….” –The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait

No spin? “One man’s stand. A single Senator stops the whole Congress, denying thousands of people unemployment benefits. We confront him to ask why.” –ABC’s Diane Sawyer on Sen. Jim Bunning’s (R-KY) hold on an extension of unemployment benefits to force Democrats to figure out how to pay for them under “pay-go” rules

Gut buster: “I think no one knows my politics.” –ABC News left anchor Diane Sawyer

This week’s “Leftmedia Buster” Award: “[T]here’s a good reason to stay pessimistic about deficits as far as the eye can see. It’s called the ‘news’ media. Legislators who want to get re-elected will clearly want to avoid any spending decision that will create bad national publicity, and our news media, the manufacturers of bad national publicity, will send crying victims down the assembly line at the slightest thought of a social spending cut or freeze. Exhibit A is Sen. Jim Bunning.” –L. Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center

Newspulper Headlines:

We Blame Global Warming: “11.3 Million Homeowners Underwater on Mortgage” –Marketwatch.com

We Blame George W. Bush: “Desserts to Blame for Obama’s Higher Cholesterol” –Associated Press

That’ll Teach Her: “UAH Shooting Suspect Amy Bishop Suspended Without Pay, Will Be Fired” –Huntsvile (AL) Times

What About the 13th Amendment?: “Students Are Sold on Double-Decker Bus” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch

That’s What All the Blinged-Out, Floor-Wrecking Breakdancers Say: “Blinged-Out, Floor-Wrecking Breakdancer: ‘I’m Innocent’” –RentedSpaces.com

Vultures Help Woman Rid Home of Boy Scouts — Now That Would Be News: “Boy Scouts Help Woman Rid Home of Vultures” –Associated Press

Bottom Stories of the Day: “Gore: World to End, Fox News to Blame” –NewsBusters.org

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

The Demo-gogues

The meaning of bipartisan: “Bipartisanship is a two-way street. A bill can be bipartisan without bipartisan votes. Republicans have left their imprint.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Oh please: “We share some of the views of the Tea Partiers in terms of the role of special interest in Washington, DC, as — it just has to stop. And that’s why I’ve fought the special interest, whether it’s on energy, whether it’s on health insurance, whether it’s on pharmaceuticals and the rest.” –Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Demo Culture of Corruption

More arrogance: “When the public sees what is in this bill … when we show them what the priorities are and what it’s been boiled down to, what it means to them sitting around their kitchen table rather than us sitting around a table at Blair House, the response will be positive.” –Nancy Pelosi on the dumb rubes that don’t want ObamaCare

Hardly working: “It’s easy being vice president — you don’t have to do anything.” –Vice President Joe Biden (Considering the man holding the post, that’s a good thing.)

Tell that to your boss: “I served on the budget committee in the Senate, and I remember as vividly as if it were yesterday when we had a hearing in which Alan Greenspan came and justified increasing spending and cutting taxes, saying that we didn’t really need to pay down the debt — outrageous in my view.” –Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Keen Sense of the Obvious: “We can’t control nature.” –Barack Obama on climate change — just kidding — on the earthquake in Chile

Village Idiots

Look in the mirror: “[The Republican Party holds] untenable positions based on emotion and anger.” –former DNC Chief Howard “The Scream” Dean (“What can one say but YAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” –Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto)

More hot air: “[T]he scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged.” –Al Gore in a New York Times op-ed

“From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption. After all has been said and so little done, the truth about the climate crisis — inconvenient as ever — must still be faced.” –Gore, the populist potentate of eco-theology (The “rule of law” is certainly not an “instrument of human redemption,” nor is it what Gore is advocating.)

Doom, he says: “I’m willing to engage or indulge real ideas, but if we don’t do something [about global warming], we’re all going to die! What’s it going to take, a big f—ing disaster with all kinds of people dying? We need to change our priorities fast.” –”Avatar” director James Cameron

That’s racist! “The white right is trying to set Barack up to be assassinated… There are Christians praying for God to kill Obama.” –Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan

Short Cuts

Editor’s Note: In yesterday’s Humor broadcast, we made an error in the spelling of Marine Corps by overcompensating for Barack Obama’s recent mispronunciation — we deleted an extra letter. We regret the error.

“President Obama hosted lawmakers Thursday saying he wanted bipartisan input on health care reform. Nobody’s mind was changed. At the summit’s end he threatened to go with the nuclear option, showing he’s tougher on Republicans than he is on Iran.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“The best that can be said for those like Senators Nelson and Landrieu is that they held out until Obama and Reid met their price. By now, I can’t even recall what it took to make Joe Lieberman say ‘Uncle!’ But it just goes to prove that when politicians like these three refer to themselves as moderate Democrats, we should recognize that it’s similar to the distinction made in a related field when call girls insist they’re not streetwalkers. It’s the same profession; only the prices differ.” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

“The longest week I ever spent was the six hours I spent watching Thursday’s health-care summit.” –columnist Jonah Goldberg

“We are repeatedly being told that we need to have a government-controlled medical care system, because other countries have it — as if our policies on something as serious as medical care should be based on the principle of monkey see, monkey do.” –economist Thomas Sowell

“Consider the oddity of those drug commercials on television. Fifteen seconds of the purported therapeutic effort, followed by about 45 seconds of a rapidly muttered list of horrific possible side effects. When the ad is over, I can’t remember a thing about what the pill is supposed to do, except perhaps cause nausea, liver damage, projectile vomiting, a nasty rash, a four-hour erection, and sudden death. Sudden death is my favorite because there is something comical about it being a side effect. What exactly is the main effect in that case? Relief from abdominal bloating?” –columnist Charles Krauthammer

Brief

Monday, March 1, 2010

The Foundation

“There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.” –Alexander Hamilton

Opinion in Brief

The Gadsden Flag

“Americans cherish their independence. One interesting aspect of the spontaneous tea party movement is the constant invocation of the Founders and the prominence of the ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flag. … Americans tend to see themselves as independent doers, not dependent victims. They don’t like to be told, especially by those with fancy academic pedigrees, that they are helpless and in need of government aid. That’s why the politically popular American big government programs — Social Security, Medicare, veterans’ benefits, student loans — all make a connection between effort and reward. You get a benefit because you’ve worked for it. In contrast, Americans have loathed and rejected big government programs with no nexus between effort and reward. Welfare was begun in the 1930s to help widows with children, whose plight, as Russell Baker’s memoir ‘Growing Up’ showed, was often dismal. But when welfare became a mass program to subsidize mothers who didn’t work and to excuse fathers from responsibility for their actions, it became wildly unpopular. Bill Clinton recognized this when he signed welfare reform in 1996. … Barack Obama, who has chosen to live his adult life in university precincts, sees … Americans generally as victims who need his help, people who would be better off dependent on government than on their own. Most American voters don’t want to see themselves that way and resent this condescension.” –political analyst Michael Barone

Political Futures

“When Republicans regain a majority in the House and Senate — either this fall, as seems increasingly likely, or in the election following — they must learn from their previous mistakes when they last held power. In addition to focusing on overturning whatever health insurance ‘reform’ proposal this Congress eventually passes (by a veto override, or a lawsuit challenging the measure’s constitutionality), a Republican congressional majority must help large numbers of the public unlearn the factual errors they have been taught to accept. From ‘climate change,’ to the notion that government is a guarantor through ‘entitlement’ programs of a minimal outcome in life, to the forgotten idea given to us by the Founders that Liberty is the most precious gift there is, the country needs a history lesson based on truth, experience and provable facts. … A Republican majority should turn the nation’s attention away from Washington. A Republican majority must teach us again that ‘you can do it,’ like so many of our fathers did when the training wheels came off and we learned we could fly down the sidewalk without assistance. America doesn’t need restructuring. It needs revival; revival of the principles that made us strong and great; revival of the moral foundation that proved to be our real strength and allowed us to conquer our demons and become independent, not dependent on government. This is the message most Americans want to hear and need to hear. Will the Republicans deliver it?” –columnist Cal Thomas

The Gipper

“Perhaps you and I have lived with this miracle too long to be properly appreciative. Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again. Knowing this, it is hard to explain those who even today would question the people’s capacity for self-rule. Will they answer this: if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?” –Ronald Reagan

Re: The Left

“The reason massive Democratic majorities in Congress aren’t enough to pass socialist health care is AMERICANS DON’T WANT SOCIALIZED MEDICINE! In fact, you might say that the nation is in a boiling cauldron of rage against it. Consequently, a lot of Democrats are suddenly having second thoughts about vast new government commissions regulating every aspect of Americans’ medical care. Obama isn’t stupid — he’s not seriously trying to get a health care bill passed. The whole purpose of this public ’summit’ with the minority party is to muddy up the Republicans before the November elections. You know, the elections Democrats are going to lose because of this whole health care thing. Right now, Americans are hopping mad, swinging a stick and hoping to hit anyone who so much as thinks about nationalizing health care. If they could, Americans would cut the power to the Capitol, throw everyone out and try to deport them. … But the Democrats think it’s a good strategy to call the Republicans ‘The Party of No.’ When it comes to Obamacare, Americans don’t want a party of ‘No,’ they want a party of ‘Hell, No!’ or, as Rahm Emanuel might say, ‘*&^%$#@ No!’ … Complaining that Republicans are ‘obstructionists’ is not a damaging charge when most Americans are dying to obstruct the Democrats with a 2-by-4. While you’re at it, Democrats, why not call the GOP the ‘Party of Brave Patriots’?” –columnist Ann Coulter

Government

“Filibusters are devices for registering intensity rather than mere numbers. Besides, has a filibuster ever prevented eventual enactment of anything significant that an American majority has desired, strongly and protractedly? Liberals say filibusters confuse and frustrate the public. But most ideas incubated in the political cauldron of grasping factions are deplorable. Therefore, serving the public involves — mostly involves — saying ‘No.’ The Bill of Rights effectively pronounces the lovely word ‘no’ regarding many possible government undertakings — establishment of religion, unreasonable searches and seizures, etc. The fiction that government is ‘paralyzed’ by partisanship is regularly refuted. … Liberals are deeply disappointed with the public, which fails to fathom the excellence of their agenda. But their real complaint is with the government’s structure. And with the nature of the politics this structure presupposes in a continental nation wary of government and replete with rival factions.” –columnist George Will

For the Record

“For those not versed in the arcane rules of the U.S. Senate, reconciliation is not what a divorced couple attempts when they visit Dr. Phil. It is a mechanism for avoiding filibusters on certain budgetary issues. If Democrats can find a way to apply it to health care reform, they could pass a bill with just 51 votes, negating the election of Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown and the loss of the 60-seat supermajority. Reconciliation was established in 1974 to make it easier for Congress to adjust taxes and spending in order to ‘reconcile’ actual revenues and expenditures with a previously approved budget resolution. Thus, at the end of the year, if Congress found that it was running a budget deficit higher than previously projected, it could quickly raise taxes or cut spending to bring the budget back into line. Debate on such measures was abbreviated to just 20 hours (an eyeblink in Senate terms), and there could be no filibuster. As Robert Byrd, (D-W.V.), one of the original authors of the reconciliation rule, explained, ‘Reconciliation was intended to adjust revenue and spending levels in order to reduce deficits … [I]t was not designed to … restructure the entire health care system.’ He warns that using reconciliation for health care would ‘violate the intent and spirit of the budget process, and do serious injury to the Constitutional role of the Senate.’ In fact, in 1985, the Senate adopted the ‘Byrd rule,’ which prohibits the use of reconciliation for any ‘extraneous issue’ that does not directly change revenues or expenditures. Clearly, large portions of the health care bill, ranging from mandates to insurance regulation to establishing ‘exchanges,’ do not meet that requirement.” –Cato Institute senior fellow Michael D. Tanner

Faith & Family

“One of the major differences between the right and the left concerns the question of authority: To whom do we owe obedience and who is the ultimate moral authority? For the right, the primary moral authority is God (or, for secular conservatives, Judeo-Christian values), followed by parents. Of course, government must also play a role, but it is ultimately accountable to God and it should do nothing to undermine parental authority. For the left, the state and its government are the supreme authorities, while parental and divine authority are seen as impediments to state authority. … In a nutshell, the left wants to have ever-expanding authority over people’s lives through ever-expanding governmental powers. It does so because it regards itself as more enlightened than others. Others are either enemies (the right) or unenlightened masses. It is elected by demonizing its enemies and doling out money and jobs to the masses.” –radio talk-show host Dennis Prager

Culture

“Personal responsibility is a real problem for those who want to collectivize society and take away our power to make our own decisions, transferring that power to third parties like themselves, who imagine themselves to be so much wiser and nobler than the rest of us. Aimless apologies are just one of the incidental symptoms of an increasing loss of a sense of personal responsibility — without which a whole society is in jeopardy. The police cannot possibly maintain law and order by themselves. Millions of people can monitor their own behavior better than any third parties can. Cops can cope with that segment of society who have no sense of personal responsibility, but not if that segment becomes a large part of the whole population. Yet increasing numbers of educators and the intelligentsia seem to have devoted themselves to undermining or destroying a sense of personal responsibility and making ’society’ responsible instead.” –economist Thomas Sowell

Reader Comments

“If the message in Mark Alexander’s essay, ‘The First Statement of Conservative Principles‘, is that the Tea Party should link up with the Republican GOP, then count me out. I am about to switch from being a registered Republican to that of an Independent. The GOP keeps throwing rocks at the Obama liberals, as they should, but they need to clean their own house as well.” –TroutLakeTom

Editor’s Reply: Mr. Alexander’s message was precisely that no such link between the Tea Party and the GOP should be formalized.

“In Friday’s Digest, you quoted the nation’s leader as having stated, ‘Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, I am an ardent believer in the free market.’ This is accurate and, I believe, sincere. Remember, it has been said by many that the Devil is a believer in God. His agenda is completely contrary to the Lord’s, but he certainly believes in Him…” –Capt., USN

“In reference to Friday’s ‘And Last’ item and Rep. Louis Slaughter, as a practicing dentist for 32 years, I am telling you there is no way that this woman could wear her deceased sisters dentures nor anyone else’s. Aside from the ‘gross’ factor, the dentures would not function properly to enable the woman to fit them into her mouth, let alone chew anything. That’s the reason that dentures aren’t sold in small, medium and large sizes at Walmart.” –Dr. Young

The Last Word

“[W]ho are regular, run-of-the-mill, tax-paying Americans to question Obama? He’s brilliant, after all. … [I]f Obama is so brilliant, why does he parrot the words and thoughts of a bunch of schmucks like Karl Marx, Saul Alinsky, Al Gore and Michael Moore? Why does he insist that the trouble with the Constitution and the Civil Rights movement is that they didn’t focus on the redistribution of wealth? Why would he hand over the federal budget to a couple of morons like Pelosi and Reid? And why on earth would he put Henry Waxman in charge of his energy program? A brilliant person wouldn’t trust Waxman to bring baked beans to a picnic. When someone decides to model a health care plan after such dismal failures as England, Canada and Cuba, while exhuming the failed economic policies of FDR, why would anyone suggest he is anything but a left-wing ignoramus? This is an American president, for heaven’s sake, who has more in common with Noam Chomsky, Hugo Chavez and some Berkeley hippie than he has with Washington, Jefferson and Adams. Except that he is now 30 years older, Obama seems to think exactly the same way he was thinking back in college, when he was a pot-smoking idiot who sought out students who were self-professed revolutionaries and professors who were communists. If we have come to a point where the ability to read scripted lines off a teleprompter is considered a sign of brilliance, no matter how fatuous the actual words may be, we are in even worse shape than I imagined.” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

Digest

Friday, February 26, 2010

The Foundation

“[T]he Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution.” –Alexander Hamilton

Government & Politics

ObamaCare in the Emergency Room

There are no two ways about it — the health care summit that took place Thursday in Washington was a sham and a farce. But it’s a fitting chapter for the bill being debated.

Barack Obama invited various congressmen to join him for a “discussion” about his latest health care takeover plot, which looks an awful lot like last year’s Senate proposal, only more expensive. Obama released his “new” plan Monday to great fanfare, though there was precious little new about it.

About one new feature, the Associated Press editorialized, the proposal “would allow the government to deny or roll back egregious insurance premium increases that infuriated consumers” via a seven-member panel of all-knowing insurance premium gurus. Funny thing is that all 50 states already require insurance companies to justify premium increases. Obama’s proposal amounts to little more than federal price controls. Yet with his best Wizard of Oz impression (pay no attention to the stuff behind the curtain), Obama asserted, “Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, I am an ardent believer in the free market.” Sure — if you say so.

CNN actually came closer to the mark: “If enacted, the president’s sweeping compromise plan would constitute the biggest expansion of federal health care guarantees since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid more than four decades ago.” The key words are “biggest expansion.”

Another part of Obama’s proposal is the supposed elimination of the “Cornhusker Kickback,” the $100 million in Medicaid relief for Nebraska that bought Sen. Ben Nelson’s vote. When reading the fine print, however, we see that the kickback has simply been extended to every state by transferring all new Medicaid spending through 2017 directly to the federal ledger.

Obama is trying mightily to win over “obstructionist” Republicans — or so his media minions tell us. More likely, however, it’s the 38 House Democrats who voted against ObamaCare in November that are his target. Since the House passed its trillion-dollar version by a not-so-comfortable majority of five votes (220-215), Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has lost three votes with the retirements of Reps. Robert Wexler (D-FL) and Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), and the death of Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA). Also, Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), the lone Republican in either chamber to vote for the bill, says he will not support it again, and pro-life Democrats — whose leader, Michigan’s Bart Stupak, wasn’t invited to Thursday’s photo-op — continue to vow opposition if abortion funding is included. Pelosi conceded Wednesday that she doesn’t yet have the votes for passage. That’s, of course, if you believe anything she says.

The administration pushed the idea of using the reconciliation process to ram the bill through the Senate if Republicans don’t heel. Reconciliation, which is a procedure contrived in 1974 to circumvent filibustering on budget bills, would allow Senate Democrats to pass ObamaCare with only 51 votes. Doing so would greatly enhance Republicans’ election prospects in November, though enough Democrats may calculate the price is worth paying.

The White House isn’t without Plan B. If the complete takeover fails, Democrats will just grab smaller pieces of the pie. The alternative would be to extend insurance coverage to about 15 million Americans by requiring insurance providers to allow people to remain on their parents’ plans until age 26, and by expanding Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. (Most Democrats do behave like children, so these proposals certainly make sense to them.)

Perhaps the tone and purpose of the summit can be encapsulated by an exchange between Obama and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), the number-two House Republican: The president chastised Cantor for using “props” that “prevent us from having a conversation.” The prop? Cantor was sitting behind a copy of the current 2,400-page Senate bill. Heaven forbid Republicans bring the actual bill to a summit about the bill. Next time, though, Eric, bring the Constitution.

This Week’s ‘Braying Jackass’ Award

“[Republicans] should stop crying about reconciliation as if it’s never been done before.” –Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

Video of the Week

In 2005, when Republicans were considering the “nuclear option” to stop Democrats’ filibuster of dozens of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees, Democrats lined up at every microphone in sight to denounce the idea, claiming it was a “naked power grab,” a “constitutional crisis” and “how democracy ends.” Times sure have changed. Watch the video.

The BIG Lie

“It’s about jobs. In its life, [the health bill] will create four million jobs — 400,000 jobs almost immediately.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

We’re still waiting for all those jobs promised by the stimulus bill.

New & Notable Legislation

The Senate passed a $15 billion “jobs” bill Wednesday by a 70-28 vote. Thirteen Republicans, including newly minted Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, joined Democrats in voting for passage. The centerpiece is a payroll tax cut for businesses that hire new employees, but it’s unlikely that short-term tax relief will have a real effect on unemployment. The bill now goes to the House for consideration, though leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus have announced their opposition to the bill, which they called inadequate and just a “tax bill,” not a jobs bill. No word yet from the Congressional White Caucus.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) introduced the Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA), S. 3002, which would empower the Food and Drug Administration to regulate dietary supplements such as vitamins. The FDA could arbitrarily reclassify supplements as drugs or pull them off the shelves altogether. Find that one in the Constitution. With Republicans like this, who needs Democrats?

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) plans to introduce legislation to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that prohibits homosexuals from disclosing their pathology while serving in the military. The White House supports his bill, but no timeline for its implementation has been established. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) introduced a more aggressive bill in the House that calls for repeal in 2010. Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have indicated support for repealing the law but stated that the Pentagon would need at least a year to study implementation. General James Conway, head of the U.S. Marine Corps, dissented. “My best military advice … would be to keep the law such as it is.” Conway added that the only question that mattered is this: “Do we somehow enhance the war fighting capabilities of the United States Marine Corps by allowing homosexuals to openly serve?”

House Democrats expressed their displeasure with the slow pace of their Senate counterparts by producing a list of 290 House-passed bills that are stalled in the upper chamber. The various pieces of that legislation range from routine naming of buildings to more significant legislation like health care, Wall Street reform and climate change. Democrat leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were both quick to blame Republicans, but Reid’s Democrats had held a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate until earlier this month. The Democrats have few if any friends across the aisle, but their worst enemies seem to be located within their own caucus. All in all, these 290 stalled bills are the best news to come out of the Swamp all week.

Hope ‘n’ Change: That Demo Culture of Corruption

The White House is being accused of offering juicy government jobs to two Democrats in exchange for their withdrawal from potential primary battles in this year’s election cycle. The charges, which come from the Democrats themselves, are quite serious and carry punishments including jail time, assuming anyone would prosecute.

Read more here.

Village Academic Curriculum: Federal Standards Are No Prize, Either

Even with the establishment of additional federal standards for education in the No Child Left Behind legislation signed by President George W. Bush back in 2002, states were granted flexibility in how they enacted these mandates, as the Bush administration left at least that modicum of local control intact. But the Obama Department of Education wants to wipe that pretense away and require states to adopt “college- and career-ready standards” in order to qualify for part of $14 billion in Title I funding.

One fig leaf covering this power grab is that all but two states (Texas and Alaska) are collaborating — with the encouragement of the White House — on setting up standards which would be acceptable to the federal government. It’s clear, however, that local control of education is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

Recently, Barack Obama offered himself as a prize to the student who best describes “why your school is special and why it should be a model for other schools around the country, working to boost attendance and increase the number of graduates prepared for college or a career.” The winning school would be the lucky recipient of a presidential visit, with the narcissist-in-chief stopping by to read a commencement address off his teleprompter.

National Security

Warfront With Jihadistan: Justice and Jihad

“Last November, Sen. Charles Grassley [R-IA], a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked the Justice Department how many of its lawyers had defended terrorist detainees over whom the department holds sway,” reports Investor’s Business Daily. “Grassley knew from earlier press reports of two such lawyers who worked on behalf of detainees at the liberal organization Human Rights Watch. He wanted to know how many more there were.”

According to Attorney General Eric Holder, there are nine. “To the best of our knowledge, during their employment prior to joining the government, only five of the lawyers who serve as political appointees in those components represented detainees,” Holder said. “Four others contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases involved in advocacy on behalf of detainees.” Holder himself was a partner at Covington & Burling, a firm that gave 3,000 hours to detainee litigation — in 2007 alone.

Now we know why Justice chose to Mirandize the undi-bomber and hasn’t announced an official plan should Osama bin Laden one day be captured. How many amicus briefs will be submitted by Justice on his behalf? Debra Burlingame, whose brother was the pilot of the plane terrorists flew into the Pentagon on 9/11, said, “It’s like they’re bringing al-Qa’ida lawyers inside the Department of Justice.” Precisely.

IAEA Annual Report on Iran

Iran kept its streak going last week when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released its annual report “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of UNSCR 1737, 1747, 1803, and 1835 in Iran.” Make that eight years in a row that the IAEA has come to the conclusion that “Iran has not provided the necessary cooperation to permit the Agency to confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”

Among the highlights from the report’s Summary section:

47. Iran is not implementing the requirements contained in the relevant resolutions of the Board of Governors and the Security Council… In particular, Iran needs to cooperate in clarifying outstanding issues … about possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme…

48. … Iran has continued with the operation of Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant and Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz, and the construction of a new enrichment plant at [Qom].

49. … Iran has also continued with the construction of the IR-40 reactor and related heavy water activities. The Agency has not been permitted to take samples of the heavy water … stored at [Esfahan].

We have been reporting on this issue since 2003, when the IAEA first declared, “As indicated in the Director General’s report of 10 November 2003 … Iran had been in breach of its obligations to comply with the provisions of its safeguard agreement.” Eight years gone by, and still the IAEA cannot verify the true nature of Iran’s nuclear program; eight years with nothing to show but former IAEA Director General Mohammed el-Baradei’s Nobel Peace Prize; eight years in which Iran has all but mastered enrichment, launched missiles with ever-longer ranges, openly called for the destruction of Israel and threatened to “cut the hands off of anyone who attacks us.” How much longer must we wait before deciding that diplomacy will not work? What administration will be willing to take the necessary action to stop Iran from going nuclear?

Profiles of Valor: U.S. Army Col. Robert Howard

Ret. Col. Robert Howard was laid to rest Wednesday at Arlington National Cemetery. He died Dec. 23 at age 70. Howard served five tours in Vietnam, was wounded 14 times, and was the most decorated soldier from that war, including eight Purple Hearts, four Bronze Stars, four Legion of Merit awards, the Silver Star, the Distinguished Service Cross (twice) and the Medal of Honor — a medal for which he was nominated three times for three separate actions in a 13-month period.

Howard’s Medal of Honor citation reads, “1st Lt. Howard (then SFC.), distinguished himself while serving as platoon sergeant of an American-Vietnamese platoon which was on a mission to rescue a missing American soldier in enemy controlled territory in the Republic of Vietnam. The platoon … was attacked by an estimated 2-company force. During the initial engagement, 1st Lt. Howard was wounded and his weapon destroyed by a grenade explosion. 1st Lt. Howard saw his platoon leader had been wounded seriously and was exposed to fire. Although unable to walk, and weaponless, 1st Lt. Howard unhesitatingly crawled through a hail of fire to retrieve his wounded leader. …

“Through his outstanding example of indomitable courage and bravery, 1st Lt. Howard was able to rally the platoon into an organized defense force. With complete disregard for his safety, 1st Lt. Howard crawled from position to position, administering first aid to the wounded, giving encouragement to the defenders and directing their fire on the encircling enemy. For 3 1/2 hours 1st Lt. Howard’s small force and supporting aircraft successfully repulsed enemy attacks and finally were in sufficient control to permit the landing of rescue helicopters. 1st Lt. Howard personally supervised the loading of his men and did not leave the bullet-swept landing zone until all were aboard safely. 1st Lt. Howard’s gallantry in action, his complete devotion to the welfare of his men at the risk of his life were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.”

Rest in peace, Colonel.

Business & Economy

Confidence Crunch

“Americans’ confidence in the economy has suffered a sudden relapse, dimming hopes that they will start spending — and spurring job growth — any time soon,” the Associated Press reports. Indeed, Tuesday’s release of the latest Consumer Confidence Index figures revealed attitudes that are still rather negative about job growth and the economy in general. The index fell almost 11 points to 46 in February, the lowest level since April 2009. Since consumer spending accounts for roughly 70 percent of the economy, analysts watch this number closely.

The AP further notes, “The overall economy expanded at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter, but only about one-fourth of that growth came from consumers. Most of the growth came from companies replenishing low inventories.”

As we explained at the outset, this economic recession is largely the result of a crisis of confidence. A year after the so-called stimulus, headline unemployment remains at nearly 10 percent and total unemployment remains over 17 percent. Despite Congress’ recent crowing about helping “create” jobs, businesses aren’t hiring because of uncertainty about the future. A few billion dollars in temporary tax breaks won’t change that. Neither consumers nor businesses have confidence that government will leave the economy alone to grow on its own. Until that changes, real recovery will take a mighty long time.

Great Moments in Socialized Medicine

“This was my heart, my choice and my health,” said Danny Williams this week. Williams isn’t just any heart patient, however. He’s the Premier of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and he had heart surgery, not at the local hospital under CanadaCare, but in Miami.

If Canada’s health care is so great, why did Williams travel 2,500 miles for surgery? Because “I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics.” In other words, socialized medicine leaves something to be desired. Namely, “the best possible care.”

Doctors in Canada advised him that the only way to repair a heart valve problem was through a full or partial sternotomy, which would require breaking bones. However, when he was referred to Miami’s Mount Sinai Medical Center by a fellow Canadian practicing cardiology in New Jersey, he found that he could be treated with only an incision under his arm. This procedure “was not offered to me in Canada,” he said.

Notwithstanding the superior care he received under a system that is at least somewhat based on the free market, Williams still declared his support of Canadian medicine, saying, “I have the utmost confidence in our own health care system.” Actions speak louder than words, Mr. Williams. Furthermore, if ObamaCare passes, where will other wealthy Canadians go for health care?

Culture & Policy

Climate Change This Week: More Retractions

Whoops! Scientists have had to retract yet another a study on global warming — this time, one purporting to show that sea levels will rise by 7 to 82 cm (3 to 33 inches) by 2100. The study, published last year in Nature Geoscience, echoed warnings issued in 2007 by the global warming indoctrination arm of the United Nations: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Apparently, there were a couple of not-so-minor mistakes that mean the study’s earth-shattering (or earth-flooding) conclusions aren’t so accurate after all. Citing two mistakes — a “miscalculation” and “not … allow[ing] fully for temperature change over the past 2,000 years” — the authors retracted the paper, stating they would “invest in the further work needed to correct these mistakes.”

According to author Mark Siddall, though, it’s just “one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science.” The problem is, global warmists want to redistribute our nation’s wealth and hamstring the world’s economy based on theories full of such mistakes.

Despite the expanding evidentiary void, the UN is set to restart negotiations on a global climate change treaty. UN Climate Head Yvo de Boer (who recently announced his resignation, effective July 1) said the negotiating schedule would be intensified in hopes of reaching an agreement by year’s end — an agreement based, of course, on an ever-growing pile of mistakes.

Sen. Inhofe Calls for Climate Investigation

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), long a leading skeptic of man-made global warming, has asked the Justice Department to investigate what he called “the greatest scientific scandal of our generation.” Inhofe believes climate scientists and honorary weatherman Al Gore have deliberately misled Congress and the public regarding the case for anthropogenic climate change. Now, he wants them held accountable.

Read more here.

This Week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ Award

“[The climate change debate] reminds me in some ways of the debate taking place in this country and around the world in the late 1930s. And during that period with Nazism and fascism growing — a real danger to the United States and democratic countries all over the world — there were people in this Congress, in the British parliament saying, ‘Don’t worry! Hitler is not real! It’ll disappear! We don’t have to be prepared to take it on.’” –Socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders

Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto responded, “Wow, that’s a great analogy! The only difference between the two situations is that the Nazis were real.”

Around the Nation: ACORN Cracks Up

The friendly neighborhood nuts at ACORN are back in the news, but reports recounting the demise of the community organization may be a little premature. Offices across the land are turning out the lights and turning off the phones. One ACORN official wrote in an e-mail, “Last one to leave turn out the lights and wipe the server.”

However, many of ACORN’s administrators, employees and structure have been simply re-branded: The New York Communities for Change, New England United for Justice in Boston, and so on. Each group will continue to be intertwined and work in concert, just under new identities.

Former ACORN officials are still bitter about the apparent demise of the organization, blaming “a pro-corporate agenda” and “a 24-hour propaganda channel” for exposing ACORN’s zeal to assist bootstrapping criminals. Nor are leftists spared ACORN’s wrath, as one observer noted that the movement “stood by while ACORN got gutted.”

In either case, the agenda will be the same once the successor organizations get on their feet, just in time for the 2010 elections. The fundraising is already under way and former ACORN leaders hope a new set of names will allow them to escape public scrutiny.

Faith and Family: DC Diocese Ceases Adoption Services

The Archdiocese of Washington, DC, has been forced to suspend indefinitely its foster care program after the City Council passed a law that not only legalizes same-sex marriage, but demands that contractors dealing with the city recognize the unions. In other words, Catholics would be forced to put foster and adopted children in same-sex homes. Archdiocese staff members and cases have been transferred to the National Center for Children and Families in nearby Bethesda, Maryland. Adoption services also have been discontinued. The Archdioceses of San Francisco and Boston likewise ended these services when similar laws were passed.

This law, as it pertains to faith-based organizations, is a blatant and grievous violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of “the free exercise” of religion. The Religious Clause was not enacted to provide rhetoric for secularists; it guarantees, among other things, a religious freedom from the state. Yet in this case, groups such as the ACLU and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State — those who typically bang on their highchairs the loudest about alleged violations of the First Amendment — are either remaining silent or applauding the move.

For example, Americans United Executive Director Barry Lynn is only too happy to see the Archdiocese relinquish the $2 million it receives from the government each year for its foster program, saying that the church should not be given public funds if it cannot or will not abide by civil rights laws.

The president of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue, after stating that the government had given the church no choice but to withdraw or violate its long-held view against same-sex unions, put it this way: “If Planned Parenthood were told that as a condition of public funding it had to refer Catholic women having second thoughts about abortion to a crisis pregnancy center, it would scream violation of church and state, refuse the money and end this program.” We would add that therein lies the problem of government “charity.”

From the ‘Non Compos Mentis’ File

Arizona prosecutors have decided not to pursue the death penalty in the case of Faleh Al-Maleki, the Iraqi immigrant who struck his 20-year-old daughter Noor — and the woman who was protecting her — with his vehicle. Noor, whom Al-Maleki had accused of being too “Westernized,” died of her injuries, and her father has been charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder, and two counts of leaving the scene of a serious accident.

Public defender Billy Little asked the judge to take “special precautions” that the D.A. wouldn’t seek death because Al-Maleki is a Muslim. The irony is that Al-Maleki committed his crimes because by his own reckoning, his daughter was not true to her Muslim faith.

In addition, Little’s bias is apparently acceptable. Little, in reference to the religious beliefs of County Attorney Andrew Thomas, asked for “An open process [that] provides some level of assurance that there is no appearance that a Christian is seeking to execute a Muslim for racial, political, religious or cultural beliefs.”

This murder was based on the centuries-old tradition — still adhered to in some parts of the world — of murdering female relatives who don’t obey Islamic rules. It is, arguably, even more disturbing when the crime happens in the United States and political correctness affords special protection for her murderer.

To Keep and Bear Arms

A woman and her mother were tied up in their Indiana home after a man broke into the house. The intruder then sexually assaulted the daughter. According to Police Sgt. William Snead, the mother was able to send her neighbor a text message alerting her of the situation. Sonny Osborn, the neighbor’s boyfriend, heard the disturbance, grabbed his gun and headed for the victim’s home.

Osborn warned the suspect and told him to leave, but to no avail, so he shot him three times in the leg. After being treated at a local hospital, the perpetrator is now locked up in the Sullivan County Jail.

In other Second Amendment news, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly showed his opposition to select portions of the Bill of Rights when he interviewed Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes and the subject of gun confiscation during Hurricane Katrina came up. When Rhodes explained to O’Reilly that, even during a state of emergency, it’s unconstitutional to confiscate lawfully owned guns, the Fox News Pinhead responded, “That’s a pretty extreme position.” Tell that to the Founders, Bill.

Meanwhile, law-abiding citizens began carrying concealed firearms in national parks this week. To the shock and awe of anti-Second Amendment nuts across this great nation, there were no shootouts.

And Last…

Some congressional leaders were so bent on making their case at Thursday’s “Healthcare Summit” that they resorted to what Barack Obama called “props” that “prevent us from having a conversation.” While Republican Congressman Eric Cantor used the 2,400-page bill itself as a “prop,” one of his Democrat colleagues wielded a deceased woman’s dentures. No kidding. New York Rep. Louise Slaughter lamented, “I even have one constituent — you will not believe this, and I know you won’t, but it’s true — her sister died. This poor woman had no dentures. She wore her dead sister’s teeth, which of course were uncomfortable and did not fit. Did you ever believe that in America that that’s where we would be?”

Clearly, Slaughter and her ilk believe that the only solution to this rampant denture problem is to redistribute $1 trillion of other people’s money. We are, after all, guaranteed life, liberty and the pursuit of properly fitting false teeth. But this episode of daytime drama also prompts a serious question: Aren’t liberals supposed to be in favor of recycling?

The First Statement of Conservative Principles

By Mark Alexander · Thursday, February 25, 2010

“The Constitution, which at any time exists ’till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People, is sacredly obligatory upon all.” –George Washington

The Resurrection of First Principles

It took the election of a “community organizer” and ideological Socialist “professor” Barack Hussein Obama to launch a popular resurgence of interest in constitutional Rule of Law and the First Principles upon which our nation was founded.

And not a moment too soon.

Over the last two years, the ranks of politically active Patriots have swelled through conservative recruiting channels such as the Tea Party movement, whose growth has been entirely from the grassroots, despite the best (or worst?) efforts of some Beltway Republican establishment types to co-opt and put their brand upon the movement. Happily, Patriots have shown remarkable resilience against those golden-tongued powers of persuasion.

I, for one, welcome every American to the front lines in defense of our Constitution, but I also know that there will be many efforts to assign these Patriots into one political camp or the other.

One of the strengths of the Tea Party movement, its lack of central organization, can also be one of its greatest weaknesses. If the movement fails to unite ideologically behind the restoration of constitutional integrity and the Rule of Law, it risks devolving into a plethora of special interest constituencies which will be easily defeated or have no more power than the para-political organizations that vie for their sentiments.

As Benjamin Franklin said famously when signing the Declaration of Independence, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately.”

And we derive great strength and unity in forming this front to defend our Constitution as the primary objective of the growing Patriot movement. I know from our nation’s history, and from personal experience, that the only guiding authority that Patriots need is the plain language of the Constitution itself.

Back in 1996, a small group of Patriots deeply devoted to our Constitution, which we had pledged “to support and defend,” endeavored to challenge the Leftmedia’s stranglehold on public opinion, particularly as it pertained to the role of government and promotion of Leftist policies.

To provide sustenance for those endeavoring to restore our Constitution’s rightful standing as the Supreme Rule of Law of the United States, we established The Federalist, an online grassroots journal providing constitutionally conservative analysis of news, policy and opinion, with the express mission of “advocating Essential Liberty, the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and the promotion of free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values.”

Our objective was, and remains, “to provide Patriots across our nation with a touchstone of First Principles.”

Demand for The Federalist grew rapidly, to put it mildly. A few years later, we adopted the name The Patriot Post in keeping with the growing constituency we serve.

Now, I certainly do not suggest that we were the only folks back in ‘96 advocating for the restoration of constitutional Rule of Law. We took our inspiration from, and owe our success to, President Ronald Reagan and his Patriot team, many of whom were our earliest promoters and supporters. They sparked the flame to revitalize our Constitution’s legal standing some two decades earlier, at the juncture of our nation’s bicentennial.

We also owe a great debt to conservative protagonists such as National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., and the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin J. Feulner, both of whom provided meaningful guidance and assistance to get us under way.

Of course, I’d be remiss if I failed also to credit Albert Arnold Gore, who “took the initiative in creating the Internet” for us, and then galvanized those of us interested in national sovereignty in opposition to his utopian scheme to socialize the world economy, ostensibly to thwart “global warming.”

I believe the most important factor in our success has been our steadfast commitment to the Rule of Law, the supremacy of our national Constitution in all matters pertaining to the role and authority of our central government, and our analysis of the same.

We have endeavored to keep our eye on the prize, and we’ve thus avoided being co-opted by any political party or organization.

That will be the challenge for the independent Tea Party Patriots and other conservative movements — to keep their eyes firmly affixed on the task of restoring our Constitution and its prescription for Rule of Law, and to avoid the risk of being swallowed up by large, centralized poli-wonks.

Last week, my friend Ed Feulner, and many other colleagues, released “The Mount Vernon Statement,” a document similar in substance to the “Sharon Statement” released in 1960 by a group of conservative intellectuals including Bill Buckley, M. Stanton Evans and Annette Kirk (widow of influential American conservative Russell Kirk).

Feulner and his staff at the Heritage Foundation have been uniformly resolute in their support for constitutional Rule of Law.

Ten years ago, I met with key staff members of the Heritage Foundation and encouraged them to adopt the practice of posting, in the introductory abstract of their papers, the specific constitutional authority for every policy position they advocate. Two years ago, Heritage launched their massive First Principles initiative, with the objective of asserting constitutional authority as the centerpiece of their mission.

While I applaud the entire Heritage team for their First Principles endeavor, I note that some of the principal signatories of the Mount Vernon Statement, though “conservative” by label, do not meet The Patriot standard of reliance upon the plain language of our Constitution, nor are many of those signatories representative of the “grassroots” movement they seek to unify around this statement.

With that in mind, I reiterate that any real movement to restore the integrity of our Constitution must be bottom-up, not top-down. Patriots need only subscribe to one mission statement, the first statement of conservative principles, our Constitution.

The GOP establishment squandered its opportunity to reassert First Principles when it held majorities under George W. Bush, and the party will have to demonstrate an authentic commitment to those principles if it is to gain the trust of a single American Patriot.

Real constitutional reform will come about only when Patriots across the nation demand the restoration of Essential Liberty as “endowed by their Creator,” and they widely articulate the difference between Rule of Law and rule of men.

If you have taken an oath to support and defend our Constitution, I invite you to revisit that venerable document and ask you to reaffirm your oath.

If you have not affirmed that commitment, I invite you to gain a full understanding of our Constitution and then take your oath — and abide by it to your last breath, just as our Founding Fathers mutually pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.

In the words of George Washington, “Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths…?”

Chronicle

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The Foundation

“Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.” –James Madison

Editorial Exegesis

The health care summit is an “evil” trap

“A mere three days before President Obama’s supposedly bipartisan health-care summit, the White House [Monday] released a new blueprint that Democrats say they will ram through Congress with or without Republican support. So after election defeats in Virginia, New Jersey and even Massachusetts, and amid overwhelming public opposition, Democrats have decided to give the voters what they don’t want anyway. Ah, the glory of ‘progressive’ governance and democratic consent. ‘The President’s Proposal,’ as the 11-page White House document is headlined, is in one sense a notable achievement: It manages to take the worst of both the House and Senate bills and combine them into something more destructive. It includes more taxes, more subsidies and even less cost control than the Senate bill. And it purports to fix the special-interest favors in the Senate bill not by eliminating them — but by expanding them to everyone. … The larger political message of this new proposal is that Mr. Obama and Democrats have no intention of compromising on an incremental reform, or of listening to Republican, or any other, ideas on health care. They want what they want, and they’re going to play by Chicago Rules and try to dragoon it into law on a narrow partisan vote via Congressional rules that have never been used for such a major change in national policy. If you want to know why Democratic Washington is ‘ungovernable,’ this is it.” –The Wall Street Journal

Insight

“The state tends to expand in proportion to its means of existence and to live beyond its means, and these are, in the last analysis, nothing but the substance of the people. Woe to the people that cannot limit the sphere of action of the state! Freedom, private enterprise, wealth, happiness, independence, personal dignity, all vanish.” –French economist Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

“People unfit for freedom — who cannot do much with it — are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a ‘have’ type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a ‘have not’ type of self.” –writer and philosopher Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)

“The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.” –British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

Upright

“Offering ‘comprehensive’ reform usually means years of arguing and horse-trading among pressure groups to get anything done. By the time all the special interests are appeased or bought off, the resulting elephantine legislation typically looks nothing like what was intended. In short, big-government medicine usually doesn’t work on big-government sickness. If President Obama wants ‘comprehensive’ change, it would be better simply not to spend any more money we don’t have.” –historian Victor Davis Hanson

“[Barack Obama failed to sell a health care reform plan to American voters] because the utter implausibility of its central promise — expanded coverage at lower cost — led voters to conclude that it would lead ultimately to more government, more taxes and more debt.” –columnist Charles Krauthammer

“Don’t ever let anyone tell you that history doesn’t repeat. For 70 years, liberals have been spinning the yarn that FDR’s New Deal, despite all the evidence that it exacerbated and prolonged the Great Depression, quickened our economic recovery. Indeed, I remember scratching my head when one of my college history professors in the 1970s tried to convince us of that theory and its corollary — an even better howler — that FDR was actually a conservative, because if he hadn’t implemented his socialist programs, the republic would have died right there.” –columnist David Limbaugh

“This is a perfect snapshot of the West at twilight. On the one hand, governments of developed nations microregulate every aspect of your life in the interests of ‘keeping you safe.’ … On the other hand, when it comes to ‘keeping you safe’ from real threats, such as a millenarian theocracy that claims universal jurisdiction, America and its allies do nothing. … It is now certain that Tehran will get its nukes, and very soon. This is the biggest abdication of responsibility by the Western powers since the 1930s.” –columnist Mark Steyn

“In the early aftermath of the suicidal pilot’s attack [in Austin], there was no evidence that Stack belonged to a Tea Party organization. In any case, no law-abiding Tea Party group would ever condone what he did. But it didn’t stop the haters from immediately smearing advocates of limited government. And it’s just the latest in a long line of calculated attempts to paint the vast majority of peaceful Tea Party activists as terrorist threats to civil society. … The smear merchants, of course, are simply following Rahm Emanuel’s advice to exploit every crisis.” –columnist Michelle Malkin

“Why should we capitalists go green? To do so is simply to exchange our technological, industrial, and energy superiority for a lie. … Capitalism is about progressing via the ingenuity and excellence of minds unfettered by government regulations and interference. But environmentalism based on the man-made global warming theory is about regressing from the advances that unfettered minds have made. It’s also about pushing the government to regulate and interfere at every step along the way.” –columnist AWR Hawkins

The Demo-gogues

The definition of chutzpah: “After a decade of profligacy, the American people are tired of politicians who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk when it comes to fiscal responsibility. It’s easy to get up in front of the cameras and rant against exploding deficits. What’s hard is actually getting deficits under control. But that’s what we must do. Like families across the country, we have to take responsibility for every dollar we spend.” –Barack Obama

Taxes are going up: “Everything’s on the table. That’s how this thing is going to work.” –Barack Obama after creating a deficit commission on whether he would raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 a year

Shut up, he explained: “They should stop crying about reconciliation as if it’s never been done before.” –Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) (It’s never been done on a bill of this magnitude before.)

“So I do believe that there is more fertile soil today than when we first took this up.” –House Democrat Whip James Clyburn, of South Carolina, weighing in not on all those “shovel ready” supposed job-starting projects of the “stimulus” but on the Demo plan for the government takeover of U.S. medical care.

You don’t say: “Health care has been knocking me around pretty good.” –Barack Obama, who still hasn’t learned his lesson

Speaking of being knocked around: “Men, when they’re out of work, tend to become abusive.” –Harry Reid (“Many observers have speculated that Reid is likely to lose his job at the end of the current term. … Is something going to happen to Mrs. Reid if Nevadans don’t re-elect this senator?”)

Non sequitur: “We have countries like China, which don’t have to go through the democratic processes that we do, that order factories to move to deal with their air pollution.” –Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), urging his fellow senators to pass cap-n-tax

Ax not what your country can do for you… “[A]s a condition of receiving access to Title I funds we will ax all states to put in place a plan to adopt and certify standards that are college and career ready in reading and math.” –the eloquent orator Barack Obama, emphasis added, because yes, he did say “ax” — see the video (We guess Harry Reid was right.)

Dezinformatsia

The BIG Lie: “Democrats and Republicans agree that Republicans are picking up seats in the mid-term elections. What the White House can do — what they’re trying to do — is to achieve a health care bill. People still want that.” –ABC’s George Stephanopoulos

Willing accomplices: “White House adjusts strategy on Republicans — The Obama administration aims to put members of the GOP on the spot, forcing them to compromise on issues or be portrayed as obstructionists.” –Los Angeles Times headline and sub-headline

Sympathetic stories: “Big fanfare this week. The Obama administration fanned out across the country, ‘the stimulus worked.’ The president made speeches, sounded a little frustrated that people don’t get it, at least polls show, that they don’t understand there were tax cuts and things like that. What did they do wrong? They’re playing defense on what was one of their major accomplishments. What did the White House, the president do wrong in explaining, presenting and selling it?” –ABC’s Terry Moran (He lied through his teeth about all of it, that’s what.)

Supreme arrogance: “In trying to explain our political paralysis, analysts cite President Obama’s tactical missteps, the obstinacy of congressional Republicans, rising partisanship in Washington, and the Senate filibuster, which has devolved into a super-majority threshold for important legislation. These are large factors to be sure, but that list neglects what may be the biggest culprit of all: the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.” –Newsweek’s Jacob Weisberg, revealing what the elitists think of the American people

The innocent media: “When a news executive goes out there and states a crazy accusation like that … it only ends up probably hurting what they’re trying to do, but … it only denigrates all of us…. And, I’m sorry, there are certain news organizations out here whose agenda is to undermine the 90 percent of journalists who are just simply trying to cover stories out there.” –MSNBC’S Chuck Todd reacting to Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon’s statement that “the mainstream media hates the Tea Party movement almost as much as it hates Sarah Palin.”

Newspulper Headlines:

We Blame Global Warming: “Snowballing Problems Hurting Vancouver Games” –Agence France-Presse

Bee All That You Can Bee: “Robots and Bees to Beat the Taliban” –Sunday Times (London)

Questions Nobody Is Asking: “Is Obama Too Thoughtful?” –TheDailyBeast.com

It’s Always in the Last Place You Look: “Flaws Found in Recovery Act Spending Records” –ExecutiveGov.com

Bottom Stories of the Day: “Al Gore Slams Exxon’s ‘Lies’ as Advocates Seek to Regain Momentum” –Hill Web site

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Village Idiots

On health care: “My hope is that the country understands that we need to do this.” –First Lady Michelle Obama (And we all know what “we” means when spoken by an Obama — government. Government “needs” to expand its power.)

RINO lecture: “I would caution my Republican friends that [Obama has] three years to go, and in that three years the American people are going to want to see some progress and not just claims that this guy is out of office and we’re going to do everything to destroy him or that somehow he is a ’socialist’ taking over the country. Have we so lost our faith in this country that we think one person, one man can be can suddenly change our entire system? That’s kind of absurd.” –retired Gen. Colin Powell

Disdain: “The Tea Baggers, they’re not a movement, they’re a cult…. Cults tend to populate from within, encouraging members to have huge broods of children and to give them strange names, like Moonbeam, and Trig.” –HBO’s Bill Maher, who probably will support Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown for California governor and who ignores the Obama-worship cult to which he bends his knee

Short Cuts

“The president says he doesn’t want to make a theatrical production of it, but since the president himself is a theatrical production, it’s difficult to see how the great health care summit can be anything but. Mr. Obama is fond of saying how he wants his presidency to be ‘transparent,’ and he’s making it easy to see through what he and the Democrats are doing. The Democratic task at hand is to animate a corpse with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and who wants to volunteer for that? But Mr. Obama is determined to prop it up for a vote.” –Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

“Secretary of State Clinton dared Iran on Monday to let her hold a town hall meeting in Tehran. That’s telling ‘em. If the ayatollahs had a sense of humor, they’d call her bluff.” –columnist Mark Steyn

“Remember that great scene from the Oscar-robbed classic ‘The Blues Brothers’? Jake and Elwood (John Belushi and Dan Akroyd) are finally cornered by Jake’s former fiancée (Carrie Fisher). Jake left her at the altar with 300 guests and the best Romanian caterers in the state waiting. ‘You betrayed me!’ she exclaims. ‘No I didn’t. Honest,’ Jake explains. ‘I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!’ This is pretty much how Democrats sound these days. None of their problems are their fault. … Coming soon: A terrible flood! Locusts! Anything and everything to avoid admitting their problems are their own fault.” –columnist Jonah Goldberg

Brief · Monday, February 22, 2010

The Foundation

“Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.” –Thomas Jefferson

Government

Race isn’t part of the Constitution’s census prescription

“Suppose you suggest to a congressman that given our budget crisis, we could save some money by dispensing with the 2010 census. I guarantee you that he’ll say something along the lines that the Constitution mandates a decennial counting of the American people and he would be absolutely right. Article I, Section 2 of our Constitution reads: ‘The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.’ What purpose did the Constitution’s framers have in mind ordering an enumeration or count of the American people every 10 years? The purpose of the headcount is to apportion the number of seats in the House of Representatives and derived from that, along with two senators from each state, the number of electors to the Electoral College. The Census Bureau tells us that this year, it will use a shorter questionnaire, consisting of only 10 questions. From what I see, only one of them serves the constitutional purpose of enumeration — namely, ‘How many people were living or staying at this house, apartment or mobile home on April 1, 2010?’ The Census Bureau’s shorter questionnaire claim is deceptive at best. The American Community Survey, long form, that used to be sent to 1 in 6 households during the decennial count, is now being sent to many people every year. Here’s a brief sample of its questions, and I want someone to tell me which question serves the constitutional function of apportioning the number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives: Does this house, apartment, or mobile home have hot and cold running water, a flush toilet, a bathtub or shower, a sink with a faucet, a refrigerator, a stove? Last month, what was the cost of electricity for this house, apartment, or mobile home? How many times has this person been married? After each question, the Bureau of the Census provides a statement of how the answer meets a federal need. I would prefer that they provide a statement of how answers to the questions meet the constitutional need as expressed in Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. … Americans need to stand up to Washington’s intrusion into our private lives. … Unless a census taker can show me a constitutional requirement, the only information I plan to give are the number and names of the people in my household.” –economist Walter E. Williams

Liberty

“If eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, incessant distractions are the way that politicians take away our freedoms, in order to enhance their own power and longevity in office. … Few distractions have had such a long and impressive political track record as getting people to resent and, if necessary, hate other people. The most politically effective totalitarian systems have gotten people to give up their own freedom in order to vent their resentment or hatred at other people…. We have not yet reached these levels of hostility, but those who are taking away our freedoms, bit by bit, on the installment plan, have been incessantly supplying us with people to resent. One of the most audacious attempts to take away our freedom to live our lives as we see fit has been the so-called ‘health care reform’ bills that were being rushed through Congress before either the public or the members of Congress themselves had a chance to discover all that was in it. For this, we were taught to resent doctors, insurance companies and even people with ‘Cadillac health insurance plans,’ who were to be singled out for special taxes. Meanwhile, our freedom to make our own medical decisions — on which life and death can depend — was to be quietly taken from us and transferred to our betters in Washington. … The more they can get us all to resent those they designate, the more they can distract us from their increasing control of our own lives — but only if we sell our freedom cheap.” –economist Thomas Sowell

The Patriot Post offers the best in conservative opinion: Ann Coulter, Thomas Sowell, Jonah Goldberg and Michelle Malkin, just to name a few.

The Gipper

“Our current circumstances in the 21st century are not greatly different from those surrounding our Founders, who remarked on the long train of abuses and usurpations whose ultimate design seemed clearly to abrogate all the citizens’ rights and render them subjects of an absolute despotism. The Founders’ impending tyranny arose under an unjust king; ours derives from a centralizing and increasingly powerful national government that intrudes into ever-growing aspects of our lives, and prevents us from freely exercising our acts of self-government. We New Federalists therefore seek a return to our foundation on the principles of self-government. We seek a new birth of federalism because we seek a new birth of freedom, both for ourselves and for our posterity.” –Ronald Reagan

Political Futures

“Are this year’s ‘tea parties’ really tea parties? What could today’s protesters have in common with the ‘Indians’ who dumped 90,000 pounds of tea in Boston harbor in 1773? Quite a bit, actually. What do today’s tea partiers want? According to the Christian Science Monitor, the movement ‘is about safeguarding individual liberty, cutting taxes, and ending bailouts for business while the American taxpayer gets burdened with more public debt. It is fueled by concern that the United States under Mr. Obama is becoming a European-style social democracy where individual initiative is sapped by the needs of the collective.’ Broadly speaking, the tea parties reflect a growing anger in America that the government seems to be a closed circle, run by an elite in both parties. These elites, combined with a class of bureaucrats, lawyers, journalists and businessmen, use government power to serve their own ends, and not the public good. … When the government is unresponsive to the views of the people, and, beyond that, when our administrative and judicial branches restrict the scope of the people’s legislative rights, protest rises. President Obama, an heir to the Progressive tradition, wants to strengthen this unaccountable, administrative state. The response has been altogether fitting.” –columnist Richard Samuelson

Re: The Left

“Political fraud and scientific swindle can be measured by collapsing ’science.’ The University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in Britain was regarded as the leader in climate research and the fount of raw data on which the science was based until leaked e-mails between researchers revealed evidence of doctoring of data and manipulation of evidence. The director of the research unit, professor Phil Jones, was regarded as an archbishop in the Church of Global Warming. He was pressured to resign in the wake of the scandal. Now he has conceded to an interviewer from the BBC that based on the evidence in his findings, the globe might have been warmer in medieval times. If so, the notion that fluctuations in earthly temperatures are man-made is rendered just that, a man-made notion. The learned professor told his interviewer that for the past 15 years there has been no ’statistically significant’ warming. … Terry Mills, a professor of applied statistics at Britain’s Loughborough University, looks at the U.N. panel’s data and applies a little skepticism. ‘The earth,’ he told London’s Daily Mail, ‘has gone through warming spells like these at least twice before in the last thousand years.’ The global-warming hysteria, on which the Obama administration wants to base enormous new tax burdens, is just about as reliable as the weather hysteria presented nightly on your favorite television channel.” –Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

Opinion in Brief

“This column was scoffing at global warming back when global warming was still cool. But even we have been surprised at the extent of the past three months’ ‘meltdown’ of global warmism, to use the metaphor that everyone seems to have settled on. As we’ve written on various occasions, we didn’t know enough about the substance of the underlying science to make a judgment about it. But we know enough about science itself to recognize that the popular rendition of global warmism — dogmatic, doctrinaire and scornful of skepticism — is not the least bit scientific. The revelations in the Climategate emails show that these attitudes were common among actual scientists, not just the popularizers of their work. Still, we would not have gone so far as to say that global warming was just a hoax. Surely there was some actual science to back it, even if there was a lot less certainty than was claimed. Now, though, we’re wondering if this was too charitable a view.” –Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

Reader Comments

“Alexander’s essay, Warfighting 101, especially his comments about our young uniformed Patriots, truly touched my heart. The summary of the issue with ‘jihadists’ was excellent and the pre and post Medina references very astute. I am a double leg amputee from Vietnam (5th Special Forces Group, 1967) who was, by the grace of God, healed from PTSD. Today I devote my energy, time and efforts in service to our troops, visiting hospitals and bases and sharing my own story of healing. Please have your military readers visit www.combatfaith.com.” –Allen

“In Mr. Alexander’s excellent essay, he notes that ‘orthodox Muslims’ adhere to the pre-Medina Q’uran, while it is the post-Mecca Muslims who advocate jihad. This clearly is a reference to the fact that the suras of the Q’uran dictated during the Mecca phase are in contradiction to the Medina phase suras and the Hadith. However, both the Mecca phase and the Medina phase together comprise the Q’uran and all Muslims are bound by all the Q’uran and the Hadith. I would suggest that it is the jihadists who are the ‘orthodox’ Muslims, since it is they who are strictly following the later teachings of Mohammed, (see the Doctrine of Abrogation) and that is why those who might wish to oppose them are subject to the charge of trying to refute the Prophet’s teachings, the penalty for which is death.” –Mary

“It should be clarified that Dr. John Christy, enlisted by the IPCC as a climate expert, has been countering the UN-IPCC claims on global warming and the causes of climate change for years and years, with scientific evidence. He is a good scientist and not a recent convert. Much of the evidence that bloggers and other political workers against the socialist agenda of the global-warmists have been using his reputation and work.” –Eric

“The last sentence in your And Last item Friday made me feel uncomfortable in how it was presented. ‘Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others.” This calendar, however, is apparently referring to 3 Gore-inthians: “Don’t let your light shine — turn it off to save energy.”‘ I would hope you in making such a statement are not suggesting that the Catholic Church would think of asking us to turn off the light of Christ that shines within us? The Church has been and continues to do this for the last 2,000 years. I would hope that you would not use this holy time of year as we remember what Our Savior did for us all for a bit of bad humor. To point out the ‘green’ aspects of it fine, political ok, but to say it suggests to turn off the light of Christ is very offensive to me and in poor taste.” –Michael

Editor’s Reply: We think you’re reading a bit too much into our word play on light and light bulb.

The Last Word

“[S]ome 80 conservative leaders, including the heads of some of the nation’s most influential groups of the right, gather[ed] to sign a document that has been more than a year in the making called the Mount Vernon Statement. For those of us seeking to pass on our conservative values and ideals to our children, this new document reinvigorates the old — but not outdated — concepts behind the founding of our country. According to Alfred Regnery, publisher of the American Spectator and a member of the Conservative Action Project, the workgroup behind the Mount Vernon Statement, its purpose is to articulate the common core values of all facets of the conservative movement. … Importantly, the Mount Vernon Statement is not geared to any election or candidate or specific piece of legislation. ‘We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding,’ the Statement begins. ‘Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government. These principles define us as a country and inspire us as a people.’ … Visitors to www.themountvernonstatement.com and the Web sites of the various organizations supporting the project are invited to sign the Statement online and to use it as a blueprint going forward for activism and policymaking. It’s meant to go viral as a creed, of sorts, for modern day conservative believers. Amen to that.” –columnist Marybeth Hicks

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Digest · Friday, February 19, 2010

The Foundation

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” –John Adams

Government & Politics

See Nothing, Hear Nothing, Report Nothing

Glacier,

what Glacier?

“Avoid the term ‘global warming,’” advises New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. “I prefer the term ‘global weirding,’ because that is what actually happens as global temperatures rise and the climate changes.”

Friedman, who proves that anyone can be a climatologist, goes on to explain that with global warming, “The weather gets weird. The hots are expected to get hotter, the wets wetter, the dries drier and the most violent storms more numerous. The fact that it has snowed like crazy in Washington — while it has rained at the Winter Olympics in Canada, while Australia is having a record 13-year drought — is right in line with what every major study on climate change predicts: The weather will get weird; some areas will get more precipitation than ever; others will become drier than ever.”

No matter what happens, blame global warming.

But as Friedman and other dogmatists peddle their propaganda, the case for man-made global warming is collapsing like a weak roof in a Beltway blizzard. In fact, we might call it “man made-up” climate change.

Phil Jones, the former director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and a central figure in the ClimateGate scandal, now admits that for the past 15 years, there has been no “statistically significant” warming. Furthermore, he says the warming trend that began in 1975 is not unlike two previous periods since 1850, and the Medieval Warm Period could have been a global phenomenon similar to the latter three. Yet Jones, who said he has had trouble “keeping track” of information supporting the infamous hockey stick graph, is still a believer in man-made global warming and he calls the last 15 years a blip in a long-term trend.

Meanwhile, John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a former lead author on the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is also questioning his faith. “The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change,” he said. Christy’s doubts, like those of other researchers, stem from problems with thousands of weather stations used to collect temperature data. Urbanization and changes in land use, equipment relocation and other factors have compromised the data. “The popular data sets show a lot of warming,” he said, “but the apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development.”

These are truly stunning admissions, coming as they do from “the consensus,” and cast grave doubt on what we have long been told is “settled science.” For their part, U.S. media outlets have reported exhaustively on these developments… scratch that. No, they haven’t. As Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters notes, “Despite the seriousness of these revelations, much as what happened when the ClimateGate scandal first broke, with the exception of Fox News — and a lone report by CNN — America’s media have almost totally boycotted this amazing story.”

Similar revelations regarding data manipulation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) have surfaced with little or no fanfare.

Many of these same media outlets, however, found plenty of time to cover the “news” that Tiger Woods has broken his silence, or the fact that Hollywood director Kevin Smith was kicked off a plane for being too fat. As of Tuesday, CNN had reported it 14 times. Light on substance and, er, heavy on fragrance.

This Week’s ‘Braying Jenny’ Award

“[I]t is inappropriate to look at any particular short period of time to discern the long-term trend.” –NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, when asked whether she agreed with Phil Jones’ assertion that there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995

File this one under “Keen Sense of the Obvious.” Using short-term observations to make long-term predictions is exactly what the “global warming consensus” crew has been doing for the last 15 years.

Casualties of the Changing Climate

As the case for man-made global warming goes up in smoke, there were more defections from the movement this week. United Nations climate chief Yvo de Boer announced his unexpected resignation, effective July 1. True, he took quite a bit of heat for the abject failure of the Copenhagen summit in December, but he probably just wants to spend more time with his family.

Also, The Wall Street Journal reports, “Oil giants BP PLC and ConocoPhillips and heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. said Tuesday they won’t renew their membership in the three-year-old U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a broad business-environmental coalition that had been instrumental in building support in Washington for capping emissions of greenhouse gases. The move comes as debate over climate change intensifies and concerns mount about the cost of capping greenhouse-gas emissions.”

Businesses aren’t the only ones running away from cap-n-tax regulations. Arizona announced that it, too, will suspend its participation in the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative, which aims to reduce regional greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2012. The initiative is spearheaded by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, but Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer says she won’t bind her state with any emission-control plan that would raise costs for businesses and consumers.

As Terence Corcoran of Canada’s National Post notes, “It’s hard to tell right now which part of global warming policy is in the fastest free fall — the economics, the politics or the science.”

Hope ‘n’ Change: Lawyers Still Have Outsized Influence

Battle lines are being drawn for the upcoming health care summit that Barack Obama is orchestrating to save his signature legislative agenda item. The vocal and powerful trial lawyer lobby has made clear that they don’t want tort reform on the table when Obama and the Democrats meet with key Republicans on Feb. 25. The American Association for Justice and other trial lawyer groups practically own the Democrat Party, and their power has been felt twice in recent years when the livelihood of these ambulance chasers has been threatened. They killed medical liability reform under George W. Bush, and they have thus far kept meaningful tort reform out of pending legislation.

Obama has signaled a willingness to discuss malpractice reform, though he remains against caps on lawsuits. His supposedly open-minded view on tort reform is light on details, however, and that makes Republicans skeptical about how much he is willing to give on the issue. DNC Chair Howard Dean spoke an inconvenient truth when he said that Democrats “did not want to take on the trial lawyers.” If Obama’s past performance is any guide, the trial lawyers will be able to keep him right where they want him — their hip pocket.

From the Left: Bayh, Bayh Evan

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) shocked Washington this week by announcing that he would not seek re-election in 2010. His announcement seemed particularly unsettling for Democrats because, of all the high-profile Democrats that have stepped aside in recent weeks, Bayh was probably the one most likely to be re-elected. He was polling ahead of recent Republican entrant and frontrunner, former Sen. Dan Coats, and he has a $13 million war chest.

Lest you think that this was for the good of Hoosiers, two-term Bayh strategically announced his retirement less than 24 hours before the Indiana filing deadline for nominating petitions, thus affording potential Democrat substitutes no time to obtain the thousands of signatures required to be placed on the primary ballot. Now, the state Democrat Party has until June 30 to pick who challenges the Republican in November. Instead of allowing Democrat voters to pick their own candidate on the issues important to them, party leaders in smoke-filled back rooms will sift through potential names and find the one that best measures up to polls, focus groups and the May Republican primary winner.

Bayh, a former secretary of state and governor of Indiana, was also on Obama’s short list for VP. The media has labeled him a moderate, but with an American Conservative Union lifetime rating of 20, it’s hard to see where his political moderation actually came into play. Bayh has no immediate career plans, stating that he may go into business, teach, or do charity work. He did make a point of saying, “I do not love Congress,” a negative sentiment echoed by many congressional retirees this term. They often cite the bitter partisanship that has evolved in Washington for which they really have no one to blame but themselves.

The rapid and continued centralization of power in Washington in recent years has done much to drive the partisanship that now cripples the political process. The more power Congress takes, the harder they fight to keep it, and the less willing they are to compromise or back down. Bayh’s message was lost on his Demo colleagues, though. They were too worried about what will happen to all that money in his war chest.

New & Notable Legislation

“The ink is barely dry on the pay-as-you-go law, and Democrats are seeking to bypass it to enact parts of their job-creation agenda,” reports The Hill. We’re shocked — shocked! Democrats are working to classify unemployment insurance and COBRA health benefits as emergency spending that isn’t subject to the “paygo” rules. Paygo, which Obama signed into law on Feb. 12, requires that some new spending (the exemption list is long) be offset by spending cuts elsewhere or tax increases.

After devising a $787 billion “stimulus” plan that didn’t curb unemployment and — according to a New York Times/CBS poll — didn’t convince the public that it “created or saved” jobs, it goes without saying that Democrats are keen on lowering expectations on the new $154 billion “jobs” bill which passed the House. The Senate has a smaller measure which spends “only” $15 billion.

The House bill promises job creation through such measures as providing aid to the states, extending unemployment benefits, and infrastructure improvements. Yet the original stimulus included many of these same programs and bailouts, leading to the logical question: Why try something again when it didn’t work the first time? Well, that’s why this is called a jobs bill, not a stimulus. Clearly, congressional Democrats hope the jobs this bill saves will be their own in November.

Count on Government Waste

If you thought spending upwards of $2.5 million on advertising during the Super Bowl to promote the upcoming census was a waste of money, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. An audit of last fall’s address canvassing portion of the census, in which workers fixed the GPS coordinates of households in preparation for this spring’s count, found that it cost almost 25 percent more than the original estimate of $356 million. The extra $88 million in expenses found during the audit are an obvious concern since the bulk of the work is yet to be done. Among the excuses given were workers who were paid for the training but quit before the work actually began and others who fudged their mileage reimbursements to pad their paychecks.

The census is mandated by the Constitution to determine proportional representation through an accurate count of the populace, but in more recent times states have pushed hard for the largest possible compliance rate in order to ensure they receive “their share” from the federal trough. Consequently, the census questions become quite a bit more intrusive than “How many people live at this residence?” According to the Census Bureau, the count determines the fate of over $400 billion in federal funding. That’s where the real fraud will begin.

Conservative Leaders Sign ‘Mount Vernon Statement’

Dozens of conservative leaders on Wednesday signed “The Mount Vernon Statement,” a declaration that reaffirms first principles and constitutional Rule of Law, much as The Patriot Post has sought to do for the last 14 years, most recently through our Essential Liberty Project.

Read more and tell us what you think here.

National Security

Warfront With Jihadistan: Second Thoughts on KSM

Of the many judgments that history will make to describe Barack Hussein Obama’s regime, incompetence will be near the top. As prime evidence, look no further than the badly botched handling of the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

Attorney General Eric Holder decided soon after BHO was sworn in that KSM and his murderous cohorts did not commit acts of war to be tried before military commissions, but rather ordinary, run-of-the-mill criminal acts that could be prosecuted in a New York City federal court. Quite naturally, this led to a firestorm of criticism aimed at the administration. Obama tried to douse the flames early, essentially saying, “Hey, we’ll give KSM a fair trial, and then we’ll execute him.” Way to poison the jury pool, Mr. President. Way to show the world how “fair” our justice system is.

With that tack not fooling the American people, with a looming Senate vote that could stop civilian trials for terror suspects, and with cost estimates for a NYC trial going through the roof, Obama began fast-tracking his backtracking. When asked about the administration’s options for KSM, neither Holder nor White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs would rule out a military trial, a stunning retreat from Obama’s previous position. Additionally, Obama says he is now planning to insert himself into the debate about where to try KSM, which raises the obvious question: Where has he been all this time?

Add to this debacle the administration’s handling of the Christmas Day undi-bomber, and the release this week of two new documents that lay out Obama’s defense and homeland security strategy for the next four years — documents that assiduously avoid using the words Islam, Islamic, or Islamist — and the picture that emerges is one of a grossly and recklessly incompetent administration. If the subject weren’t national survival, this might be a fine comedy. But no one is laughing.

In related news, Fox News reports, “The U.S. Army is investigating allegations that soldiers were attempting to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson in South Carolina.” It appears that the Fort Jackson Five are part of the “09 Lima” Arabic translation program and are Muslim.

Left Blames Tea Parties for Austin Plane Crash

On Thursday, a deranged man supposedly angry at the IRS flew a plane into one of their offices in Austin, Texas. Joseph Andrew Stack, the pilot, was killed in the crash, and several people were injured. Stack also apparently set his house on fire before leaving on his mission; his wife and daughter escaped. The attack is being considered criminal, not terrorist.

Columnist Michelle Malkin writes, “Investigators found a Web posting, identified as Stack’s ’suicide manifesto,’ in which he railed against tax laws, inequity, government and crony capitalism. He also targeted ‘puppet’ George W. Bush, murderous health care insurers and the pharmaceutical industry.” His angry tirade concluded, “The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.” Not exactly the words of a supporter of capitalism.

Clearly, Stack was trying to get back at what he called “Big Brother IRS man,” but his politics are rather muddy. That didn’t stop Leftists from blaming the Tea Party movement. We saw it coming.

Time magazine, The Washington Post, New York Magazine and talkingheads at the cable networks immediately jumped on the anti-IRS theme, while ignoring Stack’s slam of capitalism. Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post’s Post Partisan blog, wrote, “[A]fter reading his 34-paragraph screed, I am struck by how his alienation is similar to that we’re hearing from the extreme elements of the Tea Party movement.” New York Magazine said that “a lot of his rhetoric could have been taken directly from a handwritten sign at a tea party rally.”

One blogger at the popular Daily Kos Web site railed, “After months of threats on the United States government, and government institutions, the Anti-Government forces known as the teabaggers have struck with their first 911 [sic] inspired terrorist attack.” Numerous comments on the Huffington Post blog likewise threw blame in the wrong direction.

Tea Partiers do not support communism, and they do support the Rule of Law. Stack’s words and actions are the antithesis of the Tea Party movement’s goals. The Left, however, never lets facts get in the way of a good story.

Business & Economy

Income Redistribution: The Deficit Commission

While Democrats on the Hill are working to circumvent paygo to increase the federal deficit on “emergency items,” Barack Obama signed an executive order Thursday creating a bipartisan fiscal commission tasked with addressing the nation’s $12.3 trillion debt. “It keeps me awake at night, looking at all that red ink,” the president said, just before again lamenting that he “inherited” the mess. The poor dear.

To head the commission, Obama chose Alan Simpson, a former RINO Senate whip, and Erskine Bowles, Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff. The commission will have 18 members, six chosen by the president, six by congressional Democrats and six by congressional Republicans. GOP leaders haven’t yet decided whether to participate.

This year’s deficit is projected to hit $1.6 trillion, or almost 11 percent of GDP. The administration forecasts the deficit to remain above $1 trillion for three consecutive years. The commission’s mandate is to make recommendations by December for reducing that deficit to 3 percent of GDP. Given that Obama also called Thursday for another $50 to $100 billion stimulus plan, however, this commission is laughable.

Also amusing is its “bipartisan” nature. CNBC’s Larry Kudlow said, “Simpson’s to the left of Erskine Bowles,” adding, “It’s an excuse to raise taxes — when we need to be cutting tax rates.” The Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore agreed, writing, “Don’t expect any tax cuts from the Obama deficit reduction panel. This is looking with each passing day like a political ploy to make a tax increase seem imperative and unavoidable. If that’s what Mr. Obama wants, that’s what he’s likely to get with Alan Simpson helping to run the show.”

As the supply of U.S. debt begins to outstrip demand for it, the federal budget is absolutely a major concern. The trouble is, Obama’s policies are taking us in the wrong direction.

The BIG Lie

“Our work is far from over but we have rescued this economy from the worst of this crisis.” –Barack Obama

Read more on the administration’s celebration of the stimulus anniversary here.

Obama Extends Loan for Nuclear Plant

A 50 percent loan default rate would be enough to make most lenders say, “thanks but no thanks” — but not the federal government. Despite Congressional Budget Office and Government Accountability Office reports estimating that the risk of default for new nuclear reactors could climb to 50 percent, President Obama announced an $8.33 billion federal loan guarantee to construct two nuclear reactors in Georgia. And in case this isn’t enough, the president’s 2011 budget would bring to $54.5 billion the government subsidies for nuclear energy projects — projects which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has basically regulated out of the financial reach of private enterprise.

Politico gave the move the ironic title of “nuclear olive branch” to the GOP, but as the Heritage Foundation noted, “President Obama’s nuclear loan guarantee announcement is really nothing more than a transparently cynical attempt to revive his moribund cap-and-trade/energy tax proposals currently languishing in the Senate.” The White House has made clear that it expects Republican cooperation on other administration priorities in return.

While we support energy independence, no single approach is a panacea. Yet in its quest for political points, Obama has found yet one more thing at which to fling taxpayer finances.

Culture & Policy

Faith and Family: Eight of ‘Baptist 10′ Released

On Wednesday, a Haitian judge ordered the release of eight of the 10 Baptist missionaries who had been arrested there in January on charges of child trafficking. The eight landed in Miami Thursday. Last week, we noted the missionaries’ claim that they were taking 33 Haitian orphans to the Dominican Republic for proper care after the earthquake that devastated the Caribbean nation on Jan. 12. But it appears we gave the group’s leaders too much benefit of the doubt.

Laura Silsby, the group leader, and her former nanny, Charisa Coulter, remain in a Haitian jail. The two had been to Haiti previously, and knew what they were doing was illegal. In fact, many of the children were not orphans at all, but had parents still in Haiti, though the parents testified that they had voluntarily given their children to the group. The group’s attorney blamed Silsby, saying the rest were simply “naïve.” We criticized the injustice of the Haitian government as being harmful to those suffering hardship, and though this is often true, sometimes the helpers are the ones hurting the cause.

Village Academic Curriculum: Bible Placement is a ‘Hate Crime’

An eighth grade teacher in North Carolina has been suspended while investigators review recent events surrounding her, her class, a Bible and Facebook. Melissa Hussain is Muslim, and when her students left a Bible on her desk, she posted pointed criticisms on Facebook, including one calling the incident a “hate crime.” She posted, “I can’t believe the cruelty and ignorance of people sometimes,” vowed that she wouldn’t let the matter “go unpunished,” and bragged that she “was able to shame her kids.”

It’s possible that the students were taunting the teacher — they had previously put a picture of Jesus on her desk, wore T-shirts with his picture on the front and sang “Jesus Loves Me” in her classroom. It’s no secret that junior high kids can behave immaturely, but Hussain shouldn’t stoop to their level. Hussain lives in a free country, but if this had occurred in a Muslim nation, the Christian students would certainly not “go unpunished.”

From the ‘Non Compos Mentis’ File

The National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian will soon have a new exhibit. Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard professor who was arrested last summer by Cambridge police, is donating the handcuffs from that infamous incident to the museum. Perhaps the most appropriate name for this monument would be “Acting Stupidly,” to borrow a phrase from Barack Obama’s ill-advised remarks after the arrest. No word on whether an empty bottle from the ensuing beer summit will be added to the display.

Left-Wing Prof Shoots 6 in Alabama

Naturally, when a left-winger goes on a shooting rampage, it doesn’t fit the template. But there’s more to the story of an Alabama professor who killed three colleagues. Read about it here.

To Keep and Bear Arms

According to Fulton County police, a man in Atlanta, Georgia, called in two electricians to an empty home with the intention of robbing them. When the first electrician entered the home, he was immediately robbed and then shot in the leg. Shortly after, the second electrician, unaware that the first electrician was in a predicament, was also shot in the leg. However, he pulled out his own gun and shot the perpetrator in the head. The perp was taken to a hospital where he is in critical condition. Police believe that a second suspect may have been involved and may also have a gunshot wound.

May Youmans, a witness to the scene, praised the second electrician, saying, “I’m just glad that the electrician had a weapon. He retaliated against [the robber] so they wouldn’t think about doing it again to no one else.”

In other Second Amendment news, Monday, Feb. 22, will mark the end of the 94-year-old ban on carrying loaded firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges. Congress passed a law last May lifting the ban by revoking the National Park Service’s ability to set its own gun policy. State law now governs each park. Somehow it’s fitting that this recognition of gun (and state) rights will occur on George Washington’s birthday. We think the man who led an army of citizen soldiers in the fight for our independence would approve.

And Last…

First, let us say that we support conservation, a word that shares the same root as “conservative.” But the latest recommendations from the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change leave us wondering when Al Gore joined the Church. During Lent, which began Wednesday and lasts for 40 days, Catholics traditionally give up something in observance. According to the latest Public Policy Insights newsletter, “the Archdiocese of Washington’s Environmental Outreach Committee has created a particularly useful new tool: a calendar that lists 40 carbon-fasting measures individuals can take to reduce their carbon footprint.” In other words, the faithful are being asked to give up carbon for Lent.

Now, you too can “Show reverence for life and for the Earth” by doing various “green” things, all for the annual Catholic Climate Covenant. For example, you might give up “one light bulb from your home,” or “Turn down your thermostat by at least one degree.” And don’t forget to “Check the tire pressure of your car” or to “Learn about mountaintop removal mining.”

Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others.” This calendar, however, is apparently referring to 3 Gore-inthians: “Don’t let your light shine — turn it off to save energy.”

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Alexander’s Essay – February 18, 2010

Warfighting 101

“A universal peace … is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts.” –James Madison

The Long Road Ahead

I spent much of the last week participating in a national security forum organized by the Air War College and hosted by the Twelfth Air Force and the 355th Fighter Wing at Davis-Monthan AFB.

Discussing the challenges of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and the surge for Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan with command personnel makes for lively debate, but the best part of these forums is incidental — the opportunity to meet many enlisted airmen and those flying the planes they make ready.

I have been on military bases across the nation, and without fail I am most impressed by the young uniformed Patriots who are the foundation of our military might. Simply put, their dedication, talent and spirit are second to none.

In a nation where most young people are devoted, first and foremost, to themselves, our young airmen, sailors, soldiers, coast guardsmen and Marines serve a much higher calling, true to their oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…” If only their civilian political leaders were true to the same.

Among other operations around the world, these young people, and those in their chain of command, have made enormous progress toward establishing a functional democracy in the heart of the Middle East, Iraq. And despite what Vice President Joe Biden may believe, this remarkable achievement is theirs, not his.

After launching military operations against Iraq in 2003, our enemies were greatly emboldened by traitors on the Left and their Leftmedia minions, especially those running cover stories such as Newsweek’s “We’re losing…” proclamation.

In a debate some years ago with a professor from MIT who had written many policy papers on why we should not have prosecuted OIF, I asked him how many papers he had written on the consequences had we not prosecuted OIF. That query returned a classic “deer in the headlights” gaze.

My point, of course, was that it’s easy to criticize anything past or under way. Hindsight can be 20/20, but military battle plans rarely withstand the first shots fired, which is to say that you start where your boots are, and fight on from there.

All those Leftist talking points notwithstanding, Iraq is now well on the way to restoring its once great Mesopotamian heritage.

To the east of Iraq, on the far side of another Islamic trouble spot, Iran, our military forces now face a daunting task in Afghanistan, a very different battlefront.

I was in the region shortly after the Soviets retreated in 1989, and I can tell you that this vast, desolate moonscape offers little more than a meager subsistence for even the most seasoned tribal people.

Consequently, Afghanistan has two — and only two — exports: heroin and terrorism, and not necessarily in that order.

Since we first launched strikes in Afghanistan shortly after 9/11, our objective has been to kill or capture al-Qa’ida terrorists and dislodge their Taliban hosts. That mission was, and remains, quite different from our mission in Iraq, which is a mix of war-fighting, peacekeeping and nation building.

Most recently, U.S. and Afghan warriors, supported by other allies, launched Operation Moshtarak (a Dari word meaning “together”) in the center of Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province and the town of Marjah.

There is very little chance that a functioning democracy, or much else, can be established in Afghanistan. The internal regional conflicts, with or without the Taliban mixing things up, preclude such establishment.

Our objective is to prevent the Taliban from occupying uncontrolled regions there long enough for us to support and build up the Afghan military to a sustainable level. Once this is accomplished, the Afghan military will endeavor to rid the countryside of Taliban extremists, and keep them out, even if it invites eradication efforts across the southeastern border with Pakistan. (Pakistan is much more concerned with its neighbor, India, than its border with Afghanistan.)

Why prosecute the Taliban?

Because their presence in Afghanistan serves as a launch pad for jihadi attacks around the world.

On 10 September 2001, after eight years of Clinton administration national security malfeasance, and eight months of the newly installed Bush administration’s efforts to reorder national security priorities, most Americans were unaware that a deadly enemy had set up shop on our turf.

On 11 September, that enemy attacked us, leaving a hole in a Pennsylvania field and collapsing not only our World Trade Center towers and one fifth of the Pentagon, but also the U.S. economy, which was its ultimate objective. That attack was organized by Sheik Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, al-Qa’ida, from Taliban-occupied territory in Afghanistan.

Al-Qa’ida was, and remains, part of an increasingly unified and asymmetric Islamist terror network supported by nation states including Iran, Syria and extremist factions in Saudi Arabia, and previously by Iraq.

Unlike symmetric threats emanating from clearly defined nation states such as Russia and China — those with unambiguous political, economic and geographical interests — asymmetric enemies defy nation-state status, thus presenting new and daunting national-security challenges for the executive branch and U.S. military planners.

The strategy to-date in Afghanistan has been somewhat modeled after our strategy in Iraq. The operational blueprint has been “shape, clear, hold and build”: Shape the conditions to secure population centers; clear insurgents; hold the region so that insurgents can’t regain tactical advantage; and build, which includes the provision of humanitarian and reconstruction efforts until such control can be transferred to national authorities.

However, as noted, there remain serious questions about whether any such national authority can be established in Afghanistan, or if the best we can hope for is the development of a military authority, heavily underwritten by the U.S. and NATO, and sufficient to contain the Taliban and its terrorist campaigns against the West.

Afghanistan remains an ideal breeding ground for the active cadres of “Jihadistan,” a borderless nation of Islamic extremists comprising al-Qa’ida and other Muslim terrorist groups around the world.

A borderless nation, indeed. The “Islamic World” of the Quran recognizes no political borders. Though orthodox Muslims (those who subscribe to the teachings of the “pre-Medina” Quran) do not support acts of terrorism or mass murder, large, well-funded sects within the Islamic world subscribe to the “post-Mecca” Quran and Hadiths (Mohammed’s teachings). It is this latter group which calls for jihad, or “holy war,” against all “the enemies of God.”

For the record, these “enemies,” or infidels, are all non-Muslims.

Are you a non-Muslim?

Jihadists, then, are characterized by the toxic Wahhabism of Osama bin Laden and his heretical ilk — those who would remake the Muslim world in their own image of hatred, intolerance, death and destruction. In the words of bin Laden himself: “We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us.”

Does Barack Hussein Obama get the message?

Given his penchant for appeasement and for ill-advised withdrawal timelines from Iraq and Afghanistan, one would think not.

Moreover, the Obama administration’s newly released quadrennial outline for national and homeland defense makes no mention of “Islam,” “Islamic” or “Islamist,” preferring instead to reference “violent extremism.”

Obama’s “Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism,” John Brennan (a.k.a. “Terrorist Czar”), has deflected criticism of the quadrennial reports, and of Obama’s re-warming of the Clinton model for treating terrorists as “criminals” rather than “enemy combatants.”

“Politics should never get in the way of national security,” says Brennan, who insists that Obama’s detractors are “misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe.” The thin-skinned Brennan has also charged that “politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qa’ida.”

Obama’s foreign policy is driven by nothing if not politics, and this includes his Afghanistan strategy. It’s a strategy necessitated by his phony bravado during the 2008 presidential campaign — a strategy with the ultimate aim of an easy political out.

Carnegie Endowment policy analyst Robert Kagan observes, “The new doctrine that seems to enjoy enormous cachet among the smart foreign policy set is: Fight wars until they get hard, then quit.”

I prefer John Stuart Mill’s assessment: “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. … A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander

Publisher, PatriotPost.US

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Chronicle · Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The Foundation

“Amplification is the vice of modern oratory.” –Thomas Jefferson

The Demo-gogues

It’s “Joe Biden Week” at the White House

The BIG Lie: “[Taxpayers have] gotten their money’s worth [out of the $787 billion stimulus].” –Vice President Joe Biden

Which administration? “I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration.” –Joe Biden

“Greatest achievement” equals mistake? “I don’t think the [Iraq] war was worth it, in the sense that we paid a horrible price, not only in loss of life, the way the war was mishandled from the outset, but we took our eye off the ball, putting us in a much different and more dangerous position in Afghanistan.” –Joe Biden

Breaking news from 2002: “The president of the United States said in the State of the Union, ‘We’re at war with al-Qa’ida.’ He stated this — and by the way, we’re pursuing that war with a vigor like it’s never been seen before.” –Joe Biden, who is just now tuning in

Biden in 2002: “We have no choice but to eliminate the threat. [Saddam Hussein] is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world.”

Nanny state: “I don’t know if anybody noticed that, for the first time this year, you saw more people getting health care from government than you did from the private sector; not because of anything we did, but because more and more people are losing their health care from their employers. It’s becoming unaffordable.” –Barack Obama

He’s catching on: “[Obama] said, you know, I’m for clean coal, then he says it in speeches, but he doesn’t say it in here, and he doesn’t say it in the minds of my own people, and he’s beginning to be not believable to me.” –Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)

No Meal Left Behind: “There are kids who are obese in this state who are going to school hungry.” –Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado

On the climate change front, check out this montage of video of Democrats blaming the lack of snow on global warming. Where are they now?

Insight

“Virtue is harder to be got than a knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.” –English philosopher and political theorist John Locke (1632-1704)

“Politics is the best show in America. I love animals and I love politicians, and I like to watch both of ‘em play, either back home in their native state or after they’ve been captured and sent to a zoo — or Washington.” –American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

Editorial Exegesis

“Those unversed in the arcana of Congressional procedure should familiarize themselves with ‘reconciliation.’ It’s just another word for nothing left to lose — that is, it’s the tactic Democrats seem increasingly likely to use to bypass the ordinary legislative rules and railroad ObamaCare into law with a bare partisan majority of 50 Senators, plus Vice President Joe Biden. Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced … that Democrats ‘have set the stage’ for reconciliation. ‘It’s up to us to make sure the public knows that this is not extraordinary,’ she said. ‘It would be a reflection on us if we could not convince people that this is not an unusual place to go.’ Yet the reconciliation gambit really would be unprecedented for social legislation of this cost and scale. And as a matter of procedure, it would also be unusual, to say the least. As Mrs. Pelosi’s senior health adviser, Wendell Primus, explained … House Democrats would pass a series of ‘fixes’ to the Senate bill. The Senate would then pass the House reconciliation bill, sending amendments to President Obama to a bill that — strictly speaking — didn’t exist, because it hadn’t yet emerged from the House. The House would then retroactively pass the Senate bill as is. Democrats say this will all be kosher as long as Mr. Obama signs the Senate bill before he signs the reconciliation bill. ‘There’s a certain skill, there’s a trick,’ Mr. Primus conceded, ‘but I think we’ll get it done.’ So even as Democrats themselves acknowledge that one reason the public hates ObamaCare so much is the corrupt tactics they have used to advance it through Congress, they still plan to try to land this Pelosian triple-handspring-quadruple pole vault to passage.” –The Wall Street Journal

Upright

“Obamacare flunks the first test of any potential federal law: It is not constitutional.” –National Review’s Deroy Murdock

“It’s not a good idea for Republicans to accept President Barack Obama’s invitation to a ‘bipartisan’ health care summit, because it would not advance acceptable health care reform. The only thing it likely would advance would be Obama’s propaganda message — and, thus, his socialist agenda.” –columnist David Limbaugh

“It isn’t to evil dictators with a lust for power that Americans have been slowly surrendering their autonomy. It is to well-intentioned authorities who believe sincerely that our freedoms must be circumscribed for our own good. … First Lady Michelle Obama announced what The New York Times called ‘a sweeping initiative … aimed at revamping the way American children eat and play — reshaping school lunches, playgrounds, and even medical checkups — with the goal of eliminating childhood obesity.’ Nothing in the Constitution authorizes the federal government to take charge of ‘revamping the way American children eat and play.’ It is only our passivity that makes such an encroachment possible. This used to be the land of the free. Is it still?” –columnist Jeff Jacoby

“Only two things are infinite — the expanding universe and Democrats’ hostility to the District of Columbia’s school choice program. Killing this small program, which currently benefits 1,300 mostly poor and minority children, is odious and indicative. It is a small piece of something large — the Democrats’ dependency agenda, which aims to multiply the ways Americans are dependent on government. … The dependency agenda is progressive education for children of all ages, meaning all ages treated as children.” –columnist George Will

“In the Obama world view, KSM did not perpetrate an act of war but simply pulled off the equivalent of a liquor-store holdup with a somewhat higher body count: it’s not a war, it’s a law enforcement matter.” –columnist Mark Steyn

Dezinformatsia

Whose money is it? “[T]he Bush tax cuts are the single largest part of the black hole that is the federal budget deficit.” –Newsweak editor Fareed Zakaria

Obama’s national security theater: “Let us talk about Dick Cheney and the point that he seems to be trying to make … is that … the Obama administration, is not taking terrorism seriously enough. Is this theater or is there a real point to be made?” –CBS’s Harry Smith

Now they ask? “[D]on’t you think when the former vice president says America is weaker than it has been that [he is] giving aid and comfort to the enemy, that [he is] encouraging another attack?” –Fox’s Geraldo Rivera

Good riddance: “‘End of an era. The last Kennedy in Congress calling it quits.’ … It was 1946 when [Patrick's] uncle John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected to the House. Then, his uncle, Senator Robert Kennedy, and then his father, Ted. There has always been a Kennedy in Washington.” –ABC’s Diane Sawyer

Alpha Jackass: “The whole of the anger-at-government movement is predicated on this: Times are tough, the future is confusing, the threat from those who would dismantle our way of life is real, as if we weren’t to some extent doing it for them now. And the president’s black. But you can’t come out and say that’s why you’re scared. … And so this is where the euphemisms come in. But taxes haven’t gone up, the budget deficit is from the last administration’s adventurous war, grandma is much more likely to be death-paneled by your insurance company, and a socialist president would be the one who tried to buy as many voters as possible with stupid tax cuts.” –MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann

The media have done their job: “While the president is showing signs of vulnerability on his handling of the economy — a majority say he has yet to offer a clear plan for creating jobs — Americans blame former President George W. Bush, Wall Street and Congress much more than they do Mr. Obama for the nation’s economic problems and the budget deficit, the poll found. They credit Mr. Obama more than Republicans with making an effort at bipartisanship, and they back the White House’s policies on a variety of disputed issues, from allowing gays to serve openly in the military to repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.” –New York Times’ political reporter Adam Nagourney

Newspulper Headlines:

‘Think, Mr. President — Where Were You When You Last Had It?’: “Obama Loses the Country” –Commentary Web site

Uh, the Earthquake?: “Haiti Gives Death Toll of 270,000; No Explanation” –Associated Press

Step 1: Don’t Lie: “Scientists Seek Better Way to Do Climate Report” –Associated Press

We Blame Global Warming: “To Succeed, Florida Must Be Cool Again, Economic Leaders Say” –Miami Herald

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “Snow Shuts Down Federal Government, Life Goes On” –Associated Press

Bottom Stories of the Day: “Charges of Hypocrisy, Failure in Stimulus Spending” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch Web site

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Village Idiots

Vigor or … whatever: “At the end of the day, wherever [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] is tried, in whatever forum, what we have to ensure is that it’s done as transparently as possible and with adherence to all the rules. If we do that, I’m not sure the location or even the forum is as important as what the world sees in that proceeding.” –Attorney General Eric Holder

What happened to “Dissent is patriotic”? “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qa’ida. … Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill. … [P]olitics should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe.” –Assistant to the president and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan

Nothing gets by her: “We see that the government of Iran — the supreme leader, the president, the parliament — is being supplanted and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship. You know, that is our view.” –Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sharp as a marble

They say the debate is over: “To deny what scientists or scientific evidence is showing, is inappropriate. And as I said earlier, to me … it’s unpatriotic.” –Bill Nye the Science Guy on global warming and blizzards

But on the other hand: “I don’t believe the vast majority of climate scientists think [the debate is over]. This is not my view.” –Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and the central figure in ClimateGate

“For the longest time, every Republican election has been based on some sentimental bulls–t: the flag, or the flag pin, or the Pledge, or the, ‘It’s morning in America.’ … Yes, yes, the love of our troops, the ultimate in fake patriotism. Are you kidding? The troops, we pay them like s–t, we f–k them and trick them on deployment, we nickel and dime them on medical care when they get home, not to mention the stupid wars that we send them to. Yeah, we love the troops the way Michael Vick loves dogs.” –HBO’s Bill Maher

Short Cuts

“How much time, do you suppose, has Eric Holder spent as attorney general of the United States explaining that he meant no harm by all the harm he’s done?” –columnist Paul Greenberg

“Our government can’t even resolve confusion about George Washington’s birthday. How could it possibly improve our health care system?” –columnist Tom Purcell

“The bottom line on Obama: He puts our money where his mouth is.” –CNS News editor Terence Jeffrey

“If global warming gets any worse I’m going to have to buy a snowmobile.” –political analyst Rich Galen

“The Weather Channel reported snow on the ground in forty-nine states Friday for the first time ever. It’s a winter nobody will forget. Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his book on global warming and now it’s up for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Brief · Monday, February 15, 2010

The Foundation

“Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.” –Thomas Jefferson

Vancouver Olympics

For the Record

“NBC (which is owned by General Electric) [has begun] broadcasting the 2010 Winter Olympics from Vancouver, Canada. … [But some] events will be difficult to pull off. Why? There is no snow in Vancouver. And International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge knows exactly what is to blame: global warming. Rogge tells AFP: ‘Global warming of course is a worry, it is a worry for the entire world.’ Considering that NBC/GE has already received billions in TARP bailout cash from the Obama administration and is actively lobbying for a global warming energy tax bill so that it can receive billions more in government green-energy subsidies on top of the millions it already receives, we are sure to hear lots from NBC announcers about how the lack of snow in Vancouver is just another reason Washington needs to act now to stop global warming. But back in Washington, the global warming scare-monger crowd is singing a slightly different tune. Facing record snowfalls, Time is reporting: ‘Snowstorm: East Coast Blizzard Tied to Climate Change.’ But do not confuse this headline with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s column from two years ago claiming that global warming was causing ‘anemic winters’ in the Washington region. No snow, too much snow. It does not matter to the enviroleft crowd. For them, global warming always is to blame.” –The Heritage Foundation “Morning Bell”

Washington’s Birthday

In some circles, today is observed as “Presidents’ Day,” jointly recognizing Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but it is still officially recognized as the anniversary of “Washington’s Birthday” — and that is how we mark the date in our shop. (Washington’s actual birthday is next Monday, February 22.)

As friend of The Patriot, Matthew Spalding, a Heritage Foundation scholar, reminds: “Although it was celebrated as early as 1778, and by the early 19th Century was second only to the Fourth of July as a patriotic holiday, Congress did not officially recognize Washington’s Birthday as a national holiday until 1870. The Monday Holiday Law in 1968 — applied to executive branch departments and agencies by Richard Nixon’s Executive Order 11582 in 1971 — moved the holiday from February 22 to the third Monday in February. Section 6103 of Title 5, United States Code, currently designates that legal federal holiday as ‘Washington’s Birthday.’ Contrary to popular opinion, no action by Congress or order by any President has changed ‘Washington’s Birthday’ to ‘Presidents’ Day.’”

In honor of and with due respect for our first and (we believe) greatest president, arguably our nation’s most outstanding Patriot, we include two quotes from George Washington which best embody his dedication to liberty and God. The first from his First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789, and the second from his Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.

“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American People.”

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness — these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens.”

These quotes aptly sum up The Patriot Post’s mission and purpose.

Opinion in Brief

“Two centuries ago, King George III was told that President George Washington, who had eight years earlier turned down the opportunity to be the king of the United States, was planning to give up the presidency at the conclusion of his second term and return to his farm in Mount Vernon. The astonished monarch, who had lost a war to General Washington, said, ‘If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.’ Washington did, and he was. Does anything more clearly illustrate how far we have fallen in 210 years?” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

Government

“Government is taking us a long way down the Road to Serfdom. That doesn’t just mean that more of us must work for the government. It means that we are changing from independent, self-responsible people into a submissive flock. The welfare state kills the creative spirit. F.A. Hayek, an Austrian economist living in Britain, wrote ‘The Road to Serfdom’ in 1944 as a warning that central economic planning would extinguish freedom. … Hayek meant that governments can’t plan economies without planning people’s lives. After all, an economy is just individuals engaging in exchanges. The scientific-sounding language of President Obama’s economic planning hides the fact that people must shelve their own plans in favor of government’s single plan. At the beginning of ‘The Road to Serfdom,’ Hayek acknowledges that mere material wealth is not all that’s at stake when the government controls our lives: ‘The most important change … is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people.’ This shouldn’t be controversial. If government relieves us of the responsibility of living by bailing us out, character will atrophy. The welfare state, however good its intentions of creating material equality, can’t help but make us dependent. That changes the psychology of society. According to the Tax Foundation, 60 percent of the population now gets more in government benefits than it pays in taxes. What does it say about a society in which more than half the people live at the expense of the rest?” –columnist John Stossel

Re: The Left

“If you’ve been paying attention to the left-wing punditry these days, you may be under the impression that the nation’s institutions are on the verge of collapse. Or that the rule of law is unraveling. Or maybe that this once-great nation is crippled and nearly beyond repair. You know why? Because the 40 percent (or so) political minority has far too much influence in Washington. Don’t you know? This minority, egged on by a howling mob of nitwits, is holding progress hostage using its revolting politics and parliamentary trickery. … President Barack Obama, after his agenda had come to a halt, claimed democracy is a ‘messy’ process — as if that were a bad thing. Actually, ‘democracy’ is not only messy but also immoral and unworkable. The Founding Fathers saw that coming, as well. So we don’t live under a system of simple majority rule for a reason, as most readers already know. The minority political party, luckily, has the ability to obstruct, nag, and filibuster the majority’s agenda. Otherwise, those in absolute power would run wild — or, in other words, you all would be living that Super Bowl Audi commercial by now. … [T]oday’s argument that the ruling party doesn’t have enough power is a reflection of a nearly spiritual belief in the wonders of government, not democracy.” –columnist David Harsanyi

Political Futures

“How could such smart people do so many stupid things? That question, or variations on it, is being asked in Washington and around the country about the Obama administration. The same people who directed the campaign that defeated Hllary Clinton and routed John McCain, a campaign that raised far more money and attracted far more volunteers than any before it, have within a year come up with a legislative program that is crashing in ruins and that, to judge from recent polls, has left the Democratic Party weaker than I have seen it in almost 50 years of closely following politics. … Team Obama failed to realize they were no longer running in Chicago or in the Democratic primaries or facing an electorate fed up with Republicans. And, more important, they failed to realize that vastly expanding government goes deeply against the American grain — and against the basic appeal of their successful campaign.” –political analyst Michael Barone

The Gipper

“There are those, of course, who claim we must give up freedom in exchange for economic progress. Well, pardon me, but anyone trying to sell you that line is no better than a three-card-trick man. One thing becoming more clear every day is that freedom and progress go hand in hand. Throughout the developing world, people are rejecting socialism because they see that it doesn’t empower people, it impoverishes them.” –Ronald Reagan

Liberty

“Most of us want to be fair, in the sense of treating everyone equally. We want laws to be applied the same to everyone. We want educational, economic or other criteria for rewards to be the same as well. But this concept of fairness is not only different from prevailing ideas of fairness among many of the intelligentsia, it contradicts their idea of fairness. … This more hands-on concept of fairness gives third parties a much bigger role to play. But whether any human being has ever had the omniscience to determine and undo the many differences among people born into different families and cultures — with different priorities, attitudes and behavior — is a very big question. And to concentrate the vast amount of power needed to carry out that sweeping agenda is a dangerous gamble, whose actual consequences have too often been written on the pages of history in blood.” –economist Thomas Sowell

Culture

“Seventeen years ago, General Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, helped formulate the policy that has come to be known as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ It allows gay men and lesbians to serve in the armed forces, provided that they keep their sexual orientation to themselves. Today, Powell is in favor of repealing the policy he crafted and advocated. Well, he was right then, but wrong now. According to Powell, ‘attitudes and circumstances have changed’ since ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was adopted. Sure, attitudes toward homosexuality have changed in the culture at large. But what hasn’t changed is the need for ‘order and discipline in the ranks,’ to use Powell’s own phrase, and the possible impact of allowing openly gay people to serve in the armed forces. … The bond between men in a sound military unit is more like agape — the love that moves men to sacrifice their lives for their buddies. … Allowing openly gay men threatens this cohesion by raising the possibility of a different kind of love — eros — which is ‘individual and exclusive.’ ‘All for one and one for all’ could give way to ’sexual competition, protectiveness and favoritism,’ with disastrous military consequences. Nothing has happened in the last 17 years that makes this less possible or the possible consequences less dire. All that has changed is that many Americans now see everything through the prism of ‘rights.’ For them, sexual rights and personal autonomy trump everything else. Thus, any opposition to changing military policy must be the result of ‘bigotry’ or ‘homophobia.’ I suspect I’m not alone when I say a military unit which openly celebrates the gay lifestyle in the trenches is not a military unit I want to serve in.” –commentator and author Chuck Colson

Reader Comments

“When I watched that Audi ad my jaw literally dropped open. Other’s watching it thought it was funny or at worst cute. I was sitting there thinking to that there exist people in the nation that would LOVE to see a green police become the law enforcement of the land. Very scary indeed.

“My neighbors have been shoveling over 50 inches of snow so far (the last three snow falls) and we are going to get four more inches today of ‘inconvenient truth.’ Everything has been paralyzed for almost a week. God works in wonderful ways, always with a plan, yet the liberal/progressives started spinning immediately this across-the-nation record snow and cold into evidence of global warming. How one’s mind can make such a connection, it is unbelievable. Liberalism is a mental disorder, to quote a famous radio talk-show host.” –Ileana

“Man-made global warming is the greatest hoax of all time. It has nothing to do with the planet, and everything to do with concocting excuses for bigger government to take greater control of our lives.” –MichaelSSEC

The Last Word

“In lecturing us about blowing our money, The Great Ozbama displays breathtaking gall. Given that he is blowing trillions of our money, not his, and burying us in debt as no president in history, silence on the subject would seem more reasonable. To be nit-picky about it, since he is in citing trips to Vegas as particularly objectionable, I hold in my casino chip-calloused fingers a list procured from CanadaFreePress.com of Mrs. Obama’s staff and their salaries. She reportedly has a staff of 22 assistants. Yes, I said twenty-two. (Previous First Ladies’ dedicated staffs were in the single digits). Michelle’s little army includes a Chief of Staff costing $172,000 a year; a Deputy Chief of Staff at $90,000; a Director of Policy and Projects at $140,000; a Director of Communications at $102,000; a Deputy Director of Scheduling at $62,000; two Social Secretaries — mysteriously, one at $65,000, one at $64,000; an Associate Director of Correspondence at $45,000, an Assistant to the Social Secretary at $36,000, and more, in total consuming $6.3-million annually thus $25-million during her 4-year term. Not to mention a make-up artist and hair stylist. I have one assistant. Answer my own correspondence. Keep my own calendar. … Mr. President, sir, if you are going to lecture me about blowing my money in Vegas or turning down my thermostat or inflating my tires, do you think you could reign in your wife’s blowing of my money just a teeny bit?” –columnist Dan Kennedy

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

The Foundation

“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” –James Madison

Government & Politics

A ‘Party of No’ Could Get ‘Yes’ Votes in November

A winning message for Republicans

In a Super Bowl pre-game interview, Barack Obama announced that he wants to have a televised meeting with both Republicans and Democrats to discuss ideas about crafting health care legislation. Imagine that — an open debate with both parties equally represented, hashing out plans and crafting a bill using the best ideas brought to the table. In 2008, Candidate Obama told us that was how health care reform would come to pass in his new bipartisan and transparent Washington. The reality has been far different, though entirely predictable to those who recognized him for what he is: a socialist.

Legislation was crafted not to reform health care, but to put it solely under government control. Deals were made behind closed doors, and yet, even with bulletproof majorities in both chambers, the Democrat Congress has not passed a health care bill.

Now Obama is pretending to play the role of peacemaker, but he views bipartisanship as Republicans submitting to his will. Indeed, he won’t agree to scrap the existing legislation and start from scratch, even though the public has made its distaste for the bills quite clear.

House Minority Leader John Boehner has made dropping the current legislation a prerequisite for Republicans to come to the table. It is, after all, a waste of time to debate a bill that’s essentially dead. Republicans want to cut costs while Democrats want a health insurance entitlement for all. Both sides want to prevent insurance companies from rejecting ill customers, but Democrats, beholden to trial lawyers, reject the common-sense cost-cutting idea of tort reform, among other free-market measures. Unfortunately, neither side is talking about the constitutional role of government.

Even if the meeting happens, both sides are so deeply entrenched that a compromise is rather unlikely. Besides, Obama may be trying to set a political trap of sorts for Republicans by wooing them to the table, offering them a bad deal, then once again accusing them of being “The Party of No,” that mantra so often repeated by his accomplices in the Leftmedia.

Such a label wouldn’t be bad, however, considering that the alternative means going along with a plan that would raise taxes, remove competition in the insurance industry, drive down the quality of health care in our country, and add hundreds of billions — if not trillions — of dollars to the national debt.

In fact, when combined with advocating fiscal responsibility and constitutional Rule of Law, “Just Say No to Socialism” sounds like a winning formula for Republicans come November. Of course, the GOP would have to awaken from its stupor first.

RIP: Rep. Jack Murtha, the Marine Corpse

On Monday, longtime Pennsylvania Democrat Congressman John Murtha died after complications arising from gallbladder surgery. He was 77.

The Leftmedia headlined his obituaries “U.S. Representative Murtha, Supporter of Troops, Dies at Age 77” and “Pa. Dem Murtha remembered as military advocate.” Given his actual history, however, this is the sort of revisionism that was heaped upon the citizens of Oceania in George Orwell’s “1984″: “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.”

While many lauded the head of the House defense appropriations subcommittee as a “staunch supporter of the military,” he’s better known in military circles for his blindly partisan criticism of the Long War and his hasty indictment of eight fellow Marines for supposedly “murdering” innocent civilians “in cold blood” in Haditha, Iraq. (All but one of the defendants have been cleared or had charges dropped; the other is awaiting court-martial.) While Murtha may have had legitimate questions about the tactics used to fight the enemy in Iraq, many took offense at his characterization of our military as cold-blooded killers.

The press conveniently forgets this and other transgressions, such as the ABSCAM scandal of the 1980s, in which Murtha escaped indictment by the skin of his teeth, or, more accurately, by the “D” after his name. The Leftmedia focused instead on his early military life and perceived service to his district by securing dozens of earmarks for projects there.

While we praise Murtha’s personal service to the Marine Corps (or as the commander in chief would say, “Marine Corpse”), which spanned nearly four decades on active duty and as a reservist, we cannot condone his behavior once he went from serving his country on the field of battle to representing his district and nation in the halls of Congress. Too often did he epitomize the “culture of corruption” that his good friend Nancy Pelosi hypocritically opposed.

History is a harsh judge when men of character falter. A life which was devoted to service fell into one which was merely self-serving, and Marines everywhere must be saddened that one of their own met his Maker without recanting those false accusations against eight of his brothers.

New & Notable Legislation

Senate Democrats had hoped to offer President Obama a legislative victory with an $80 billion “jobs bill,” otherwise known as “Stimulus II” (or is it III, IV or V?). But Thursday, they dropped the bill in favor of a leaner version without unrelated pork. The centerpiece is still $13 billion to exempt companies from Social Security payroll taxes for previously unemployed new hires in 2010. Other incentives include renewing expired business tax credits, extending unemployment benefits, and suspending a cut in Medicare payments to physicians. The White House is predicting growth of 95,000 jobs per month in 2010, but not even the Associated Press buys that. The AP notes the obvious: “[C]ompanies are unlikely to hire workers just to receive a tax break.” Besides, after hiding the loss of over 800,000 additional jobs in 2009, who can trust any figures that these elitists produce?

Blue Dog Democrats plan to propose a bill that will cap discretionary spending at specific levels, going further than the president’s anemic $250 billion decade-long non-discretionary spending freeze. The sheer size of the Blue Dog coalition — 54 House Democrats — means that whatever proposal they come up with will have to be given serious consideration by the majority.

A bill by Rep. Peter King (D-NY) to prevent federal funding for civilian trials of Guantanamo Bay detainees in civilian courts is picking up steam. Sixteen Republican and two Democrat cosponsors have joined King, and he is confident the bill will pass if it is brought to a floor vote. Beyond the House bill, both U.S. senators from New York, the New York City mayor, police commissioner, and the state Senate have voiced opposition to holding the 9/11 terror trials in Manhattan.

Tea Party National Convention

Tea Partiers once again sailed into a sea of controversy last week as more than 600 people from around the country attended the first “National Tea Party Convention” held at the landlocked Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center in Nashville. The event culminated with more than 1,100 people enjoying a keynote dinner speech by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, which was also broadcast around the country on cable.

You might think that the storm was due to mainstream media’s vulgar derision of attendees as “tea baggers” or the tamer “Astroturfers” — but you would be wrong. Larger issues seemed to erupt concerning sponsor Judson Phillips and his for-profit Tea Party Nation, the location, ticket fees, hotel rates, travel costs, Sarah Palin, her purported speaker’s fee, the colors of the tablecloths and napkins, and just about everything else.

While the event may not have represented all Tea Party organizations as the convention title might suggest, it’s difficult for us to take seriously the disparagement that ensued over like-minded people exercising their right to assemble peaceably, freely paying the known costs (nothing hidden, except the hotel and gasoline taxes) and enlightening themselves with whatever the conference offered.

Skepticism, especially in politics, is healthy, but contempt is not. This hullabaloo over a sold-out conference of willing participants had all the hallmarks of Leftmedia agitation.

The Tea Party is the mother of all big-tent movements. There is plenty of room, and need, for Tea Partiers of all stripes and in all places — including those willing to fork over big bucks for a weekend confab. However, to be most effective, we must all remain focused on the fact that the Rule of Law is being usurped by the rule of men, and we must each play our part to work diligently at electing honorable representatives to replace the current hegemony in Washington.

National Security

Countdown to Nuclear Iran

On Thursday, Iranian Wing-Nut-in-Chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had enriched uranium to 20 percent and could, if it wishes, enrich to 80 percent. During remarks in Tehran amid the celebrations surrounding Revolution Day, Ahmadinejad also claimed Iran would soon greatly increase its production of 3.5 percent enriched uranium.

Ahmadinejad’s defiant claim came just days after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated that the “only path left” is more diplomacy and more sanctions to force Iran into compliance with its Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations. Gates went on to opine, “If the international community will stand together and bring pressure on the Iranian government, I believe there is still time for sanctions and pressure to work. But we must all work together.”

Apparently Secretary Gates missed the memo regarding the five existing UN Security Council Resolutions urging Iran to desist from making nukes; also Iran’s kidnapping of 15 British sailors and marines, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard being officially listed as a terrorist organization, Iran’s providing anti-ship missiles and long-range rockets to Hezbollah, Iran’s providing explosively formed penetrators and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to al-Qa’ida in Iraq, Iran’s providing weapons and training to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, Iran’s secret nuclear facility at Qom, Iran’s attempted shipment of arms to Hamas onboard the merchant ship FRANCOP intercepted by Israel, Iran’s blatantly fraudulent election last June, Iran’s receipt of Russian SA-15b surface-to-air missile system and rumored receipt of the even more capable SA-20, Iran’s numerous ballistic missile launches, the hundreds of statements by Iranian leaders that they will never give in to outside pressure, and, finally, China’s continued veiled threats to veto any further sanctions against Iran.

All of these and more occurred during the previous six and a half years of “bringing pressure on the Iranian government,” a period in which the “international community” most assuredly did not work together. Why in the world would Gates think things will be different now, especially after Obama spent his first year in office bowing to every foreign leader on the planet?

Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons will not be stopped by UN talk or the “international community.” It will be stopped only by American resolve, or perhaps Israeli resolve, though we have wasted nearly seven years so far.

Department of Military Readiness: Missiles in Romania

Romanian President Trian Basescu recently announced approval of U.S. plans to install missile defense sites in his country aimed at thwarting potential Iranian missile threats. Our readers may recall that Barack Obama reversed earlier agreements to site defensive missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic as a worthless gesture to Russian President Putin. The Russian response was less than encouraging to our EU allies, and in a surprising (and dare we say encouraging) turn of events, Obama’s DOD has now agreed to a four-phased defensive missile plan for Romania and the region.

Such a plan should be seen as less intrusive to Russian ballistic missile capability and would actually improve response times to any Iranian missile launch. Naturally, however, Moscow still doesn’t see it that way and has raised new veiled threats concerning the future of any new START talks and perhaps even our agreements over Black Sea deployments of Aegis cruisers.

How Obama responds to this renewed Russian intransigence will be interesting to watch, especially in light of recent news from Iran. Russian threats worked once. Any more such about-faces will surely decrease our EU allies’ reliance on U.S. security assurances and may even lead to an unwanted rapprochement with Russia by some of the former Soviet states. Stick to a good plan, Mr. President.

This Week’s ‘Braying Jackass’ Award

“I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration.” –Vice President Joe Biden

Which administration, exactly?

Army to Punish Hasan’s Superiors

“The military will formally discipline at least six officers, mostly from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, for failing to take action against the officer accused of carrying out last year’s deadly shooting rampage at Fort Hood,” reports The Wall Street Journal. After Maj. Nidal Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood in November, killing 14 (including an unborn child), the Army began an investigation of Hasan’s superiors. As many as eight of his senior officers could face censure for failure to report his Islamist radicalization. Letters of reprimand would effectively end their careers. Unfortunately, 14 people died due to politically correct negligence. No letter can change that.

‘Reasonable Expectation of Privacy’

The Obama administration has argued that Americans don’t enjoy a “reasonable expectation of privacy” when it comes to their whereabouts as revealed by their cell phones, and therefore warrant-less tapping is allowed. Read more.

Profiles of Valor: WWII Vet Louis Stamatakos

On Feb. 28, 1945, Louis Stamatakos saved a B17 Flying Fortress crew from sure disaster in the skies over Germany. The 19-year-old from Dayton, Ohio, was trained as a tail gunner and survived 31 missions over Europe with the 8th Air Force, which flew out of England. While bombing railroad yards in Kassel, Germany, on his 23rd mission, two 250-pound bombs failed to drop. One was stuck by a single shackle and the other by both shackles. “Everyone went crazy when they heard that,” Stamatakos said, “and then somebody said, ‘Hey, get the Greek, he’s been going to armament school.’ I took a look and said, ‘Well, maybe I can break them loose.’”

Break them loose he did — with a short-handled fire ax. The wind had spun a small propeller on the nose of one bomb, which armed it and meant one false move would detonate it. At 20,000 feet and 20 below zero, Stamatakos kept swinging until the shackles released both bombs. “That’s back when I was young and dumb,” said Stamatakos. Crewmate Richard Rainoldi, a retired Air Force colonel, said, “If he hadn’t done it, it was either bailing out or blowing up.”

Stamatakos’s three sons were so impressed with their dad’s story that they tracked down Rainoldi, who had been the plane’s navigator, and he gave a sworn statement that was delivered to the Army. On Christmas Eve, 2009, Stamatakos, now a retired Michigan State University professor, received a letter from the Department of the Army saying he would be awarded the Silver Star in a ceremony on Feb. 17 at Michigan’s state capitol in Lansing.

Business & Economy

Income Redistribution: Expect to Fail if You Plan to Fail

Leftists consistently deny that raising taxes harms the economy, insisting instead that higher taxes and draconian government regulations boost the economy. This, of course, runs contrary to the actual outcome that the tax-and-regulate approach has incurred every time it’s been tried.

The Laffer curve — the theory that reducing tax rates causes economic growth and a corresponding growth in overall government taxation revenues — and supply-side economics inspired the Reagan tax cuts of 1981, which significantly lowered the Carter administration’s high tax rates and sparked an unprecedented 25 years of economic prosperity. Counterintuitive though it might be for liberals, these cuts generated higher tax revenues for the federal government by increasing overall economic activity and growth.

The Obama administration is being forced to face these previously established hard truths. The Congressional Budget Office forecast in August that 2010 tax collections would bring in $2.264 trillion. Only the government has grown over the last year, however, not the economy. Therefore, tax revenues are down and, this week, the CBO revised its estimate down to $2.175 trillion.

Sadly, the Obama administration’s insanity continues with its willful ignorance of the third prong necessary for economic growth, which is a reduction of government spending. So long as overspending, high-taxing and over-regulating leftists are in power, the economy will suffer.

Recession Continues, But Salaries Skyrocket

There’s good news and bad news. The (seemingly) good news is that the number of six-figure salaries is rising — skyrocketing, actually. The bad news is that you’re footing the bill. According to an analysis by USA Today, the number of federal workers making $100,000 or more has risen from 14 percent to 19 percent since the start of the recession. At the end of 2007, 1,868 civilian Defense Department employees made $150,000 or more. By June 2009, the number was 10,100. Spikes in the Transportation Department were even more shocking, with the number of employees making $170,000 or more growing from one — yes, one — to 1,690.

Jessica Klement, government affairs director for the Federal Managers Association, says the high skill level of government workers such as scientists and physicians is the reason for the high pay, and she claims federal salaries are actually 26 percent below private-sector salaries for equivalent jobs. Yet, USA Today’s study of the more than two million federal employees found their average salary stands at $71,206, while average private-sector pay is only $40,331. Surely, not all the nation’s best and brightest work for Uncle Sam.

USA Today names pay hikes and a new merit-based raise system for Defense workers as among the chief culprits for the rising salaries. Still, as Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) notes, “There’s no way to justify this to the American people. It’s ridiculous.” With 7.3 million private-sector jobs lost, “ridiculous” is an understatement.

This Week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ Award

“The small businesses I’ve talked to — and I’ve been talking to a lot of them as I have been traveling around the country — their biggest problem is right now they can’t get credit out of their banks, so they’re uncertain about that, and they’re still uncertain about orders. You know, do they just have enough customers to justify them doing more? It’s looking better at this point, but that’s not the rationale for people saying I’m not hiring. Let me put it this way: Most small businesses right now, if they’ve got enough customers to make a profit and they can get the bank loans required to boost their payroll, boost their inventory and sell to those customers, they will do so.” –Barack Obama, the man who has never even had a job in the private sector, much less had to meet payroll

Memo to BO: If you need to take a loan to meet payroll, you’re well on the way to going out of business.

Wall Street Rethinks Democrat Support

Previously a sure source of campaign cash for Democrats, Wall Street political dollars are making a U-turn. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 2008 saw the record-breaking sum of $89 million flow from the securities and investment industry to Democrats. Now, the New York Times reports one-time Democrat supporters are writing checks to the other side in protest of the president’s regulatory rampage.

“The expectation in Washington is that ‘We can kick you around, and you are still going to give us money,’” noted one Wall Street leader. “We are not going to play that game anymore.” Democrat Thomas R. Nides — an executive at Morgan Stanley, chairman of the Securities and Financial Markets Association and self-proclaimed Obama fan — was more blunt: “[E]ven if you are a big fan, when you are the piñata at the party, it doesn’t really feel good.”

Indeed, since taking office, Obama has put a bull’s-eye on Wall Street banks, calling for salary caps, proposing “proprietary trading” limits, and recommending a “financial crisis responsibility fee” (a.k.a. tax) on the largest banks. Graciously, though, the president said recently that he doesn’t “begrudge” multi-million dollar bonuses for Wall Street Execs Jamie Dimon or Lloyd Blankfein, both of whom are big Democrat donors.

Despite private loyalties and past contributions, when it comes to drawing dough from Wall Street executives, Democrats are beginning to find roadblocks where once the path was clear.

When Reassurance Isn’t Reassuring

“Absolutely not” — “That will never happen in this country.” So said tax cheat Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner when asked whether the United States is at risk of losing its AAA debt rating in light of the projected $1.6 trillion budget deficit for 2010. Apparently, Geithner thinks himself wiser than Moody’s Investors Service, which recently indicated the government’s rating will suffer unless action is taken to cut projected budget deficits. Unfortunately, Geithner also opposes cutting spending, as he believes it could harm the economy.

Culture & Policy

Climate Change This Week: Blizzard Disrupts Bureaucracy

The Obama administration announced this week that it will unveil yet another bureaucratic brainchild: another new agency to study and disperse information about climate change to both the public and policy makers. Interestingly enough, the press conference announcing the agency was disrupted by the blizzard in Washington, DC, and had to be conducted via telephone.

The agency, which will be headquartered in DC, will have six directors throughout the country and will work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA head Jane Lubchenco claims that its creation is crucial to making informed decisions regarding wind power, fishing industries and coastal community planning. But NOAA is known to be in the tank for envirofascists, and there is little reason to believe that this information will be accurate.

There is humor to be found in almost any situation, however, and Republican Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) certainly found it in the snow-covered streets of Washington. He and his family used some of the 32 inches of snow that fell on the city to make an igloo. The structure, placed strategically near the Capitol, was then fitted with a sign reading “Al Gore’s New Home.”

Meanwhile, the Department of Public Works is running out of places to put the snow, settling on an empty parking lot at the edge of town where they’re building a “snow mountain.” How appropriate — things have been piling higher and deeper in the Swamp for some time now.

Naturally, warmists such as those at Time magazine are blaming global warming for the snow, though they correctly point out that “Weather is what will happen next weekend; climate is what will happen over the next decades and centuries.” But then, curiously, the mag admits that “while our ability to predict the former has become reasonably reliable, scientists are still a long way from being able to make accurate projections about the future of the global climate.” And here we thought it was settled science.

Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto concludes, “It’s true that cold weather, while providing an occasion to mock global warming, does not disprove it. But the mocking would be far less effective had global warmists not spent the past quarter-century making a mockery of the scientific method.”

Around the World: Missionaries Charged With ‘Kidnapping’

It’s always nice when governments have their priorities in order, especially in the wake of a devastating tragedy. The Haitian government has made theirs perfectly clear — it is more important to prosecute those participating in the relief effort than to save their own citizens.

After the Jan. 12 earthquake, people around the world stepped in to help. The United States (as usual) led the charge, both through government aid and contributions of time and money by private citizens. Ten Baptist missionaries were among them, risking their own lives to travel to Haiti and pitch in. On Jan. 29, these same missionaries were arrested and charged with kidnapping — despite their claim to have had the necessary papers in order — after they tried to bring 33 Haitian orphans across the border into the Dominican Republic. There, the missionaries told authorities, the children would have been placed in another orphanage better equipped to deal with their needs.

When the attorneys for the “Baptist 10″ wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, asking for her intervention on their behalf, Clinton’s icy response demonstrated precisely where her priorities are — or more accurately, are not. “Obviously,” Clinton remarked, “this is a matter for the Haitian judicial system.”

The State Department has turned a blind eye to the missionaries’ fate (if convicted, they could spend the rest of their lives in a Haitian jail), stating that it would be “highly unusual” for the secretary of state to become involved. Americans traveling to other countries to serve the cause of humanity are now aware that their efforts may be met with similar mindless cruelty, their plight with a similar cold shoulder.

At the end of the day, the injustice being committed by the Haitian government, coupled with the lack of interest and incompetence of our own, is only going to hurt the Haitians and others suffering hardships around the world.

From the ‘Non Compos Mentis’ File

As usual, the Super Bowl ads have everyone talking. Two in particular are worth noting: Pam Tebow sharing her story about choosing life for her son Tim versus an abortion, and the creepy Green Police ad for the Audi A3 TDI. Read more at PatriotPost.US.

To Keep and Bear Arms

As Matthew Alan Clinage and Christopher Polson attempted to steal battery packs from a golf cart in the wee hours of the morning, 70 year-old property owner Robert Rowley in Winter Haven, Florida heard his motion sensor alarm sound. Rowley immediately took his handgun and flashlight outside to evaluate the situation. When he saw the two men, both in their early-20’s, he asked them to leave, but one of the suspects began approaching him. In an attempt to scare away the thieves, Rowley fired a shot into the air, the ground, and the suspect’s truck as they tried to escape. He was unaware that the bullets had hit the suspects, but the two soon showed up at a local hospital with gunshot wounds.

Clinage was taken to jail after treatment; Polson remains in a hospital and will be taken to jail once he is released. Both were charged with grand theft and burglary of an occupied residence, while Clinage was also charged with violation of community control due to a prior conviction of grand theft of a firearm.

And Last…

First Lady Michelle Obama has taken up childhood obesity as the cause worthy of her attention. As ABC News reports, “The far-reaching, nationwide campaign called ‘Let’s Move’ calls for … myriad initiatives that target what Obama calls four key pillars: Getting parents more informed about nutrition and exercise, improving the quality of food in schools, making healthy foods more affordable and accessible for families, and focusing more on physical education.”

We have to give Michelle credit for acknowledging that it’ll take far more than government to tackle such a problem. “There’s no expert on this planet who says that the government telling people what to do actually does any good with this issue. This is going to require an effort on everyone’s part.” However, her husband has a few connections and has created the first-ever federal task force for “optimal coordination” between private companies, nonprofits and government agencies. Optimal coordination doesn’t sound like a phrase that describes government, but who knows super-sized better than Barack Obama?

In other news from the Village Academic Curriculum, the 2011 Obama budget makes further funding cuts for the District of Columbia’s Opportunity Scholarship Program, an education voucher system for low-income, mostly minority students. The 2010 budget had cut funding altogether, but in response to protests, some funding was restored. Now that amount will face an additional 30 percent cut. So, while these kids may not receive a good education, at least they’ll be skinny.

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Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Alexander’s Essay – February 11, 2010

Editor’s Note: Mark Alexander is at Davis-Monthan AFB with a national security forum this week. Enjoy this week’s guest column from Ann Coulter.

Obama’s Owned — You Can Bank on It

By Ann Coulter

Don’t miss the best conservative columnists on The Patriot’s opinion page — the right opinion with NO advertising or annoying pop-ups.

Wall Street gambled, taxpayers foot the bill

The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are bristling with the news that Republicans have decided now is the time to suck up to Wall Street. As the saying goes, there is no truer friend than a Wall Street arbitrageur — they are the salt-of-the-earth, the most loyal men who ever drew a breath!

What are Republicans thinking? While not every money-manipulator on Wall Street deserves to be treated like a heroin dealer, lots do. Could the Republicans be a little more discriminating in picking up the Democrats’ old friends?

The Democrats are acting as if they want to punish everyone in the financial services industry, including the innocent, while the Republicans seem to want to protect everyone on Wall Street, including the guilty.

How about just punishing the guilty? The Democrats can’t do that because the list of Wall Street’s biggest offenders may turn out to be eerily similar to the list of Obama’s biggest campaign contributors.

Employees from Goldman Sachs gave more to the Obama campaign than any other organization except the University of California — with Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase quickly following in sixth and seventh place.

Whatever Obama has in mind for punishing the financial industry, I promise you, he won’t punish his friends. After JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon took a $17 million bonus this week, and Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein got a $9 million bonus, Obama said he didn’t begrudge them their bonuses, saying, “I know both those guys.”

Obama seems to be hoping that his vague bluster about “obscene profits” will lure Republicans into embracing Wall Street welfare recipients — thereby losing Americans forever.

Never bet against Republicans being outwitted.

Risk-taking and speculation are good. But the Democrats’ crony capitalism is the worst of both worlds: risk-taking without any real risk for the risk-takers. It’s like gambling with your rich daddy’s money, except we’re the rich daddy.

Obama, like the rest of his party, is an ideologue who doesn’t understand or particularly like the free market. He fundamentally believes in the efficacy of the welfare state, whether the beneficiary is a layabout single mother or a rich Wall Street banker.

As Peter Schweizer describes in his magnificent book “Architects of Ruin,” the Democrats have been bailing out investment houses from their bad bets since the Clinton administration. The bankers got all the profits when their risky bonds were paying — and then gave massive donations to their Democratic benefactors. But once the bets went bad, it was the taxpayers’ problem.

Heavily leveraged securities packages put together by Goldman Sachs and others were the HIV virus that killed the American economy. And the reason investment firms piled leverage on leverage on leverage was that they knew the government would bail them out if their house of cards collapsed.

On one hand, Goldman put together toxic securities packages for their clients, but on the other hand, Goldman knew the mortgage securities being sold on the market were crap, so they also took out lots of insurance with AIG on crappy products being traded on the market.

It would be as if, anticipating a major earthquake, Goldman bought massive insurance policies on every house on the San Andreas fault line.

There’s nothing wrong with taking risks and making bets, provided that if you bet wrong or if you bankrupt your betting partner with wild gambles: You lose.

The problem was that Goldman and AIG, among many others, knew they wouldn’t lose. Twenty years of Democratic bailouts have led them to understand that when their bets go bad, the taxpayer will save them.

Which is exactly what happened.

When the earthquake hit toxic securities, the insurer, AIG, couldn’t pay up. Normally, that would result in the insurer going bankrupt, an orderly proceeding in bankruptcy court to distribute AIG’s assets, and Goldman recovering only a portion of the insurance payout on the crappy products.

But instead of AIG going bankrupt and Goldman taking a hit, the U.S. taxpayer made good on AIG’s securities insurance. In a deal arranged by former Goldman CEO and current Obama BFF, Hank Paulson, Goldman ended up being paid — by you — an astonishing 100 cents on the dollar.

So Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s boast that his firm didn’t want TARP money and has paid it all back is completely irrelevant. Goldman took billions of dollars — that’s millions with a “b” — of the AIG bailout money. How about paying that back?

It took The New York Times a year and a half to figure out Goldman’s jackpot winnings from the AIG bailout — $12.9 billion, according to the Times — so the first thing Republicans ought to do is hold hearings to determine who benefited from the Democrats’ crony capitalism, and not take their bluster as fact.

The next step should be to get all the bailout money back.

When the government steps in to save the very financial institutions that poisoned the nation’s financial system with contaminated securities and derivatives — all while the bankers get to keep the fees and bonuses on their bad bets — we are not talking about a free market.

We’re talking about regular Americans being forced to foot the bill for the gambling habits of left-wing multimillionaires by buying the malefactors more chips every time they lose.

Republicans should defend any investment houses that never benefited from a government bailout. But anyone who took huge gambles, lost and got bailed out with taxpayer money should be tortured and then shot, miraculously brought back to life, tortured some more, then shot a few more times.

COPYRIGHT 2010 ANN COULTER

DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK

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(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Chronicle · Wednesday, February 10, 2010

The Foundation

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” –Thomas Jefferson

Editorial Exegesis

DC under several feet of snow, global warming blamed

“Professional global warming alarmists better think about looking for new jobs. It looks like they’re in for a long, cold winter — and a frigid spring and summer as well. Those who’ve been spreading global-warming fears must be waking up each morning anxd asking themselves: What’s going to happen today? A new revelation about the corruption of climate science has become almost a daily event. On Thursday, the U.K.’s Telegraph reported that India was pulling out of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and forming its own agency to study global warming. Why? Because the Indian government feels it can’t depend on the IPCC’s work. And why should it? The concerns about the IPCC’s accuracy are justified. … Compounding the headaches for warm-mongers is a probe being launched by the British Parliament into the Climate Research Unit e-mail scandal. The inquiry is intended ‘to determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice and may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes.’ This isn’t terribly fresh news, having been announced on Jan. 22 by Parliament. But news that casts doubt on global warming tends to move slowly, if at all, in the U.S. media. If not for the foreign press, the inquiry would be virtually unknown in this country. That 2007 report helped the IPCC win a share of the Nobel Prize. But its work is looking less credible by the day. Can any of its claims be trusted? Its authors — who merely compiled others’ work and did no research of their own — sure haven’t inspired confidence in their work. In fact, their blunders are quickly pushing the global warming farce toward a grand collapse.” –Investor’s Business Daily

Upright

“The Left doesn’t want to govern, it wants to rule…. The Left is not about principles. It is about itself. It is about power. Now that President Obama has been politically weakened, look for the mask to come back on. The words of sweet reason, the entreaties to ‘make a deal,’ and feigned affection will now make a surprise reappearance. When the Left cannot rule, it will try to govern. Until the next time.” –columnist Richard Fernandez

“Republicans’ objection to national health care could be more accurately portrayed as follows: Obama’s plan to nationalize health care was a terrible idea because it would turn over one-sixth of the American economy to Washington bureaucrats, who would run the system as competently as the federal government runs everything else, from airport security to the post office to FEMA.” –columnist Ann Coulter

“The fate of ObamaCare is starting to have something of the feel of a Greek tragedy. We are not superstitious, but [Rep. Jack] Murtha’s death as the result of medical error at a government-run hospital is certainly an eerie coincidence.” –Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

“Today’s tax system was shaped by sadists who were trying to be nice: Every wrinkle in the code was put there to benefit this or that interest. Since the 1986 tax simplification, the code has been recomplicated more than 14,000 times — more than once a day.” –columnist George Will

“Obama’s budget points to a dismal future in which half of the country subsists on welfare while the other half receives a paycheck for processing welfare claims in the federal bureaucracy.” –columnist Jeffrey Folks

“In the first post-primary Rasmussen survey in Illinois for the Senate seat briefly held by President Obama, the Republican Mark Kirk ‘holds a modest 46% to 40% lead over Democrat Alexi Giannoulias.’ How embarrassing, how debilitating, would it be if Democrats were to lose Obama’s U.S. Senate seat?” –political analyst Rich Galen

“Americans rightly believe that we can build anything that needs building and fix anything that is broken. And, that we can do that by living out our nation’s founding principles and values: constitutional government, respect for private property and life, a free market — and the gumption of hard-working, inventive Americans.” –columnist Tony Blankley

Insight

“We can’t reduce taxes until we reduce government spending, and I have to point out that government does not tax to get the money it needs; government always needs the money it gets.” –Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)

“[T]here is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to be one thing before a man’s face and another behind his back.” –General Robert E. Lee (1807-1872)

Dezinformatsia

A label to embrace: “President Obama [is] on the offensive. He has challenged Republicans to a kind of political truth or dare, a meeting February 25 broadcast on TV to discuss health care reform so the country can decide whether Republicans want action or are just the ‘Party of No’?” –ABC’s Diane Sawyer (As if saying “No” to socialism is a bad thing…)

Pot and kettle? “A Palin campaign would certainly be different: Appearing before friendly crowds, using Facebook and Twitter to control the message, not answering tough questions.” –NBC’s Andrea Mitchell (Sounds strikingly similar to the Obama campaign.)

That must be it: “Is Barack Obama just too complex for voters to figure out?” –New York Times columnist Richard Stevenson

World’s smallest violin: “Where are they going to go, the Left? Where, actually, are the Left going to go? They may be disaffected.” –former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown (How about communist China?)

It’s called national security: “President Barack Obama does have a foreign policy. It’s called war. Unfortunately, the president has not defined any real difference between his hawkish approach to international issues and that of his predecessor, former President George W. Bush. Where’s the change we can believe in? Bush left a legacy of two wars, neither of which was ever fully explained or justified. Obama has merely picked up the sword that Bush left behind in Iraq and Afghanistan.” –White House press corpse reporter Helen Thomas

Newspulper Headlines:

It’s a Tough Job, but Someone’s Gotta Do It: “Bill Clinton to Oversee Haiti Aid” –Straits Times (Singapore) ++ “Ohio Strip Club Hosts ‘Lap Dances for Haiti’” –Associated Press

Socialists Have Positive View of Democracy: Now That Would Be News: “Gallup: Majority of Democrats ‘Have a Positive View of Socialism’” –FreeMarketMojo.com

We Blame George W. Bush: “Charlie Sheen’s Car Found at Bottom of Cliff” –People.com

We Blame Global Warming: “Obama Vows to Beat ‘Blizzard’ of Opposition” –Agence France-Presse

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “Cross Found at Air Force Academy’s Wicca Center” –Los Angeles Times

News of the Tautological: “Climate Change Research Bungle” –Sunday Telegraph (London)

Bottom Stories of the Day: “New Errors in IPCC Climate Change Report” –Sunday Telegraph

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

The Demo-gogues

Darn that financial system: “We’ve got to be non-ideological about our approach to [economic policy]. We’ve gotta make sure that our party understands that, like it or not, we have to have a financial system that is healthy and functioning. So we can’t be demonizing, uh, every bank out there. We’ve got to be the party of business, small business and large business, because they produce jobs.” –Barack Obama (Like it or not the financial system has to function? That’s reassuring.)

Needs remedial Civics 101: “This is a democracy. Look, I would have loved nothing better than to simply come up with some very elegant, you know, academically approved approach to health care [that] didn’t have any kinds of legislative fingerprints on it. And just go ahead and have that passed. But that’s not how it works in our democracy. Unfortunately what we end up having to do is to do a lot of negotiations with a lot of different people. Many of whom have their constituents’ best interests at heart.” –Barack Obama, complaining about representative government — which isn’t a democracy, by the way

We will: “[I]t may be that … if Congress decides we’re not going to do it, even after all the facts are laid out, all the options are clear, then the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right thing for them or not. And that’s how democracy works. There will be elections coming up, and they’ll be able to make a determination and register their concerns.” –the condescending and arrogant BO

Warning: “Just in case there’s any confusion out there, I’m not going to walk away from health care.” –Barack Obama (Lest there be confusion in Washington, we don’t want your health care.)

Warning II: “In a letter to President Obama, Senator Ted Kennedy wrote about the need for health care reform. He said what we face is, above all, a moral issue. At stake are not just the principles, the details of the policy, but the fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country. With Senator Kennedy as our inspiration, with the leadership of President Barack Obama and with your help, we will pass health insurance reform this year.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Clear as mud: “I think that the most important thing for the public to understand is we’re not handling any of these [terrorist] cases any different than the Bush administration handled them all through 9/11.” –Barack Obama now trying to use George W. Bush to back himself up

Village Idiots

The battle isn’t over: “[O]ne of the things that Barack Obama said and continues to say is change isn’t easy, and it doesn’t happen overnight. And it certainly doesn’t happen in a year. He’s not done yet. He’s got more time.” –First Lady Michelle Obama

Left-theology: “We have to understand that the notion of a homosexual sexual orientation is a notion that’s only about 125 years old. That is to say, St. Paul was talking about people that he understood to be heterosexual engaging in same-sex acts. It never occurred to anyone in ancient times that a certain minority of us would be born being affectionally oriented to people of the same sex.” –homosexual Episcopal Bishop Vicky Gene Robinson (In other words, it’s okay as long as you really mean it.)

Non Compos Mentis: “I am blown away at the celebration of the violence against women in it. That’s what comes across to me even more strongly than the anti-abortion message. I myself am a survivor of domestic violence, and I don’t find it charming. I think CBS should be ashamed of itself.” –NOW president Terry O’Neill on the Super Bowl ad featuring Pam and Tim Tebow

Stay tuned: “The Iranian nation, with its unity and god’s grace, will punch the arrogance [Western powers] on the 22nd of Bahman (February 11) in a way that will leave them stunned.” –Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Short Cuts

“At the National Prayer Breakfast, Barack Obama singled out for praise Navy Corpsman Christian Bouchard. Or, as the president called him, ‘Corpseman Bouchard.’ Twice. Hey, not a big deal. Throughout his life, the commander in chief has had little contact with the military, and less interest. And, when you give as many speeches as this guy does, there’s no time to rehearse or read through: You just gotta fire up the prompter and wing it. But it’s revealing that nobody around him in the so-called smartest administration of all time thought to spell it out phonetically for him when the speech got typed up and loaded into the machine. Which suggests that either his minders don’t know that he doesn’t know that kinda stuff, or they don’t know it, either. To put it in Rumsfeldian terms, they don’t know what they don’t know.” –columnist Mark Steyn

“As bleak as things are, the silver lining is that [Obama] is the man who campaigned on behalf of R. Creigh Deeds, Jon Corzine and, most recently, Martha Coakley. At this point, it’s only a rumor, but I’ve heard that the RNC is negotiating with the president to campaign non-stop for Democratic candidates later this year. … Based on his record thus far, if Obama was a baseball team, he would be the Chicago Black Sox; if he was a disease, he’d be the bubonic plague; and if he was a ship, he’d be the Titanic.” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

“The president dismisses his lack of success by claiming he has not communicated his message enough. Really? I don’t care how many news conferences you have, how many speeches you give, or how much money you spend on public relations, if the dog food is bad, the dogs won’t eat it.” –former Oklahoma Congressman J. C. Watts

“The Weather Channel reported Thursday that last week’s ice storms in the South knocked out electricity in some areas for a week. Oklahoma has a firewood shortage because the trees are all frozen. People are staying warm by burning Al Gore’s books.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“It’s going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries ‘uncle.’” –Sen. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC)

“The Saints won [the Super Bowl] 31-17 over the weekend, and there was a huge snowstorm in Washington with over two feet of snow. So it’s true what people say, that the Saints would win when hell freezes over.” –comedian Jay Leno?

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Brief · Monday, February 8, 2010

The Foundation

“No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable.” –Federalist No. 62

Culture

Super Bowl ad for the Census — a fine use of taxpayer money

“The U.S. Census Bureau … squander[ed] $2.5 million on a half-minute Super Bowl ad starring D-list celebrity Ed Begley Jr., plus two pre-game blurbs and 12-second ‘vignettes’ featuring Super Bowl anchor James Brown. It’s a drop in the census boondoggle bucket (otherwise known as the tax-subsidized National Democratic Future Voter Outreach Drive). The Obama White House has allocated a total of $340 million toward an ‘unprecedented’ promotional blitz for the 2010 census. That’s on top of $1 billion in stimulus money siphoned off for increased census ‘public outreach’ and staffing. In all, the census will triple its total 2000 budget to $15 billion. Ads pimping the census have already appeared during the Golden Globe awards and will broadcast during the Daytona 500 and NCAA Final Four championships. Some $80 million will be poured into multilingual ads in 28 languages from Arabic to Yiddish. Racial and ethnic groups have been squabbling over their share of the pie. The U.S. census is a decennial census mandated by our Constitution. Should Americans know about it? Sure. Should the P.R. budget become a bottomless slush fund in recessionary times? Surely not.” –columnist Michelle Malkin

Government

“Last month, Obama announced a new set of tax credits for so-called green companies. One window company was on the list: Serious Materials. This must be one very special company. But wait, it gets even more interesting. On my Fox Business Network show on ‘crony capitalism’, I displayed a picture of administration officials and so-called ‘energy leaders’ taken at the U.S. Department of Energy. Standing front and center was Cathy Zoi, who oversees $16.8 billion in stimulus funds, much of it for weatherization programs that benefit Serious. The interesting twist is that Zoi happens to be the wife of Robin Roy, who happens to be vice president of ‘policy’ at Serious Windows. Of all the window companies in America, maybe it’s a coincidence that the one which gets presidential and vice presidential attention and a special tax credit is one whose company executives give thousands of dollars to the Obama campaign and where the policy officer spends nights at home with the Energy Department’s weatherization boss. Or maybe not. … On its website, Serious Materials says it did not get a taxpayer subsidy. But that’s just playing with terms. What it got was a tax credit, an opportunity that its competitors did not get: to keep money it would have paid in taxes. Let’s not be misled. Government is as manipulative with selective tax credits as it is with cash subsidies. It would be more efficient to cut taxes across the board. Why should there be favoritism? Because politicians like it. Big, complicated government gives them opportunities to do favors for their friends.” –columnist John Stossel

The Gipper

“The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become.” –Ronald Reagan

Opinion in Brief

“‘I am not an ideologue,’ President Obama insisted at his truly refreshing confab with the Republican caucus in Baltimore [recently]. When he heard some incredulous murmurs and chuckles from the audience in response to the idea that the most sincerely ideological president in a generation is no ideologue, he added a somewhat plaintive, ‘I’m not.’ The president’s defensiveness isn’t surprising. He holds his self-definition as a pragmatist dear, and not just because it polls well. It’s clear from interviews that he is fond of the notion that he is above ideological squabbles and is a clear-eyed appraiser of facts and adjudicator of political disagreements. He’s described himself as a ‘pragmatist,’ even a ‘ruthless pragmatist,’ countless times. The evidence offered that Obama is no ideologue rests almost entirely on two contentions: He has annoyed some members of his ideological base, and because he says so. … Every president annoys his base. Are we therefore to believe that no president has ever been an ideologue? And how has Obama angered his base? Not by tacking to the center but by not going fast enough in pursuit of their shared goals. As for Obama’s personal testimony, so what? Is this the one instance in American history when a politician’s self-serving statements are to be taken at face value? … Of course Obama is an ideologue. The important question is whether he is sufficiently self-aware to recognize the truth.” –National Review editor Jonah Goldberg

Re: The Left

“President Obama’s State of the Union address was the greatest American rhetorical embrace of fascist trope since the days of Woodrow Wilson. I am not suggesting Obama is a Nazi; he isn’t. I am not suggesting that he is a jackbooted thug; he isn’t (even if we could be forgiven for mistaking Rahm Emanuel for one). President Obama is, however, a man who embodies all the personal characteristics of a fascist leader, right down to the arrogant chin-up head tilt he utilizes when waiting for applause. He sees democracy as a filthy process that can be cured only by the centralized power of bureaucrats. He sees his presidency as a Hegelian synthesis marking the end of political conflict. He sees himself as embodiment of the collective will. No president should speak in these terms — not in a representative republic. Obama does it habitually.” –columnist Ben Shapiro

Political Futures

“Barack Obama is probably the most union-friendly president since Lyndon Johnson. He has obviously been unable to stop the decline of private-sector unionism. But he is doing his best to increase the power — and dues income — of public-sector unions. One-third of last year’s $787 billion stimulus package was aid to state and local governments — an obvious attempt to bolster public-sector unions. And it was a successful one: While the private sector has lost 7 million jobs, the number of public-sector jobs has risen. The number of federal government jobs has been increasing by 10,000 a month, and the percentage of federal employees earning over $100,000 has jumped to 19 percent during the recession. Obama and his party are acting in collusion with unions that contributed something like $400,000,000 to Democrats in the 2008 campaign cycle. Public-sector unionism tends to be a self-perpetuating machine that extracts money from taxpayers and then puts it on a conveyor belt to the Democratic Party. But it may not turn out to be a perpetual-motion machine. Public-sector employees are still heavily outnumbered by those who depend on the private sector for their livelihoods. The next Congress may not be as willing as this one has been to bail out state governments dominated by public-sector unions. Voters may bridle at the higher taxes needed to pay for $100,000-plus pensions for public employees who retire in their 50s. … Obama’s Democrats have used the financial crisis to expand the public sector and the public-sector unions. But voters seem to be saying, ‘Enough.’” –political analyst Michael Barone

For the Record

“[T]he Obama administration’s new budget will propose to zero out funding for Nevada’s Yucca Mountain nuclear repository — in effect, killing it. Instead, the Energy Department has announced the formation of a ‘blue ribbon’ commission ‘to provide recommendations for developing a safe, long-term solution to managing the nation’s used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste.’ … And why are we forming yet another blue ribbon commission to study a matter that has already been studied to death? The commission is empowered to study ‘all options’ except the one that has already been chosen by the United States government. So much for the previous blue ribbon commission that had settled on the Yucca Mountain site. American taxpayers have already invested more than $13 billion over 30 years to build the facility and make it redundantly safe. … There is nothing dishonorable about opposing nuclear energy — though the greenies who claim that global warming is their chief worry have some explaining to do if they reject nuclear power — but there is something dishonest about claiming to favor nuclear power while simultaneously short-circuiting the most viable solution to the problem of long-term waste storage.” –columnist Mona Charen

Reader Comments

“How ironic that the Commander-in-Chief can’t pronounce ‘corpsman.’ His Black Liberation Theology religious mentor (Jeremiah Wright) just happened to be a Navy Hospital Corpsman at Bethesda. Maybe he never heard Wright talk about his background like he didn’t hear his hate filled rhetoric over the twenty years he sat in the pews.” –Tommy

“Next up for Obama: The Marine Corpse and the Army Corpse of Engineers. Imagine the uproar if Bush had said this or used a teleprompter while talking to 6th Graders. Give him some credit — he’s got that nose in the sky pose down pat.” –KN

“What do you expect when you’ve got a guy who can’t do anything but read a TelePrompter eloquently. Maybe they need to project the stuff to him phonetically.”

“It is good to see Mark Alexander point to the downfall of the economic programs Ronald Reagan wanted. To only submit tax cuts without a corresponding reduction in government programs spells challenges for success and skews the data to a spin doctor’s delight. Today many point to Reagan’s failed policy yet it was not his failure, it was the failure of those surrounding his valiant efforts to reduce federal government, restore state level controls, and repair the damage of an out of control general growth begun and embraced in earnest under Roosevelt, Johnson, and Carter. When we hear people slam Reaganomics as failed this is the part of the historical facts they either do not know or will not accept. His programs were stopped from full implementation, government was not reduced as he so dearly wanted it to be.” –Gary

“Thank you for compiling so much information from so many sources! I’m a homeschooling mom with seven children (yes, I’m sure I’m on the homeland terrorist watch list). I can spend a few minutes reading the Brief in between grading math problems or grammar and have a good understanding of many of the important talking points for the week. Thank you for making me more efficient!” –Anne

The Last Word

“I can’t recall the wheels coming off the bus of any expert-driven hysteria as fast or as completely as they are now coming off the global-warming scare. … News of the manipulations, distortions and frauds perpetrated to advance and preserve the environmentalists’ cause celebre are so numerous and coming so fast, it’s hard to keep up. First, of course, there were the e-mails and computer files leaked from Britain’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) — one of a handful of climate-research centres around the world that are the pillars of the United Nations’ claims about impending climate doom. … Then a couple of weeks ago came the news that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s climate-change arm, had based its most recent findings on Himalayan glacier melt on an old study that had never been peer-reviewed or even published and which was based entirely on the speculation (not research) of a single Indian scientist who now works at the environmental think-tank run by the head of the IPCC, economist Rajendra Pachauri. This by itself wouldn’t be devastating, except that the scientist in charge of the glacier chapter of the IPCC’s latest assessment report (AR4) admitted he had known the melt estimate was wrong but had included it anyway because ‘we thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.’ That’s not climate science, it’s environmental activism, pure and simple…. Another revelation of malfeasance this week was the discovery that the chapter on Amazon rainforests in the IPCC’s AR4, the one that included the often-repeated claim that 40 per cent of the forest is under imminent threat from climate change, was written not by climate scientists but by an policy analyst who works for environmental groups and a freelance environmental author. … In all, so far, at least 16 major claims made in AR4 (the report for which the IPCC won a Nobel Prize) have been shown to have originated with environmental groups rather than scientists…. Does all this prove global warming is a hoax? I believe it does. But at the least, it shows the science is far from settled.” –Edmonton Journal columnist Lorne Gunter

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Digest · Friday, February 5, 2010

The Foundation

“[A] wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.” –Thomas Jefferson

Government & Politics

The Leftist Vision for Government

The Obama deficit will weigh the nation down

As we noted last week, Barack Obama is now paying lip service to fiscal conservatism by calling for a “freeze” on federal spending in the face of huge deficits. Yet the freeze would apply to only a small fraction of spending and save a measly $15 billion — and not until 2011. With Monday’s budget release, in which outlays will reach $3.72 trillion for fiscal 2010 and $3.83 trillion in 2011, this political posturing becomes all the more disingenuous.

While the projected deficit will hit a record $1.56 trillion this year and a cumulative $5.08 trillion over the next five years, spending will reach 25.4 percent of GDP this year, a post-World War II record. The phony freeze simply sets a new floor for government largesse — a floor that’s nearly 30 percent higher than in 2008.

The Wall Street Journal reports, “Despite talk of ‘tough choices’ in [Monday's] document, the Administration wants $25 billion in new spending for states for Medicaid, $100 billion for yet another jobs ’stimulus,’ big boosts in spending for low-income family programs, for health research, heating assistance and education.” Additionally, the budget moves Pell Grants out of the “discretionary” spending column and into the permanent entitlement one at a cost of $307 billion over 10 years.

To finance this growth in government, including the assumption that ObamaCare and cap-n-tax become law, the budget includes nearly $2 trillion in tax increases over the next decade. Yet Obama had the gall in his SOTU to declare, “Now, let me repeat: We cut taxes.” Characteristically, the budget drops one of these cuts after 2012 — the $400 payroll tax credit.

When Congress repeals the Bush tax cuts and returns the top rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, Obama’s budget will increase taxes by $1 trillion for individuals earning more than $200,000 a year and couples earning $250,000. The 33 percent rate would also rise to 36 percent. Capital gains and dividends would be taxed at 20 percent, up from 15 percent now. Some deductions for higher wage earners would also be reduced. Yet the Obama budget would extend the Bush tax cuts for singles and couples under the $200,000/$250,000 threshold. With this, we suppose, would come a grudging admission that the Bush tax cuts benefited everyone.

Obama’s class warfare and targeted tax increases are outrageous, to say the least. Many of those so-called “wealthy” people who he thinks can spare a dime are small business owners and entrepreneurs who will now be unable to hire that additional employee because of higher taxes.

These are just a few examples of the appalling items in the new budget. Our primary objections, however, are rooted not in numbers but in the nation’s founding ideals. Most of the present federal budget is extraconstitutional. Provisions for Medicaid, jobs, family programs, health research, heating assistance and education — all items mentioned above — are nowhere to be found in the Constitution.

For someone like Obama, for whom everything begins and ends with government, the Constitution is little more than parchment under glass. He repeatedly asserts “that Washington is the answer to everything,” writes columnist and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan. In his SOTU, she adds, “The people are good but need guidance — from Washington. The middle class is anxious, and its fears can be soothed — by Washington. Washington can ‘make sure consumers … have the information they need to make financial decisions.’ Washington must ‘make investments,’ ‘create’ jobs, increase ‘production’ and ‘efficiency.’”

While he was California Governor, Ronald Reagan said, “This is the issue [at hand]: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”

The budget is further proof that Obama and the Democrats think that they can spend your money and plan your life better than you can. That’s the antithesis of liberty.

Hope ‘n’ Change: Obama Crashes GOP Retreat

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama promised to change the culture in Washington. But this “change” has been little more than trying to force people to support his socialist views, then labeling them as obstructionist when they don’t. That plan was on full display as Obama paid a visit to the House GOP conference retreat. He spent a lot of camera time explaining what the Democrats were trying to do with health care, and he hammered Republicans for being “obstructionist.”

At the same time, he slyly confessed that he hasn’t kept those campaign promises, one of which is that people could keep the health insurance they have after ObamaCare mauls the market. “There’s some stray cats and dogs that got in there that we were eliminating, we were in the process of eliminating,” the president said of various White House pets, such as bribing Sens. Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu, that made it into the health care bill. Furthermore, the “we” symbolizes the fact that the Democrats completely rejected any input from Republicans in crafting health care legislation — and they have no one to blame but themselves for the public’s rejection of their plan.

Speaking of public backlash, Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts was finally sworn in Thursday, meaning Senate Democrats no longer enjoy a 60-seat super majority in the upper chamber. Losing what the media continue to call “Ted Kennedy’s seat” in last month’s special election was a severe blow to Democrats and is, we think, a harbinger of things to come in November.

Obama isn’t deterred, however. He told Senate Democrats, “All that’s changed in the last two weeks is that our party has gone from having the largest Senate majority in a generation to the second largest Senate majority in a generation.” Doesn’t sound like he’s learned anything.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in 34 states have expressed their concern over the potential for federal meddling in health care by filing or proposing amendments to their state constitutions that would reject broad health insurance mandates by Washington. The plan, which is widespread but not necessarily coordinated across state lines, calls for creating a legal barrier that would prevent the federal government from forcing people to purchase health insurance and prevent businesses from being compelled to provide certain coverage standards.

This Week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ Award

“A little bit of time and quiet could help. Maybe over time, people will have a chance to understand what is in the legislation.” –Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR), whom the LA Times describes as a “conservative Democrat,” but who received a 4 out of 100 rating from the American Conservative Union last year

Memo to Mark: Maybe people already do understand what’s in the legislation, and maybe that’s precisely why it’s dead in the minds of most Americans. Leave it that way.

New & Notable Legislation

The House voted 217-212 Thursday to raise the federal debt limit by $1.9 trillion to a mind-numbing total of $14.3 trillion. Democrats provided every “yes” vote, as they did when the Senate passed the same legislation last week. Lest we think $14.3 trillion is “enough,” however, the Treasury announced Wednesday that the nation could hit that level by the end of February. That’s right, this month.

Speaking of deficits, Social Security has reached that long predicted moment when it will take in less in taxes than it spends on benefits. Fortune magazine reports, “Instead of helping to finance the rest of the government, as it has done for decades, our nation’s biggest social program needs help from the Treasury to keep benefit checks from bouncing — in other words, a taxpayer bailout.” Since the 1960s, Social Security has indeed not been a retirement plan, but rather just another spending item. Revenues have been spent, not saved. Now, Congress can’t kick the can down the road any longer — the deficits are here today. Expect another tax increase as the “solution.”

Senate Democrats unveiled their latest “jobs agenda” Thursday with a vote to come next week. Another 20,000 jobs were lost in January (though the unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent) on top of 150,000 in December (revised downward from 85,000), so Democrats feel the need to do something — anything — to “create” jobs. Their plan includes tax breaks for small businesses, money for construction projects by state and local governments, health care subsidies and benefits for the unemployed, money for state and local governments to save education jobs, and, last but not least, incentives to weatherize buildings. We were skeptical until we got to that part, but weatherizing should fix everything.

The Senate Committee on Rules and Administration took up initial proposals this week in a possible legislative response to the Supreme Court’s decision on campaign finance restrictions. Two weeks ago, the Court struck down portions of McCain-Feingold that unconstitutionally restricted free speech for corporations. Undeterred by a thing so malleable as the Constitution, however, congressional leftists vow to press forward. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) admitted that the Constitution would have to be changed in order to restrict free speech, saying, “I think we need a constitutional amendment to make clear that corporations do not have the same free speech rights as individuals.” That’s the spirit of 1787.

From the Left: Nice Work, if You Can Get It

Ah, the joys of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s life: air travel and junkets paid for by those peons, the taxpayers. While her status as second in line to presidential succession mandates that her travel be more secure than simply flying coach next to some guy with exploding underwear, documents obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch reveal that San Fran Nan wasn’t exactly frugal in her manner of flying. In just two years, she has led 103 congressional delegations to far-flung corners of the nation and world — about one per week — racking up a bill of $2.1 million. Members of her family tagged along on 31 of these trips.

It wasn’t just the air travel, either. We the People paid for luxury hotel rooms, bar tabs and fine dining at numerous stops on Pelosi’s world tour. It wouldn’t do for members of Congress and their staff to eat at Denny’s and stay at the Holiday Inn, would it? One three-day trip to the Gulf Coast, supposedly to check out Katrina damage, included 22 Democrat members of Congress and associated staffers and cost more than $65,000. The tab at Galatoire’s five-star restaurant in New Orleans alone was more than $10,000.

The Pelosi revelations are neither as shocking nor surprising as they may have been a few years ago when she was disingenuously decrying the Republican “culture of corruption,” but given the $3.8 trillion Barack Obama wants to blow in the coming fiscal year, our spendthrift “representatives” are at least leading by example.

O’Keefe Case Update

A couple of interesting allegations have surfaced in the federal case against ACORN-buster James O’Keefe and the incident in which he and three other men were accused of unlawful interference with the telephone system at Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office. Read more here.

National Security

Department of Military Readiness: The Definition of Insanity

Responding to The One’s latest budget proposal, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) commented from the House floor, “[W]hen I look at the president’s budget for fiscal year 2011 [FY11], I think about what Albert Einstein said one time. He said that ‘doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result’ is the very definition of insanity.” Congressman Pence went on to note how Obama’s budget fits squarely within that definition, including the defense portion of that budget.

While Department of Defense (DoD) and administration staff juggle numbers at the fringes — witness the ongoing discussions over canceling the C17 Globemaster III production line and killing an alternative engine for the F-35 Lightning II — the reality is that both DoD and the administration are happy to continue the status quo.

The evidence? Despite the rhetoric-du-jour, the rubber meets the road with dollars, and notwithstanding pervasive hope ‘n’ change speechifying, virtually nothing has changed with respect to the U.S. defense budget. In this budget submission, for example, military outlays remain virtually unchanged, save a slight increase (less than two percent) over inflation.

Also, the president apparently has included supplemental budget items as an integral part of his FY11 proposal. Translation: The commercial sector’s interfacing with DoD might actually be able to depend on the budget for once rather than having to wait for end-of-year fallout money or congressional plus-ups to end the year in the black. That predictability should mean lower overall costs, rendering savings for national defense.

On the down side, however, we note that neither a new National Security Strategy (NSS) nor National Military Strategy (NMS) — the key “vision” pieces to national security — has been published since 2006. This demonstrates that despite all the hype about “change,” at least with respect to defense, not much is different — save, perhaps, a burning (dare we say, “flaming”) desire to appease the far left by eliminating DoD’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Therein lies the rub: We have no real vision for tomorrow’s defense, but we face very real military budget tradeoffs today.

Budgets involve choices. What should we buy? What programs should we kill? What should we merely sustain? But these types of questions can’t be answered cogently without an overarching set of objectives. For national defense, those objectives should be articulated in both the NSS and the NMS.

The real issue for the president is determining our focus with respect to national security. Is it fighting a peer/near-peer nation? Is it conducting so-called “overseas contingency operations”? Is it some combination of both? Or is it something else? Unfortunately, the vehicle that should have answered these questions — the Quadrennial Defense Review — has become little more than a political football and/or shill for the service-of-the-hour. What is needed is an objective, disinterested look at the nation’s true national security requirements from an outsider’s perspective. Ultimately, this will lead to rational decision-making when it comes time to draft a viable national defense budget.

Fortunately, the president isn’t cutting the military to the bone, but this fact stands in contrast to the Left’s objectives, so expect considerable push-back on this portion when the budget arrives on House and Senate floors for review.

Obama Cuts NASA Funding

Barack Obama’s 2011 NASA budget will effectively terminate America’s manned space flight program, leaving space exploration leadership to the Chinese and the Russians. Read more here.

Department of Military Correctness: Don’t Bother Asking

Under pressure from the Obama regime, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress this week that the Pentagon will scale back enforcement of the Clinton era “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that bans open homosexuality in the U.S. military. Gates also said the Pentagon has launched a yearlong review on how to repeal the policy completely — a goal of the Left for years.

According to Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, the review will examine attitudes within the military and what legal, social and infrastructure changes would be needed prior to the policy’s repeal. Since both Gates and Admiral Mullen supported the policy under President George W. Bush, it’s apparent that both men have been forced to give up their principles and convictions under pressure from Obama.

Fortunately, the review will likely complicate efforts to change the policy during an election year, as Republicans and some Democrats are wary of any possible backlash. Naturally, the many pro-homosexual groups that supported Obama during the presidential campaign have been disappointed by his delay in lifting the ban, saying the issue is one of fairness. However, current and former military members oppose lifting the ban, saying that the military should not be a laboratory for social engineering and warning that open homosexuality will result in damage to unit cohesion and, therefore, battlefield effectiveness. Wartime is a particularly bad time to run such risks.

As we have pointed out before, the military’s only reason for being is to bring controlled, sustained violence on the enemy until he is defeated. Nothing more, nothing less. This issue is not about fairness, it is about survival.

Obama Calls Navy Corpsman a ‘Corpse-man’

At the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday, the commander in chief not only got a sailor’s name wrong, but couldn’t figure out how to pronounce “corpsman.” Yes, he said “corpse-man.”

Watch the video.

From the ‘Non Compos Mentis’ File

Last Friday in London, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton really ratcheted up the tough talk. “Iran has provided a continuous stream of threats to intensify its violation of international nuclear norms,” Clinton said. “Iran’s approach leaves us with little choice than to work with our partners to apply greater pressure in the hope that it will cause Iran to reconsider its rejection of diplomatic efforts.”

Translation: We’re going to use diplomats to force Iran to listen to our diplomats.

This nonsense was not lost on the Iranians. Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki replied — and we’re not making this up — “We advise Mrs. Clinton not to use repetitive and fruitless rhetoric in her tone.” Good luck with that, Manuchehr. We’ve been telling her that for years.

Profiles of Valor: U.S. Army Major Brent Clemmer

Clemmer

On Jan. 28, 2007, while commanding the Charger Company of 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, United States Army Major Brent Clemmer received notice that a helicopter had been shot down near Najaf, Iraq. Responding coalition forces were under heavy gun and mortar fire. Clemmer moved his company approximately 60 miles to connect with a Special Forces team to establish a perimeter between the downed chopper and the enemy. From there, he directed the recovery of the wreckage and the bodies of the two pilots killed in the crash. Clemmer’s unit fought off numerous enemy attacks and prepared for a full assault on the town where the insurgents were entrenched.

At dawn the following morning, however, wounded women and children began coming from the town, signaling the jihadis’ surrender and turning the would-be assault into a humanitarian mission. All told, Clemmer and his soldiers killed about 250 insurgents and captured more than 400. In addition, they recovered stockpiles of ammunition and weapons. Upon receiving the Silver Star for his actions, Clemmer said the award was a reflection on the performance of the nearly 170 soldiers in his company.

Business & Economy

Liars Figure and Figures Lie

Last week, the Obama administration trumpeted a 5.7 percent growth in the fourth quarter gross domestic product as evidence that its economic plan has resuscitated the economy, all thanks to the massive government stimulus program. But as Mark Twain famously quipped, “There are lies, there are damned lies, and then there are statistics.” When the bigger the lie is the more believable it is, why stop short of using statistics?

Due to the inventory reductions brought on by corporate bloodletting, fully 3.5 percent of that 5.7 percent is only a one-shot depletion of inventory that won’t be replaced until demand resumes. Alarmingly, the remaining 2.2 percent growth rate is 0.8 percent below the neutral minimum job creation threshold. This continuing negative growth condition explains why businesses shed 735,000 jobs over the last six months of 2009. Other indicators reveal a 0.1 percent year-to-year growth rate, a 14.6 percent drop in businesses future output investments, and stagnant or shrinking wages from a year ago.

Most revealing is the fact that since Democrats seized control of Congress in 2006, the private sector has lost almost eight million jobs while the unemployment rate soared past 10 percent. Democrat policies have helped created some jobs, though — those in the federal government, which will hit 2.15 million employees this year, the highest since Bill Clinton declared that “the era of big government is over.”

Income Redistribution: The TARP Slush Fund

Apparently Barack Obama found a Chuck E. Cheese game token in his pocket. What else can explain his “Whac-A-Mole” economic policy? Obama called for Congress to provide $30 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds allocated for small business loan funding via community banks with $10 billion or less in assets. Obviously, he thinks (or “feels,” since it’s obvious that he hasn’t engaged in cognition) that banks are just hoarding the money instead of lending to cash-strapped businesses.

Banks lend money on the basis of ability and willingness to repay. At present, small businesses are finding it difficult to determine what they can repay. In fact, Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign has also found it hard to repay things, reportedly still owing Springfield, Illinois, a chunk of change.

Furthermore, businesses create jobs to capitalize on economic growth. Public policy can increase or decrease the cost of job creation, but without the base element of economic growth, most jobs will be simply transferred as older workers retire and younger workers enter the workforce.

Another reason we take issue with Obama’s plan is that, as we and others warned in 2008, TARP has become a political slush fund. Larger banks were forced to take the money, and they have now repaid it with interest. Of course, this doesn’t include Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, or GM or Chrysler — that money is simply lost. Now, instead of returning these repaid taxpayer dollars to their rightful place, Obama plans to pass out more unconstitutional goodies.

As the Heritage Foundation’s Andrew Grossman points out, “The administration lacks legal authority” to use TARP fund for anything outside the bill’s specific intent. “If the authority is as broad as the administration and some lawmakers say, then it is unconstitutional. Congress cannot pass the buck and give unlimited power to the executive.” Investor’s Business Daily concludes, “The administration seems to have discovered a new universal law of perpetual motion — that money once extracted from the taxpayers or borrowed from others can never be returned whence it came. As for the Constitution, we don’t need no stinking Constitution.”

Culture & Policy

Climate Change This Week: Bin Laden Goes Green

In his latest audiotape message, Osama bin Laden deviated from his typical holy-war rant to offer a different reason to join his jihad: global warming. Yes, the chief terrorist-in-hiding is trying a big-tent approach to destroy the West — i.e., you may not want to blow yourself up for 72 virgins, but killing the American economy to prevent climate change could be an appealing alternative.

“All of the industrialized countries, and especially the large ones, bear the responsibility for the crisis of the greenhouse effect,” bin Laden declared. “Most of them, though, rallied around the Kyoto accords, and agreed to limits on emissions of harmful gases. However, Bush Jr., and Congress before him, rejected this accord in order to please the large corporations.” Isn’t it amazing how closely bin Laden continues to echo Democrat talking points? Maybe he’s a closet member of the DNC.

Calling the U.S. and its policies the “true terrorists,” bin Laden urged the “[p]eople of the world” to “[b]oycott them [the United States] to save yourselves and your possessions and your children from climate change and to live proud and free.” Great advice coming from a guy living in a cave.

In other news, hackers in Europe succeeded in stealing some 250,000 carbon credit permits worth more than $4 million from six companies in an e-mail phishing scheme. The wheels just keep coming off the Global Warming Express.

Judicial Benchmarks: Hate Crimes Law Challenged

The Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center is challenging the constitutionality of the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, which was attached to defense authorization legislation last fall. The bill adds gender disorientation or identity to the list of protected minorities, which in turn means stiffer penalties for crimes committed against these “special” classes of victims. The plaintiffs are three pastors and the president of the American Family Association of Michigan, who “take a strong public stand against the homosexual agenda, which seeks to normalize disordered sexual behavior that is contrary to Biblical teaching,” the Law Center said in a news release.

According to CNS News, “The lawsuit alleges that the new law violates the plaintiffs’ rights to freedom of speech, expressive association, and free exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment, and it violates the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment. The lawsuit also alleges that Congress lacked authority to enact the legislation under the Tenth Amendment and the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.”

Village Academic Curriculum: ‘No Child Left Behind’ Overhaul

The Obama administration is planning a major revamping of the No Child Left Behind education policy. The New York Times article that attacked NCLB, which became law under President George W. Bush, neglected to mention that the author of this law was the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. That’s natural because, while this law, which lays out the interaction between the federal government and the states concerning education, was championed by congressional Republicans and Democrats alike, the blame for its failure is being laid firmly and exclusively at the former president’s feet.

The proposed changes are aimed at several aspects of the law which have been criticized by “educators” for years. They begin with the elimination of the 2014 deadline, at which time all children would have been “academically proficient,” replacing it with a goal of all children being “college or career ready” at high school graduation. In addition, the doling of federal funds will be based not on student population size, as is the case now, but on academic progress. This is designed to address the perceived lack of motivation for failing schools to improve. In this way, it’s similar to the administration’s “Race to the Top” program, in which states compete for $4 billion in education monies pulled from the stimulus bill.

The merits of the new program, which will be created with input from Congress, have yet to be determined. One thing is certain, however: It will cost yet more money. Obama is calling for a 9 percent increase in educational spending in his new budget.

Faith and Family: Say, Abstinence Does Work

A new study has many people eating their words, including a few journalists. Just days after The Washington Post’s Rob Stein wrote a derogatory article about abstinence-only programs, a new study published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine shows that such programs can in fact delay the onset of sexual activity in teens. Stein then scrambled to write a second article stating that these programs “may work.”

The University of Pennsylvania studied 662 students from four public middle schools between 2001 and 2004. Students were randomly selected to attend one of the following eight-hour classes: a) abstinence only; b) safe-sex; c) a combination of the two, or d) a class with a concentration in general healthy living. The results were shocking to the liberal elites who had long disparaged abstinence. Only 33 percent of the students who had taken the abstinence-only class had engaged in sexual activity within the next two years, as opposed to the 52 percent who had attended the safe-sex class.

For its part, the Obama administration cut $170 million in abstinence education funding, while spending $114 million on other forms of pregnancy prevention education; he wants to increase that amount to $183 million. Of course, if the point is to prevent either pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease, abstinence works every time it’s tried.

To Keep and Bear Arms

A homeowner in Brevard County, Florida, took on four intruders last Sunday in a shootout at his home. He may have been prepared for it, however, as his house was burglarized the night before. After seeing the four men jump over the fence, the homeowner began shooting. Barbara Matthews of the Cocoa Police Department said, “He challenged them. He told them to get off his property. They continued toward him and shots were fired.” All five victims of the incident were reportedly taken to a hospital listed in serious condition. The homeowner also suffered a gunshot wound. According to police, the two cases do appear to be related.

And Last…

Researcher Lorianne Updike Toler stumbled on a surprise while working at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania: a draft of the U.S. Constitution scribbled by Founder James Wilson in 1787. “This was the kind of moment historians dream about,” said Toler, a lawyer and founding president of the Constitutional Sources Project, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that promotes an understanding of and access to U.S. Constitution documents. Toler actually paid tribute to our founding document, saying, “This was national scripture, a piece of our Constitution’s history.” But given the current penchant for a “living constitution” in Washington, she might fare better by putting the dead-white-guy relic up for sale on eBay.

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Alexander’s Essay – February 4, 2010

The Reagan Model for Restoration

“No man can well doubt the propriety of placing a president of the United States under the most solemn obligations to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution.” –Joseph Story

Commander and Chief

This week, we observe the anniversary of Ronald Wilson Reagan’s birthday — Reagan Day as it is known around our office.

Ronald Reagan was, and remains, the North Star of the last great conservative revolution — and the next — if more Republicans will abide by their oaths to Support and Defend our Constitution and abide by their own political party platform.

At the most recent Republican National Committee confab, some members proposed a “Unity Principle for Support of Candidates” resolution, which identified 10 conservative principles, at least eight of which Republican candidates must support in order to receive RNC funding.

The measure failed, perhaps because more than a few of the current crop of politicos who call themselves “Republican” could not pass muster.

Subsequent to that failed motion, some Leftist intellectuals (an oxymoron, I know, but play along) opined that, based on Reagan’s record, not even he would have passed the test.

Of course, as Leftists are prone to do, they are contorting the record so it will comport with their hypothesis, or as Reagan said famously, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

What is clear about the Reagan record is that he both campaigned and governed on our First Principles, Constitutional Rule of Law and the basic tenets of Essential Liberty.

Unfortunately, at no time did President Reagan have Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, much less a super majority. Because of this, his conservative credentials were sometimes undermined by the opposition. This is most notable in the House’s failure to abide by negotiated government spending cuts to social programs commensurate with the tax cuts and increased defense spending that Reagan enacted.

Reagan resurrected supply-side economics — the real-world-tested fiscal policy that reductions in tax rates and government spending will invigorate the private sector economy, elevate GDP, resulting, ironically, in additional tax revenues even at the lower rates of taxation. But the principle works best only if reduced tax rates are accompanied by comparable reductions in government spending.

Democrats refused to cut spending, all while belittling Reagan’s efforts as “trickle-down economics.”

However, supply-side economics is so powerful that even though Democrat-controlled House budgets led to record deficits, Reagan’s economic policies resulted in the largest peacetime economic surge in American history. This, of course, is in stark contrast to the “trickle-up poverty” of the current administration’s past, present and proposed “economic recovery” plans.

Typical of great statesmen, Ronald Reagan took no credit for our nation’s economic recovery under his tenure. He was called “The Great Communicator” because of his ability to remind us of our nation’s values, its character, its soul and its confidence, a far cry from the incessant apologizing and the political chicanery that characterize the Obama presidency.

“I wasn’t a great communicator,” President Reagan said in his farewell address, “but I communicated great things, and they didn’t spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation — from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries.”

And what were those principles?

Back in 1964, shortly after Reagan parted ways with the Democrat Party (“I did not leave the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party left me.”), he delivered a timeless challenge to conservatives entitled “A Time for Choosing“: “You and I are told we must choose between a left or right,” Reagan said, “but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right, There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream — the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.”

In 1977, Reagan outlined a plan for “The New Republican Party,” stating, “The principles of conservatism are sound because they are based on what men and women have discovered through experience in not just one generation or a dozen, but in all the combined experience of mankind. When we conservatives say that we know something about political affairs, and what we know can be stated as principles, we are saying that the principles we hold dear are those that have been found, through experience, to be ultimately beneficial for individuals, for families, for communities and for nations — found through the often bitter testing of pain, or sacrifice and sorrow.”

He continued: “We, the members of the New Republican Party, believe that the preservation and enhancement of the values that strengthen and protect individual freedom, family life, communities and neighborhoods and the liberty of our beloved nation should be at the heart of any legislative or political program presented to the American people.

“Families must continue to be the foundation of our nation. Families — not government programs — are the best way to make sure our children are properly nurtured, our elderly are cared for, our cultural and spiritual heritages are perpetuated, our laws are observed and our values are preserved. … We fear the government may be powerful enough to destroy our families; we know that it is not powerful enough to replace them.

“Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business … frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite.

“Our party must be based on the kind of leadership that grows and takes its strength from the people. … And our cause must be to rediscover, reassert and reapply America’s spiritual heritage to our national affairs. Then with God’s help we shall indeed be as a city upon a hill with the eyes of all people upon us.”

In his 1981 inaugural address, President Reagan assured the nation: “The economic ills we suffer … will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. They will go away because we, as Americans, have the capacity now, as we have had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom. In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

Ronald Wilson Reagan appealed to the best in us.

His final words at the 1992 Republican convention reflect that appeal: “And whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way. My fondest hope for each one of you — and especially for young people — is that you will love your country, not for her power or wealth, but for her selflessness and her idealism. May each of you have the heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, and the hand to execute works that will make the world a little better for your having been here. May all of you as Americans never forget your heroic origins, never fail to seek divine guidance, and never lose your natural, God-given optimism. And finally, my fellow Americans, may every dawn be a great new beginning for America and every evening bring us closer to that shining city upon a hill.”

On the other hand, Barack Hussein Obama appeals to the worst in his constituents — their fears, doubts, dependence on the state, greed and envy, brokenness, pessimism and sense of helplessness. He has twisted JFK’s inaugural appeal to read: “Ask what your country can do for you, not what you can do for your country.”

Ronald Reagan provided a timeless template for the restoration of our nation’s economic and moral prosperity, and a return to First Principles and the Rule of Law. Once again, it is time for action, time to choose.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander

Publisher, PatriotPost.US

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Chronicle · Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The Foundation

“The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.” –Alexander Hamilton

F-22 Raptor

Editorial Exegesis

“Last week the Russian air force celebrated the maiden flight of the Sukhoi T-50, Moscow’s version of the American F-22 Raptor stealth fighter. We have shut down the F-22 production line, viewing it as an unaffordable and unnecessary extravagance. We mention this in light of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s statement that President Obama’s proposed freeze on discretionary domestic programs should also cover defense expenditures. Unfortunately, our enemies aren’t freezing their defense budgets. … Defense is not a discretionary budget item. It’s a constitutional imperative and one of the reasons we have a government. The greatest social service a government can perform for its people is to keep them alive and free. ‘Everybody has to make a sacrifice,’ Pelosi [said], shortly before Obama announced his proposed discretionary spending freeze in his State of the Union address. By everybody, she evidently was excluding herself; the speaker’s interest in Air Force jets does not extend beyond the ones that fly her and her family around. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Judicial Watch show that Pelosi has incurred expenses of $2.1 million for her use of Air Force jets the past two years. Then there’s the matter of the $101,000 tab taxpayers picked up over that period for ‘in-flight services,’ including a selection of top-shelf booze. … Pelosi has used Air Force aircraft to travel back to her district at average cost of $28,210.51 per flight. … We suggest that since everybody has to make a sacrifice, it not come at the expense of the U.S. military. We can’t build any more Raptors, but we can use Air Force jets as sky taxis for politicians who consider themselves too important to fly commercial.” –Investor’s Business Daily

Insight

“A man’s most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe.” –Greek playwright Euripides (485-406 B.C.)

“The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people’s minds.” –British journalist Walter Bagehot (1826-1877)

Upright

“The bigger the government, the less I do for myself, for my family and for my community. That is why we Americans give more charity and devote more time to volunteering than Europeans do. The European knows: The government, the state, will take care of me, my children, my parents, my neighbors and my community. I don’t have to do anything. The bigger question in many Europeans’ lives is, ‘How much vacation time will I have and where will I spend that vacation?’ That is what happens when the state gets bigger — you become smaller.” –radio talk-show host Dennis Prager

“Many people ask me whether the Democrats are in as much trouble as they were in 1994. The numbers suggest they are in much deeper trouble, at least at this moment.” –political analyst Michael Barone

“When the president directed that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other al Qaeda plotters of Sept. 11 be tried in a civilian court in Manhattan, [our] enemies knew they had the president’s number for once and all. Now, with even stalwarts in his own party denouncing a civilian trial in Manhattan as the nut-ball idea of the year, he’s looking for a smart solution, a way to look tough in retreat. He should take the trial to San Francisco, where the flame that warms the cult burns brightest, and where surely no one would object.” –Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

“[E]verything the president proposes means more debt, which at the level this guy’s spending means, at some point down the road, either higher taxes or total societal collapse.” –columnist Mark Steyn

“Americans are not victims who need handouts. Americans need the freedom to flourish. And until our president realizes this, he, and America, will lose out.” –National Review editor Kathryn Lopez

“We must present a clear choice: stay the course of progressive liberalism, which moves away from popular consent, the rule of law, and constitutional government, and toward a failed, undemocratic, and illiberal form of statism; or correct course in an effort to restore the conditions of liberty and renew the bedrock principles and constitutional wisdom that are the roots of America’s continuing greatness.” –Heritage Foundation scholar Matthew Spalding

“America’s future is clear: Unless we start cutting spending and take control of entitlement programs, our children will go broke making good on our promises. … The government can never spend its way out of recession. It can only get out of the way, through lower tax rates and less costly regulation, and allow private business to grow again.” –columnist Rich Tucker

Dezinformatsia

Repent for the end is near: “If health care doesn’t pass, because this budget assumes health care will pass, that’s yet another $150 billion that would be tacked on to the deficit.” –NBC’s Chuck Todd regurgitating the BIG LIE that paying out more government dollars on “health care” is going to save money

Hoping for ObamaCare: “The president outlines a number of measures to reduce the deficit, over $1 trillion worth. But … perhaps the most surprising, the budget assumes a savings of $150 billion over the next 10 years from health care reform, legislation that is at the very best — at the most optimistic — on life support on Capitol Hill right now.” –ABC’s Jake Tapper (The best and most optimistic would be for ObamaCare to be in the morgue.)

Blame the GOP: “Republicans should know that their partisanship means they are rejecting medical security that is available in most countries of the world for its citizens. Shame on them!” –White House press corpse reporter Helen Thomas

“Tea-party people are libertarians, and on the state level, they are organizing around the notion of using the 10th Amendment (which affirms state’s rights) to overturn health-care legislation — should it still pass by some miracle. It’s hard to take their rhetoric seriously. Where else could they go in the world to be freer? It reminds me of the slogan shouted at antiwar protesters, ‘America, love it or leave it.’” –Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift (You first.)

Poor guy: “If the president of Toyota has big headaches, well, so too, does the president of the United States, putting together a budget in an economic downturn with more than 15 million Americans out of work.” –CBS’s Katie Couric

Bully pulpit could have a whole new meaning: “[Obama] needs one or two [Republican] votes in the Senate to get anything passed. That’s the political reality. But he needs to, perhaps, bully Republicans into doing that, rather than doing this careful walk around them.” –Newsweek’s Katie Connolly

Newspulper Headlines:

We Blame Global Warming: “Liberals Cool on Obama’s Freeze” –Daily Beast

We Blame George W. Bush: “Houston Fire Blamed on Inflatable Gorilla” –NPR.org

But Obama Said It Was Bush’s Fault!: “Mayan Tomb Find May Help Explain Collapse” –CBC.ca

Namely 100%: “Overweight Elderly Have Similar Mortality to Normal-Weigh Elderly” –MedScape.com

News of the Tautological: “Call for Breast Milk Donations in Haiti Goes Bust” –MSNBC.com

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “The Enormous Carbon Footprint of Protecting Pandas” –Investor’s Business Daily

Bottom Stories of the Day: “White House Blames Bush for Budget Woes” –Salon.com

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

The Demo-gogues

Belly laugh of the week: “Already, we have made historic strides … to cut wasteful spending.” –Barack Obama announcing his $3.7 trillion budget to Congress Monday

Nanny state: “Until America is back at work, my administration will not rest and this recovery will not be finished.” –Barack Obama, promising to spend your money (and that of your children and grandchildren) like mad until the economy recovers

‘Be patient while I spend your money’: “It’s very important to understand, we won’t be able to bring down this deficit overnight given that the recovery is still taking hold and families across the country still need help.” –Big Spender in Chief Obama

Dead wrong: “We’re not going to save our way out of this recession. We’ve got to spend our way out of this recession, and I think most economists know that.” –Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC)

Admitting deceit: “Let me say this about … the health care debate, because I think it also bears on a whole lot of other issues. If you look at the package that we’ve presented — and there’s some stray cats and dogs that got in there that we were eliminating, we were in the process of eliminating. For example, we said from the start that it was going to be important for us to be consistent in saying to people if you can have your — if you want to keep the health insurance you got, you can keep it, that you’re not going to have anybody getting in between you and your doctor in your decision making. And I think that some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge.” –Barack Obama at the GOP retreat in Baltimore

Poo pooing serious charges: “But if you were to listen to debate and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you’d think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot. No, I mean, that’s how you guys presented it.” –BO to GOP House members

Misunderstanding: “Maybe over time, people will have a chance to understand what is in the [health care] legislation.” –Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) (Maybe people DO understand what’s in the legislation and that’s why they oppose it.)

Pay any price: “We go through the gate. If the gate’s closed, we’ll go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we’ll pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we’ll parachute in. But we’re going to get health care reform passed for the American people for their own personal health and economic security and for the important role that it will play in reducing the deficit.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Airborne

You can say that again: “The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.” –Barack Obama

Village Idiots

Backhanded compliment: “I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina. That education system was a disaster, and it took Hurricane Katrina to wake up the community to say that ‘we have to do better.’” –Education Secretary Arne Duncan

Judge, jury and executioner: “Well, let me tell you what Plan A is for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is going to meet justice and he’s going to meet his maker. … He will be brought to justice, and he’s likely to be executed for the heinous crimes that he committed in killing — in masterminding the killing of — 3,000 Americans. … The Attorney General believes that the best place to do this is in an American courtroom.” –White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the show trial for KSM

Complaining about help: “The evangelicals are in control and they take everything for themselves. They have the advantage that they control the airport where everything is stuck. They take everything they get to their own people and that’s a shame. … Voodoo as been discriminated against for 200 years. … To ask us to stop would be like asking an American to stop heating hamburgers.” –Max Beauvoir, Haiti’s “supreme master” of voodoo

Short Cuts

“The budget presented by our president today could only have been written by Rosie Scenario.” –University of Maryland professor Peter Morici

“Toyota apologized Saturday for faulty gas pedals on four million vehicles just recalled. When you press the pedal down it stays down and the car accelerates out of control. Whoever designed the gas pedal should be fired and made Treasury Secretary.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“While fighting to stay awake during his State of the Union speech, it occurred to me that for over a year now, Obama has been speaking and behaving like the leader of an occupying force. Which, the more I thought about it, is exactly who I think he is.” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

“Washington, Obama tells us, is ‘unable or unwilling to solve any of our problems.’ So let’s have more Washington! In our schools, in our hospitals, in our cars, in everything! Which raises the question: Does even Obama listen to Obama’s speeches?” –columnist Mark Steyn

“Even Obama’s speech reminded me of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ — he built a straw man, had a tin ear and spent the whole talk cowardly lyin’.” –comedian Evan Sayet

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Brief · Monday, February 1, 2010

The Foundation

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” –Benjamin Franklin

Opinion in Brief  

2010 State of the Union

“The Constitution requires that the president ‘from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union.’ But it doesn’t mandate the modern pageant of pomp, circumstance, and phony promises we suffer through every year. In fact, for most of the Republic’s first century, the SOTU was a modest, informational affair. Presidents sent the written address to Congress, to be read aloud by a clerk. That was thanks to President Jefferson, who thought delivering the speech before Congress assembled smacked too much of a king’s ‘Speech from the Throne.’ When the power-hungry Woodrow Wilson overturned the Jeffersonian tradition in 1913, one senator cursed the revival of ‘the old Federalistic custom of speeches from the throne,’ calling it a ‘cheap and tawdry imitation of English royalty.’ The speech only got worse from there, especially after the advent of television and LBJ’s decision to move the address to prime time. That sealed the SOTU’s transformation into the modern ritual, in which the president stands at the front of the House chamber making exorbitant promises that would shame a carny barker, while congresscritters stand and clap like members of the Supreme Soviet cheering a Brezhnev speech.” –columnist Gene Healy, vice president at the Cato Institute

Government

“The central fact of the [State of the Union] speech was the contradiction at its heart. It repeatedly asserted that Washington is the answer to everything. At the same time it painted a picture of Washington as a sick and broken place. It was a speech that argued against itself: You need us to heal you. Don’t trust us, we think of no one but ourselves. The people are good but need guidance — from Washington. The middle class is anxious, and its fears can be soothed — by Washington. Washington can ‘make sure consumers … have the information they need to make financial decisions.’ Washington must ‘make investments,’ ‘create’ jobs, increase ‘production’ and ‘efficiency.’ At the same time Washington is a place ‘where every day is Election Day,’ where all is a ‘perpetual campaign’ and the great sport is to ‘embarrass your opponents’ and lob ’schoolyard taunts.’ Why would anyone have faith in that thing to help anyone do anything?” –columnist Peggy Noonan

Political Futures

“If President Obama took any lesson from his party’s recent drubbing in Massachusetts, and its decline in the polls, it seems to be that he should keep doing what he’s been doing, only with a little more humility, and a touch more bipartisanship. That’s our reading of [Wednesday] night’s lengthy State of the Union address, which mostly repackaged the President’s first-year agenda in more modest political wrapping. … On health care, Mr. Obama offered a Willy Loman-esque soliloquy on his year-long effort, as if his bill’s underlying virtues and his own hard work haven’t been truly appreciated by the American public. He showed no particular willingness to compromise, save for a claim that he was open to other ideas. … Mr. Obama’s economic pitch also differed little from last year, when the jobless rate was 7.2%. He offered a spirited defense of the stimulus, though the jobless rate is now 10%, and he promised more of the same this year, especially on ‘green jobs.’ … [H]e couldn’t resist more banker baiting, and he promised that he’s determined to see tax rates rise for millions of Americans next year when the Bush rates are set to expire. He also pushed more exports while saying he’ll raise taxes on some of our biggest exporters, otherwise known as multinationals that ’ship our jobs overseas.’ Mr. Obama believes he can conjure jobs and a durable expansion from the private sector while waging political war on its animal spirits. It can’t be done. This reflects a larger problem, which is his belief that economic growth springs mainly from the genius of government.” –The Wall Street Journal

For the Record

“There are more loopholes in President Obama’s proposed ’spending freeze’ than in an Olympic volleyball net. Gargantuan government entitlements (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) are exempt. A half-trillion in unspent stimulus money is exempt. Foreign aid is exempt. The Democrats’ proposed $154 billion jobs bill (Stimulus II) is exempt. Pet federal education programs will be exempt (including $4 billion for the White House ‘Race to the Top’ standards initiative and an additional $1.35 billion he just requested in the 2011 budget). Green jobs spending will be exempt. (Obama proposed $10 billion in new clean energy spending earlier this month.) Electorally driven tax-credit expansions will be exempt. The health care takeover plan is not included. As even The New York Times reported, the ‘estimated $250 billion in savings over 10 years would be less than 3 percent of the roughly $9 trillion in additional deficits the government is expected to accumulate over that time.’ Which amounts to a molecule in a drop of the ocean of red ink in which American taxpayers have been drowning.” –columnist Michelle Malkin

Re: The Left

“Critics of [the Supreme Court's recent] decision [on campaign-finance reform], like censors throughout history, worried that freedom of speech would have bad consequences. ‘It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way — or to punish those who don’t,’ Obama warned. ‘Any public servant who has the courage to stand up to the special interests and stand up for the American people can find himself or herself under assault come election time.’ It was a bit rich for Obama to bemoan the influence of ’special interests’ the same week Massachusetts voters expressed their anger over bailouts he enthusiastically supported, the week after he cut a deal that exempted union members from a tax everyone else would have to pay, around the same time he was bragging about a spending binge that has stimulated lobbying more than the economy and in the midst of his attempt to salvage health care legislation backed by big corporations. In any case, democracy is a clash of interests, which we call ’special’ when we don’t like the policies they support, and the election-time ‘assault’ of Obama’s nightmares is nothing more than public criticism of politicians. Obama and other supporters of restrictions on political speech believe voters can’t handle clashing versions of the truth, that they need to be shielded, in the name of democracy, from messages that would otherwise mesmerize them into doing the bidding of ‘powerful interests.’ The Framers thought otherwise, and that’s why we have the First Amendment.” –columnist Jacob Sullum

Liberty

“[Those on] the left complain about the bind in which they find themselves. They can spare 4o votes on any House vote, and they have a Senate majority, but they can’t get anything done. It’s as if a genius schemed against them to thwart their efforts and require impossibly large majorities to accomplish something. … But our founders didn’t set out to frustrate any specific people. They were concerned with one big question: how does one prevent a republic from degenerating into tyranny, as all historical republics had? … In Federalist 51 [James Madison] writes: ‘It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. … If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.’ … Our constitutional system of government works — but it works to protect liberty, not allow those who want to get their agenda passed and get it passed yesterday to run roughshod over the minority. Madison warned of such a system, writing, ‘In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature.’ … More often than not, divided government has been the rule. Thus left and right are both stymied by the Constitution, which was designed to frustrate change in favor of freedom. America is ungovernable because the founders never intended the lives of Americans to be governed from the federal capitol.” –columnist Adam Graham

The Gipper

“Conservatism is the antithesis of the kind of ideological fanaticism that has brought so much horror and destruction to the world. The common sense and common decency of ordinary men and women, working out their own lives in their own way — this is the heart of American conservatism today. Conservative wisdom and principles are derived from willingness to learn, not just from what is going on now, but from what has happened before.” –Ronald Reagan

Faith & Family

“Pop quiz: What billion-dollar multinational receives hundreds of millions in tax dollars even though it is enormously profitable? If your thoughts turned to defense contractors, you would be right about the purpose — killing — but wrong about the recipient. The answer, in fact, is Planned Parenthood. According to its most recent annual report, in fiscal 2008, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nation’s largest abortion provider, had annual revenue of more than $1 billion. Of this, about 34 percent was made up of government grants. In other words, almost $350 million of American taxpayer dollars supported the work of Planned Parenthood from October 2007 to September 2008. And, according to tax records from the same time period, this 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization had a net income $85 million greater than its expenses. That looks suspiciously like a profit…. The enterprise of abortion in America is big business. It turns a profit, and for the American taxpayer, the bailout of a financial behemoth — one engaged in an activity most Americans find troubling — is obviously unnecessary. Even without pondering such moral questions as ‘When does life begin?’ and ‘What is happening in a woman’s body that abortion stops?’ the fact that this billion-dollar industry needs no tax support should be enough to stop taxpayer handouts.” –Jeanne Monahan of the Family Research Council

Reader Comments

“Thank you Patriot Post — you hit the nail on the head concerning the upholding of the Constitution! As Mark Alexander stated, ‘Nowhere in our Constitution is there any authority or provision for these key proposals from Obama’s SOTU…’ Perhaps someone should author a book entitled ‘America’s Constitutional Republic 101 For Dummies.’” –Rick

“This is an excellent article, Mark! You are spot on with your assessment of our president’s State of the Union address: a socialist response to government created problems. I couldn’t agree more. Ditto on the Republican response; I found it a tepid reaction to an elitist agenda wrought with fundamental violations of basic liberties and enumerated powers. This approach assures only that Republicans will forever be only the lesser of two evils.” –Ed

“Scott Brown for president? I’m not saying he should run. In fact, I have a hard time believing any U.S. senator should be in the mix. State governors, who you would think have a better understanding of what the Constitution says about States’ rights, would make better candidates. While this is not a certainty, I think we should look for a constitutional conservative to wisely lead this country back to Ronald Reagan’s vision — or more appropriately, the Founder’s vision!” –Rob

“Re: Chris Matthews’ comment: I don’t care what color Obama is. I just wish I could forget that he is president.” –Jim

The Last Word

“Obama is addicted to utilizing language that he has carefully tailored or perverted to obfuscate the truth. In other words, he uses double talk on a routine basis. In order to understand what Obama truly tells us when he speaks to us, it is necessary to grab our Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring and decipher precisely what he means when he uses his pet phrases. This, then, is a list of his favorite linguistic flourishes — and just what he means when he uses them: ‘Hope and change’: Socialism at home, surrender abroad. … ‘False choice’: A very real choice Obama wants to pretend doesn’t exist. … ‘Deficit reduction’: Deficit increases. Obama suggests that he will cut the rate at which the deficit is growing — something he has never actually achieved — and acts as though this is actual deficit reduction. … ‘Let me be clear’: Let me lie to you. ‘Make no mistake’: See ‘let me be clear.’ … ‘This isn’t about me’: This is completely about me. … ‘Reaching out to the other side of the aisle’: Totally rejecting all ideas from anyone outside the Obama-approved bubble. Then suggesting that subsequent political impasses are their fault, and that they ought to bend down and grab their ankles to establish a new tone in Washington. ‘Failed policies of the past’: Don’t blame me! Blame Bush! … ‘Tax cut’: Redistribution of money from those who pay a disproportionate amount of taxes to those who pay none. … Watch for these phrases while marveling at Obama’s supposed rhetorical brilliance. They shouldn’t be taken at face value, because Obama isn’t a master of pure artistry of the English language — he’s a master at manipulation above all.” –columnist Ben Shapiro

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Digest · Friday, January 29, 2010

The Foundation

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” –Thomas Jefferson

Government & Politics

It’s the Deficit, Stupid

“Look how much spending I froze!”

Barack Obama apparently suffers from his own brand of ADD — Addiction-to-Deficit Disorder — as demonstrated by his recently unveiled proposal to freeze one tiny portion of government spending at current levels for three years, which by the way wouldn’t begin until 2011. He highlighted the proposal again Wednesday night in his State of the Union address.

At first blush, the idea sounds like something conservatives would cheer. In fact, other than Democrats, who isn’t for stopping the spending juggernaut? But as a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) quipped, “Given Washington Democrats’ unprecedented spending binge, this is like announcing you’re going on a diet after winning a pie-eating contest.”

A closer look at this diet reveals that the freeze would apply to a budget that enjoyed a 20 percent increase in 2009, courtesy of the Democrats’ largesse. Under the guise of “tacking to the center” in the wake of his trip to the woodshed in the Massachusetts election, the president’s proposal would actually lock in a sizable spending increase during those years, as opposed to a real freeze. (No wonder Republicans burst out laughing during the SOTU.)

Furthermore, while the plan claims savings of roughly $250 billion over the next decade, the freeze applies only to non-defense-related discretionary spending, or roughly 17 percent of the total federal budget. Even at that, however, the cap is by no means across the board. Education and job creation initiatives would receive increases, because everyone knows government creates jobs, and education … well, as long as we keep throwing more money at it, it’ll get better, right?

Other items exempted from the proposal are even more revealing. This includes entitlement programs (about two-thirds of the federal budget), virtually all legislation — past or future — with the term “stimulus” in it, including the unspent cash from the latest stimulus legislation, and the yet-another-stimulus-package proposal from The Chosen One’s SOTU. Health care spending would also get a pass.

Naturally, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Lala-land) rushed to offer up defense spending as a sacrificial lamb to further the cause (so much for the “non-defense-related” caveat). Pelosi’s suggestion was immediately lauded by Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-Il and a host of other despots.

For perspective, we would add that these hypothetical savings pale in comparison to the $1.4 trillion actual deficit in 2009 alone, and that the Congressional Budget Office — a virtual shill for Democrats, no less — forecast just this week that the deficit for 2010 likely will be at least as large. All told, in fact, the government will hit its current $12.4 trillion authorized debt ceiling by the end of February.

So given the president’s call for fiscal “responsibility,” one might assume Democrats would jump on the bandwagon. Not so. Every Senate Democrat — every Democrat — voted Thursday to raise the debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion. That’s $45,000 of debt for every American man, woman and child. But as Obama so succinctly (and ridiculously) put it in the SOTU, “That’s how budgeting works.”

(On a related note, Democrats needed 60 votes to pass this increase and Sen. Paul Kirk (D-MA) provided one of those votes, despite Senate rules and Massachusetts law saying his term expired last Tuesday. So why did he vote?)

Columnist Charles Krauthammer wryly captured the true significance of the disingenuous spending freeze subterfuge, noting that it’s “a $15 billion reduction in a year, 2011, in which the CBO has just announced we are going to have a deficit of $1.35 trillion — it’s a rounding error. … It’s not a hatchet. It’s not a scalpel. It’s a Q-tip. It’s a fraud.” As is any claim of fiscal responsibility originating near the Potomac.

This Week’s ‘Braying Jenny’ Award

“In [the president's] budget, which we passed 100 days after his swearing-in, he had a blueprint for how we go into the future, create jobs, stabilize the economy [and] do so as we reduce the deficit — [it's] very central to everything we do — reduce the deficit.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who contributed to nearly quadrupling the deficit in Obama’s first year

From the ‘Non Compos Mentis’ File

“You know, I was trying to think about who [Barack Obama] was tonight, and it’s interesting: He is post-racial by all appearances. You know, I forgot he was black tonight for an hour.” –MSNBC host Chris “thrill up my leg” Matthews, with a slobbering sycophantic (and genuinely racist) analysis of the SOTU

Election Preview: Democrats

Democrats have experienced a nearly unprecedented reversal of fortune lately, and the bad news just keeps on coming. Arkansas Representative Marion Berry became the sixth Democrat to announce his retirement, and his district is expected to go Republican in November. He told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that he urged the White House not to repeat the mistakes of 1994, when congressional Democrats were defeated resoundingly at the polls. He said Obama fired back, “Well, the big difference here and in ‘94 was, you’ve got me.”

The arrogance necessary to make that kind of comment suggests that Obama has been tapping the keg of his own Kool-Aid. Given the disastrous results of his efforts on behalf of gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey, and on behalf of Ted Kennedy’s senatorial heir apparent in deep-blue Massachusetts, he’s vastly overestimating his marquee value. His much-vaunted health care plan is all but dead, and now House and Senate Democrat leaders will be lucky to keep more members from retiring early. So maybe the “big difference” Obama was referring to is the loss of even more than 54 seats in the House.

Even Vice President Joe Biden’s son Beau has seen the writing on the wall. He announced this week that he would not run for the Senate seat vacated when his father became VP. Beau, who is Delaware’s Attorney General, indicated that he’s just too busy with a controversial child abuse case to focus on a statewide race. Yeah, right. If the Democrats in Massachusetts can’t keep the “Kennedy Senate seat” that they held for half a century, what chance does the vice president’s son have in Delaware? Republican candidate Mike Castle, a popular congressman and former governor, raised almost $2 million in campaign cash and has run virtually unopposed while Biden was still making up his mind about whether to run.

Election Preview: Republicans

The political landscape indeed favors Republicans, which also means tight races at the primary level. The contest for Florida’s Senate seat has turned into a statistical dead heat between Gov. Charlie Crist and former state House Speaker Marco Rubio. The moderate Crist’s comfortable lead has faded away in recent weeks, as he continues to take heat for Florida’s economic difficulties. The state has double-digit unemployment and was the hardest hit by the housing collapse. Crist’s popularity is dropping and Rubio, a solid conservative, is now closing the gap in the polls and in the cash department. Both candidates are comfortably ahead of Democrat Kendrick Meek.

In Arizona, erstwhile presidential candidate John McCain is facing a challenge for his Senate seat. Former Congressman J.D. Hayworth announced his candidacy, claiming he was motivated to take on McCain because the latter was an “enabler” of Obama’s fiscal policies. McCain certainly is not as conservative as he or the Leftmedia fancy. To name but a few examples, he co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold campaign finance debacle that the Supreme Court partly struck down last week; the McCain-Edwards-Kennedy Patient’s Bill of Rights imposing a new set of onerous mandates on the insurance industry; the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship cap-and-trade bill; and the McCain-Kennedy Amnesty and Open Borders Act legalizing dozens of millions of illegal aliens. And that’s not to mention his opposition to the Bush tax cuts; his vicious attacks and vendettas against South Carolina Christians in the 2000 presidential primary, as well as the Swift Boat Veterans and Club for Growth; and his vote (one of six Republicans) against drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Of course, Hayworth’s voting record in Congress is nothing worth bragging about, either. He voted for the hefty farm and highway spending bills and also had a penchant for earmarks before he was ousted in 2006. Barry Goldwater, call your office.

News From the Swamp: Bernanke Wins Reappointment

Talk about a case of bad timing. The economic outlook is anything but certain and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s term was just about to expire. A growing number of senators were less than thrilled with Bernanke’s handling of the economy over the last two years and threatened to deny him confirmation for another term. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that Bernanke “must be held accountable for many of the decisions that contributed to our financial meltdown.”

Nonetheless, on Thursday, the Senate voted 70-30 to reappoint Bernanke for a second four-year term. The Senate has never rejected a Fed chairman nominee, though Bernanke received a record-low vote total. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) said, “To vote against confirmation could unnerve investors and exacerbate economic uncertainty in the marketplace, which is exactly what we do not need at this time.” He was probably correct, though we also think McCain has a point. It was Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who, along with Democrats in Congress, were largely responsible for steering the economy into a ditch. Yet sacking Bernanke likely would have destabilized the market — much like Barack Obama’s populist posturing about bank punishment did last week.

Furthermore, if it’s not Bernanke, then who? There’s little chance Obama would have chosen someone satisfactory to succeed him. The one name that surfaced was former Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. In the end, the Senate simply went with the known quantity.

Also at PatriotPost.US This Week: O’Keefe Arrested

Investigative journalist James O’Keefe, of ACORN video fame, was arrested in Louisiana this week for activities at Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office. Read more here.

National Security

Warfront With Jihadistan: Marines to Leave Iraq

While news from Iraq has been noticeably lacking recently — definitely a good sign of progress and stabilization — the country was back in the media this week. On Monday, triple suicide blasts ripped through Baghdad, killing at least 41 people. An al-Qa’ida front group, the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility. Iraqi authorities have faced increasing criticism over security lapses, and this attack will certainly increase the pressure on the Shiite-led government before Iraq’s March 7 national elections.

In Baghdad, Vice President Joe Biden met with Iraqi leaders to discuss their plans to ban candidates suspected of being a part of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The administration believes that any candidate bans could undermine the credibility of the election results, which the U.S. views as important for continuing the U.S. troop pullout, as well as helping to break Iraqi government stalemates over issues such as the sharing of oil revenue.

Concerning the U.S. troop pullout, on Saturday, the Marine Corps wrapped up almost seven years in Iraq and handed its duties over entirely to the U.S. Army. This marked the start of an accelerated withdrawal of American troops, as the U.S. turns away from a quieter Iraq and toward Afghanistan. The Marines formally handed control of Iraq’s largest province, the Sunni-dominated Anbar region, to the Army during a ceremony in Ramadi, where some of the fiercest battles of the Iraq war were fought.

If everything remains on schedule, these last remaining Marines will be followed out of Iraq by tens of thousands of U.S. Army soldiers over the coming months. President Obama ordered all but 50,000 troops out of Iraq by August of this year, with the largest group scheduled to leave after the March elections. The remaining troops will leave by the end of 2011. After a job well done by U.S. forces, here’s hoping the Iraqi armed forces are ready to fully secure their country and their hard-won security.

Administration Considers Moving KSM Trial

“Facing mounting pressure from New York politicians concerned about costs and security, the Obama administration on Thursday began considering moving the trial of the chief organizer of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks out of Manhattan,” The New York Times reports. Of course, the commander in chief still wants to treat Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) as a criminal rather than an enemy combatant, saying he believes a civilian trial can be conducted “successfully and securely in the United States.” However, Obama left the location up to the Justice Department. The move is in response to growing protests, led by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Republicans still promise to block funding for a civilian trial, seeking to force a trial before a military commission either at Guantanamo Bay or a military base.

Profiles of Valor: U.S. Marine Corps MGySgt Peter Proietto

United States Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sergeant Peter Proietto was serving in Afghanistan when, on March 12, 2003, his patrol was ambushed by Taliban fighters. As the other Marines in the forward element of the patrol sought cover, Proietto stayed in position — exposed to enemy fire though he was — in order to provide suppressive fire for the protection of his comrades.

Proietto

As the firefight continued, Proietto bravely stayed at the machine gun atop his unarmored vehicle on an open road. The Team Sergeant advised him to leave that position for cover, but he stayed and fired on the enemy for almost an hour until he ran out of ammunition. When the ammunition was gone, he grabbed his M4 carbine and continued to engage the enemy. Soon, the Taliban were pushed from their positions. For his actions, Proietto received the Bronze Star with combat “V” for valor. His citation says he “displayed himself in a courageous professional manner and his heroic and immediate response to enemy fire and willingness to jeopardize his own safety to provide supporting fire for the rest of the team demonstrated a level of dedication to the mission and his fellow soldiers, which is rarely surpassed.”

For more Profiles of Valor, see our Perspective section each Sunday.

Business & Economy

Income Redistribution: Tax Cut Games

Still reeling from last week’s Democrat loss in Massachusetts, Barack Obama is proposing a series of middle-class tax breaks to “reverse the overall erosion in middle-class security.” Undoubtedly, he also hopes the breaks will reverse growing disenchantment among middle-class voters. Under the proposal, childcare tax credits would nearly double; student federal loan repayments would be limited to 10 percent of income beyond a “basic living allowance”; and employers would be required to let employees enroll in direct deposit IRAs. Additionally, $1.6 billion in new funding would flow to childcare and $102.5 million to family-provided elder care.

These tax cuts will undoubtedly be welcomed by those who receive them, but in reality the proposals are little more than smokescreens and sound bites. “Americans are asking, ‘Where are the jobs?’” said House Republican Leader John Boehner. “[N]one of the proposals outlined by the White House … would, in fact, create jobs.”

This latest scheme reiterates that Obama’s philosophy is not one of systemic tax relief, which views wealth as created by the people and belonging to the people, but of wealth redistribution, which selects “worthy” recipients of taxpayer dollars and reallocates those dollars accordingly.

This Week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ Award

“We also had some good news for the first time in approximately two years. The projection of revenues has stabilized, not decreased. That is a very good sign because it is a sign that people are in fact making money and will be in a position, because they’re making money, to pay a portion of that in revenues to the federal government.” –House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

Hope ‘n’ Change: How Many Jobs?

Barack Obama spent a good deal of time in his State of the Union address telling us how he was going to create jobs, mostly by giving various tax breaks to different constituencies, paid for by other constituencies. Friday, he announced a $33 billion incentive package for small businesses for hiring and wage increases — again, more acts of “benevolence” rather than just getting out of the way.

Meanwhile, it was a game of multiple-choice statistics on Sunday’s talk shows, as three of Obama’s top advisors graced three different networks, spouting three different job numbers. On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Senior Adviser David Axelrod picked Door #1: “[T]he Recovery Act the president passed has created … or saved more than 2 million jobs.”

On “Fox News Sunday,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs chose Door #2: “[T]he recovery plan … saved or created 1.5 million jobs.”

Door #3 was left for Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “The Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs.” Unfortunately, none of the president’s sages had the correct answer: None of the above.

Is this messaging faux pas a sign of trouble in the Obama ranks? Looks that way. Indeed, following Democrats’ recent electoral nosedives, an internal shakeup may be on the horizon. On last week’s McLaughlin Group, five of five panelists think that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s days are numbered. The hard-nosed strategist may soon find his nose in the classifieds. And as Obama re-hires former campaign manager David Plouffe in a post-Massachusetts (and Virginia, and New Jersey) attempt to salvage his agenda, one can only wonder how many other senior advisers will soon add “former” to their titles.

Around the Nation: Oregon Voters Approve Tax Hike

“It’s not often that citizens vote for higher taxes, but 54% of Oregonians have done precisely that,” notes The Wall Street Journal. “In a rolling month-long referendum by mail that ended Tuesday, they approved some $700 million in tax hikes on business and wealthy residents.”

The vote pushes the highest state income tax rate from 9 percent to 11 percent, nearly the highest in the nation. Not only that, but the retroactive (to January 2009) tax is a gross-receipts tax, not a net-profit tax. How, in a time of voter anger over taxes and spending, did this happen?

Both national and local public employee unions spent $6.5 million in support of the hike, which helped build support in the crucial precincts in and around Portland. Naturally, the union label placed the burden on “someone else.” Only Wall Street bankers, out-of-state credit card companies and the rich would pay the tax. But as the WSJ points out, “Two-thirds of those hit with the new 11% tax rate are small and medium-sized business owners.” Besides, tax hikes at the top tend to have that dastardly trickle-down effect.

Public unions succeeded in using tax dollars from dues paid through salaries to lobby and win more tax dollars for even better wages and benefits. The average Oregon state worker receives $83,402 in pay and benefits, which is 30 percent higher than private workers get. Nice work if you can get it. With voters electing to add to their deficit problems rather than solving them, it’s no wonder Phil Knight of Nike (in Oregon) called it the state’s “assisted suicide” for business.

Ford, Sans Bailout Cash, Posts Profit

Ford Motor Company this week announced its first annual profit since 2005 — all without bailout cash from taxpayers. The automaker recorded $2.7 billion profit for 2009 versus a $14.8 billion loss in 2008, and Ford has $25.5 billion in cash reserves, up from $13.4 billion at the beginning of the year. Ford also increased its U.S. market share for the first time since 1995. One of the primary reasons why the company saw success last year was its refusal to take federal bailout money — unlike rivals GM and Chrysler, which are still losing money — and auto buyers are rewarding them for their stand.

The federal government should have avoided meddling in the market as it did. Big government proponents incessantly argue that they “brought the automakers back from the brink,” but if the free market had been allowed to work in the first place, GM and Chrysler would have either failed appropriately or, more likely, avoided the brink in the first place.

Culture & Policy

Climate Change This Week: NASA Measures More ‘Warming’

A new NASA study has declared this past decade to be the warmest since the recording of temperature began in 1880. Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the world’s best-known envirofascists, even broke it down by year. According to him, 2009 was a real scorcher, second only to 2005.

The New York Times reports that the scientist has been “attacked” by climate change skeptics, though perhaps a better word is “exposed.” If Hansen is being challenged openly, it’s because scientists who had been silenced for years are now debunking the junk science of climate change. Yet the Times won’t mention that; in fact, it even attempted to gloss over “ClimateGate” by focusing on the fact that the e-mails had been released without permission.

Arguably, the Times has good reason to be testy, for it recently received the not-so-shocking news that China and India will not be signing the Copenhagen Accord after all. India had been on the verge of signing the agreement because it would look good diplomatically and obligate them to do absolutely nothing, but Prime Minister Singh changed his mind after being hounded by the United Nations. He responded by issuing a letter to UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon asking the organization to elaborate on several aspects of the accord.

Singh’s letter — plus the fact that of the nearly 200 countries which attended the conference only Australia, Canada, Papua New Guinea and the Maldives have signed — prompted the UN to postpone indefinitely its Jan. 31 deadline. Another key factor was the election of Republican Scott Brown to Ted Kennedy’s senate seat. “With the Democrats losing in one of their strongholds,” an anonymous official said, “the chances of the climate bill going through the U.S. Senate have receded dramatically.” Still, the Obama administration formally notified the UN Thursday that it will support the Accord.

Faith and Family: McCains Support NoH8

Much ado is being made of Arizonan Cindy McCain’s participation in the NoH8 campaign to overturn California’s Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage. Mrs. McCain joined her daughter Meghan in the fight for marriage “equality” when she appeared in a commercial with duct tape over her mouth, supposedly symbolizing the silence being forced on homosexuals.

As so often is the case, however, the real problem is not in front of the TV cameras, but lurking below the surface. The issue isn’t just whether the government should allow same-sex marriage, or whether a politician’s spouse should publicly take a different stance on a hot-button issue (such as when Barbara Bush announced that she is pro-choice), but whether all Americans are allowed to speak their minds, even when their views are not popular in Hollywood.

The people of California have rejected same-sex marriage twice. As blogger Michelle Malkin notes, “Prop. 8 supporters and donors have been hounded, threatened, blacklisted, beaten, and forced to resign from their jobs for exercising their political free speech.” In fighting against their own perceived discrimination, perhaps those in favor of same-sex marriage should examine how they are trampling the rights of others.

Also at PatriotPost.US This Week: An Anti-American Ad?

Focus on the Family is featuring Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow in a pro-life Super Bowl ad because, against all odds, his mother chose life. The “pro-choice” crowd is not pleased. Read more here.

To Keep and Bear Arms

Mark and Rodney Bowens were thrown out of a Charlotte, North Carolina, nightclub earlier this month, only to return armed with at least one pistol. They opened fire, and 67-year-old bar owner Roosevelt Hinton responded by grabbing his handgun and returning fire. Mark Bowens was reportedly struck in the head and abdomen, though he survived. He went outside where police later found him on the pavement. Two bar patrons also were injured in the shootout. Rodney Bowens fled the scene. This also wasn’t Mark Bowens’ first encounter with trouble. He had already spent four separate occasions in jail, one of those for a second-degree murder conviction in 1991. Fortunately, Hinton was ready for trouble.

And Last…

Given recent events and the plummeting popularity of Barack Obama, Republicans are salivating at the chance to retake Congress in November and even the White House in 2012. Of course, polling is the new national sport, and a recent Newsmax/Zogby poll poses an interesting problem for Obama. Newly elected Republican Sen. Scott Brown is within the margin of error from the president in a hypothetical match up — Obama leads by only 46.5 to 44.6 percent. Now don’t get us wrong; a year is an eternity in politics (see Obama’s popularity as Exhibit A), let alone three years. And as Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto writes, “C’mon, Scott Brown? His victory last week was undoubtedly impressive, but let’s put things in perspective. Brown is merely a state senator, and by the time of the next presidential election, he will have served less than a full term in the U.S. Senate. What could possibly give anyone the idea that he’s experienced enough to go to the White House?”

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Alexander’s Essay – January 28, 2010

State of the Union: Obama v. Constitution

“The duty imposed upon him to take care, that the laws be faithfully executed, follows out the strong injunctions of his oath of office, that he will ‘preserve, protect, and defend the constitution.’ The great object of the executive department is to accomplish this purpose; and without it, be the form of government whatever it may, it will be utterly worthless for offence, or defence; for the redress of grievances, or the protection of rights; for the happiness, or good order, or safety of the people.” –Justice Joseph Story

The ObamaPrompter

In the wake of Barack Hussein Obama’s first State of the Union address, much of the critical analysis from Republicans posited that he should do “this” instead of “that.”

Unfortunately, when there is no more constitutional authority for a president to do this rather than that, Republicans fail to distinguish themselves from Democrats since both parties are then advocating unlawful extra-constitutional policies.

Obama’s SOTU teleprompters fed him a steady stream of poll-tested rhetoric, none of which comports with the authority granted the Executive Branch, unless, of course, one subscribes to the adulterated “living constitution” as amended by judicial diktat.

Predictably, Obama offered only Socialist solutions to all ills, and not a single suggestion that individual responsibility or the private sector economy should shoulder that burden, at least not without government “incentives,” a.k.a. centralized social and economic planning.

In 6,200 words (second longest SOTU after Bill Clinton — two narcissists who just can’t hear enough of themselves), Obama referred to himself repeatedly, and alleged that he was the anointed spokesman for “we,” the American people, more than 100 times.

On the other hand, he mentioned the Constitution only twice.

First, in his opening remarks Obama said, “Our Constitution declares that from time to time the president shall give to Congress information about the state of our union.”

Correct.

Second, he asserted, “We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution, the notion that we’re all created equal…”

As the Internet meme goes these days: FAIL! Uh, uh, uh, — that “notion” was enshrined in our Declaration of Independence, third paragraph, first sentence. One would think that this alleged professor of “Constitutional Law” at the University of Chicago Law School would have noticed such a simple, yet substantial, error.

Our Constitution is devoted to clearly delineating the limited role of the central government from the unlimited rights of the states and the people.

To that end, James Madison, author of our Constitution, wrote, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”

Accordingly, Obama mentions freedom only once, and made absolutely no reference to liberty.

Nowhere in our Constitution is there any authority or provision for these key proposals from Obama’s SOTU:

1. The power to further centralize regulation of our economy.

2. The power to completely regulate our national health care system. (Note: both the Democrat and Republican proposals lack constitutional authority). Obama even repeated his claim that the American people are just not smart enough to get on board: “I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people.”

3. The power to further regulate and tax the production of CO₂.

Obama reiterated his claims that the current recession was caused by “Wall Street,” and then went on to insist that the only hope for ending the recession was government “investment,” a euphemism for taxing money out of the private sector, taking bureaucratic handling fees out, then giving it to political constituencies.

To correctly interpret Obama’s SOTU, you need only filter everything he says through his foremost pledge that the his administration’s charge is the “fundamental transformation of the United States of America.”

That is a line Obama lifted from the primary architect of his Socialist platform, Robert Creamer, who had earlier proclaimed, “If Barack Obama is elected president, then we have the opportunity to fundamentally transform American politics and the economy.”

It’s likely that you’ve never heard of Bob Creamer, because Barack Obama is very adept at concealing his association with his Marxist patrons.

In his younger days, Obama was not concerned about such associations: “I chose my friends carefully,” he wrote. “The more politically active black students; the foreign students; the Chicanos; the Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.”

But when he announced his aspirations to become a U.S. senator in 2004, Obama began to cover his tracks. He stopped associating publicly with Leftist colleagues and mentors such as Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger, William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Khalid al-Mansour, Rashid Khalidi, Bob Creamer and others.

Creamer is a member of Obama’s Chicago mob, a fellow “community organizer” and disciple of Saul Alinsky. Like all of Obama’s Chicago benefactors, Creamer believes that he is above the law, or, more appropriately, that he is the law in today’s age of the rule of men. But like Tony Rezko, another of Obama’s slick Chicago political backers, Creamer was caught with his hand in the till and was convicted of a felony (bank fraud) back in 2004 when Obama was a state senator. Creamer got a softball sentence, though: five months in a minimum-security facility for white-collar criminals and another 11 months of house arrest.

With all that time on his hands, Creamer authored a book, “How Progressives Can Win,” which, along with Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” serves as the template for Obama’s campaign to “fundamentally transform” America.

Obama didn’t use the word “transform” in his SOTU, but he did insist that government must “lay a new foundation for long-term economic growth,” under the pretense of “reform,” in order to “give our people the government they deserve.”

“I campaigned on the promise of change, change we can believe in. I know there are many Americans who aren’t sure if they still believe that I can deliver it. I never suggested that change would be easy … and when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy.”

And well, it should.

Though Obama’s efforts to nationalize the nation’s health care sector have been temporarily stalled, he has no intention of giving up, announcing that he is redoubling his efforts to expand central government controls over the private sector under cover of “economic crisis.” As White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

Leading up to his SOTU, Obama endeavored to portray himself as a fiscal conservative: “We can’t continue to spend as if deficits don’t have consequences, as if waste doesn’t matter, as if the hard earned tax dollars of the American people can be treated like monopoly money, that’s what we’ve seen time and time again, Washington has become more concerned about the next election than the next generation.”

This is subterfuge.

Obama endeavors to portray himself as a constitutional conservative: “We will lead in the observance of … the rule of law. … Don’t mock the Constitution. Don’t make fun of it. Don’t suggest that it’s not American to abide by what the Founding Fathers set up. It’s worked pretty well for over 200 years.”

This is deception.

Obama endeavors to portray himself as a resolute commander in chief. Regarding Operation Iraqi Freedom he decreed, “Let me say this as plainly as I can: By August 31st, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end.” On Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, he declared, “After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.” On the treatment of captive terrorists, he says, “I will restore America’s moral standing.” On the Long War with Jihadistan, Obama claims, “The United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam.”

This is farce.

Obama is a dangerous neophyte in matters of national security, and he shows no signs of improving.

If Republicans really want to defeat Obama’s Leftist agenda, they need to adopt the tried and true conservative message founded on Essential Liberty. Only then can they truly take control of the debate.

And while Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s response to Obama’s SOTU address was encouraging, the current crop of Republican leaders continues to play by Democrat rules, attempting to sell a dangerous and debilitating elixir: “We don’t offend the Constitution as bad as they do.”

Bottom line: Republicans must refocus on First Principles and govern accordingly.

Republicans can best distinguish themselves from Democrats by, first and foremost, honoring their sacred oath to “support and defend” our Constitution.

To that end, Obama declared, “If you abide by the law, you should be protected by it.”

True, but on the other hand, if you are not going to abide by the law, you should be impeached.

P.S. If you are going to seat two police officers next to your wife in the gallery, the two who brought down the Ft. Hood jihadi terrorist, you might at least acknowledge them.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander

Publisher, PatriotPost.US

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Chronicle · Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The Foundation

“To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable.” –James Madison

Obama’s spending “freeze” is just another game

Editorial Exegesis

“[Barack] Obama’s touted spending freeze for some domestic agencies is the politics of gesture. It would apply to only 17% of the budget, and these programs have already had a 22% increase in their annual appropriations in the past two years, and another 25% increase including stimulus. As for the deficit, CBO shows that over the first three years of the Obama Presidency, 2009-2011, the federal government will borrow an estimated $3.7 trillion. That is more than the entire accumulated national debt for the first 225 years of U.S. history. By 2019, the interest payments on this debt will be larger than the budget for education, roads and all other nondefense discretionary spending. If this borrowing were financing defense investments or tax rate reductions to spur the U.S. economy, we wouldn’t be worried. But most of this money is going to transfer payments to individuals, or subsidies to home buyers and inefficient businesses that do little for wealth creation. As it always does, CBO forecasts that deficits will decline in the later years of its 10-year budget window. But this forecast depends on assumptions about Congress so fanciful that James Cameron couldn’t make them up. … If the President and his party really are serious, they can do more than promise a spending freeze after 2012. They can stop spending more now: Drop the health-care bill, cancel the unspent stimulus spending from last year, kill the $150 billion new stimulus that has already passed the House, and bar all repaid bailout cash from being re-spent. Everything else is marketing.” –The Wall Street Journal

Upright

“The problem is not the ‘crises’ Obama inherited. It’s the ones he’s creating. He has lived in such a socialist policy shell all his life that he doesn’t have a clue that he’s on a different planet than most of us. If he were just slightly less narcissistic, he might be able to figure this out. But … no matter what adjustments he promises to make following the Boston Massacre, he still intends to govern like a socialist. He only wants to do a better job of figuring out how to do it less visibly, hoping we won’t ‘get it’ before it’s too late.” –columnist David Limbaugh

“An across-the-board tax cut is the fairest pro-growth message of them all. Lower tax rates for everybody. Get out of the box of rich people and class warfare. … Republicans must now be bold and fight for across-the-board tax relief, for families, individuals and businesses, along with smaller government, fewer services and across-the-board spending cuts.” –economist Larry Kudlow

“The President could wait months before deciding to give a general the troops he asked for to fight the war in Afghanistan but there was never to be enough time for the health care bill to be exposed in the light of day to the usual Congressional hearings and debate. Moreover, despite all the haste, the health care program would not actually go into effect until after the 2012 presidential election. In other words, the public was not supposed to find out whether the government’s takeover of medical care actually made things better or worse until after it was too late.” –economist Thomas Sowell

“The result in Massachusetts last Tuesday showed that for yet another segment of the population which has had the opportunity to express itself at the ballot box, Obama’s policies have diminished from a lack of resonance to active dissonance. Obama can tinker with the political shop all he wants, but to misquote my neighbor James Carville: It’s the policies, stupid.” –political analyst Rich Galen

“As even Massachusetts demonstrated … most Americans believe Americans know how to solve their problems through initiative, limited government and hard work, not through the nanny state.” –American Spectator editor R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.

“There is a simple way to get corporate money out of politics: get the government out of our lives and economic affairs. If government has no favors to sell, no one will spend money trying to win them.” –columnist John Stossel

Dezinformatsia

Head in the sand: “Last spring, the polls said people wanted health care reform. They even wanted the public option. … One third of that majority is on a government health program. I’m on Medicare. People who’ve been in the military are on a government health program. And yet the Republicans were able the make the idea that being on a government health program is terrible. How absurd.” –retired ABC newsman Sam Donaldson

Surely, you can’t be serious: “Instead of loudly fighting back, the president tried to bring Republicans into the fold, and it backfired…. On health care reform, instead of telling Americans exactly what he wanted in a health care bill, President Obama left it up to lawmakers. Republicans used the president’s strategy to create fear and confusion among voters.” –CNN’s Carol Costello

We can hope: “Do you think maybe one term is enough?” –ABC’s Diane Sawyer to Barack Obama (No, it’s one term too many.)

Elitism: “Absolutely amazing poll results from CNN today about the $787 stimulus package: nearly three out of four Americans think the money has been wasted. On second thought, they may be right: it’s been wasted on them. … This is yet further evidence that Americans are flagrantly ill-informed … and, for those watching Fox News, misinformed.” –Time mag’s Joe Klein

Non Compos Mentis: “This is a Supreme Court-sanctioned murder of what little actual democracy is left in this democracy. It is government of the people by the corporations for the corporations. It is the Dark Ages. It is our Dred Scott. … Be prepared, then, for the ban on same-sex marriage, on abortion, on evolution, on separation of church and state … for racial and religious profiling, because you’ve got to blame somebody for all the reductions in domestic spending and civil liberties, just to make sure the agitators against the United Corporate States of America are kept unheard.” –MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, hosting his show funded by a giant media corporation, yet reviling the Supreme Court’s ruling that corporations have a free speech right to participate in elections

Newspulper Headlines:

Life Imitates the Onion: “Obama’s Home Teleprompter Malfunctions During Family Dinner” –Onion News Network, Nov. 16 ++ “Obama Uses Teleprompters During Speech at Elementary School” –RealClearPolitics.com, Jan. 24

We Blame Global Warming: “Pelicans Treated for Hypothermia From Calif. Storm” –Associated Press

Questions Nobody Is Asking: “Are You Surprised John Edwards Dropped His Denial and Admitted to Fathering a Child With Rielle Hunter?” –ABCNews.com ++ “Can John Edwards’ Dreadful Image Be Rehabilitated?” –Time.com

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “Police Investigating Michael Jackson Giraffe Deaths” –CNSNews.com

Bottom Stories of the Day: “Liberal Talk-Radio Station Air America Files for Bankruptcy, Will Go off the Air” –The Washington Post

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

The Demo-gogues

Pride goes before a fall: “Well, the big difference here and in ‘94 was you’ve got me.” –Barack Obama, reportedly reassuring Rep. Marion Berry (D-AR), who is now retiring rather than face voters again

Such humility: “I’d probably say I make a mistake a day, maybe two.” –Barack Obama

Editor’s Note: In a speech about “jobs,” Obama refers to tax cuts twice, small business eight times … and himself 132 times. See the video. Also, don’t miss the new and improved Barack Bingo card for the State of the Union Address tonight.

Is she kidding? “The jobs issue has permeated everything, [every] major initiative that we have. With the recovery package, we not only created jobs — about 2 million saved or created with more being rolled out — but pulled us back from the brink of even deeper recession. In [Obama's] budget, which we passed 100 days after his swearing-in, he had a blueprint for how we go into the future, create jobs, stabilize the economy [and] do so as we reduce the deficit — [it's] very central to everything we do — reduce the deficit.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who contributed to nearly quadrupling the deficit in Obama’s first year

Nanny state — because you can’t make it on your own: “[The] proposals by the Obama administration to strengthen the middle class underscore the work of Congress to put the American dream within reach for millions of families. … The House will continue to partner with the Obama administration to strengthen our middle class and put our nation’s families on a path to prosperity.” –Nancy Pelosi (We’d appreciate it if you stopped trying to “help” us.)

Goals: “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” –Barack Obama (We’d love to help with the one-term part.)

Them’s fightin’ words: “It’s going to be a fight. You watch. I guarantee you, when we start on financial regulatory reform, trying to change the rules to prevent what has caused so much heartache all across the country, there are people who are going to say, ‘Why is he meddling in government’ or ‘Why is he meddling in the financial industry? It’s another example of Obama being big government.’ No, I just want to have some rules in place so that when these guys make dumb decisions, you don’t end up having to foot the bill. That’s pretty straightforward. I don’t mind having a fight.” –Barack “Big Government” Obama on his heavy handed regulation of the financial industry

Village Idiots

Talking point screw-up: “[T]he Recovery Act the president passed has created more than — or saved more than 2 million jobs.” –White House adviser David Axelrod on Sunday

“The Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs.” –White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, also on Sunday

“Just last quarter, we finally saw the first positive economic job growth in more than a year, largely as a result of the recovery plan that’s put money back into our economy, that saved or created 1.5 million jobs.” –White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, again on Sunday

Think what you like: “I think the American people want health care reform…. [They] really do want us to do something about this.” –former DNC Chief Howard Dean

Leftist “tolerance”: “Just as we do not tolerate private racial beliefs that adversely affect African-Americans in the commercial arena, even if such beliefs are based on religious views, we should similarly not tolerate private beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity that adversely affect LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] people.” –Chai Feldblum, an openly lesbian Law Professor at Georgetown University and Obama’s nominee for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in a legal journal in 2006

Blame game: “Democrats would not be playing the blame game with one another for the loss or for the health care debacle if they had only pointed fingers at those (or in this case, the one) who put Americans (and most of the world) in the predicament we’re in: George W. Bush.” –Clintonista James Carville

Short Cuts

“Some conservative Beltway analysts are cheering Obama’s fiscal freeze follies as a step in the right direction, a rhetorical victory and a ‘good start.’ Pardon me for not joining in the standing ovation for the latest performance of White House kabuki theater. Praising the president for carrying on the charade of budget reform because a few piddling cuts are real is like complimenting the Naked Emperor’s fingernails: So he didn’t have any clothes. At least his cuticles were real. It’s a start!” –columnist Michelle Malkin

“At best, the administration’s spending-freeze proposal is akin to going on a monthlong binge in Vegas and then sleeping off the hangover.” –Cato Institute senior fellow Dan Mitchell

“Once again, the people have spoken, and this time they quoted what Dick Cheney said to Pat Leahy. Less than two weeks ago, The New York Times said that so much as a ‘tighter-than-expected’ victory for Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley would incite ’soul-searching among Democrats nationally,’ which sent Times readers scurrying to their dictionaries to look up this strange new word, ’soul.’” –columnist Ann Coulter

“ABC News found that Trijicon, which makes rifle scopes for the military, stamps references to Bible verses on its equipment. The defense contractor subsequently announced that it will voluntarily stop stamping these references on combat rifle sights. These sights are used in Iraq and Afghanistan — sometimes to train Muslims, sometimes to shoot them. According to ABC News, this is very important. If a Muslim were to see this code on the side of a rifle and then look up the verse in one of the many Bibles you can easily find in Muslim countries, then that Muslim might become indoctrinated with Christianity and then … chaos or something. Or maybe we just worry that the mere knowledge of a reference to the Bible in those countries will cause all Muslims in the Middle East to panic and randomly shoot each other in the faces….” –columnist Frank J. Fleming

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Brief · Monday, January 25, 2010

The Foundation

“Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.” –Thomas Jefferson

Government

“What has [Scott] Brown done for us? He just administered a stunning ‘Tea Party Republican’ thrashing to the ‘Kennedy Liberal Democrats’ in Massachusetts — with Obamacare front and center as the core issue at hand. That’s what. Forget any other spin you hear — that is what just happened. That Brown did not stress the party or the term ‘tea party’ does not matter. His issues were right off of the tea parties’ posters and out of the official GOP platform manual. Sure, Martha Coakley ran a horrible campaign. But Democrats win safe seats with horrible campaigns all the time. Brown ran a great campaign, but good candidates lose uphill battles all the time in places like Massachusetts. And no, MS-NBC, this was not a Tip O’Neil ‘all politics are local’ referendum on potholes and such. Thanks to big government liberals, no politics are local anymore. Not even an obscure congressional district known as NY-23. Every single seat may now hold the key to Washington’s ability to reach into the homes and wallets and lives of every American for any reason they deem necessary. And that’s what this was about, with health care as the key issue but only one of many concerns about intrusive government.” –columnist C. Edmund Wright

Liberty

“On December 16, 1773, several dozen colonists in Boston, angered by King George’s financially ruinous tea tax, took action into their own hands. Dressed as Mohawk Indians, they snuck onto 3 British tea ships and dumped over 300 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. That revolt was said to have sparked the American Revolution. Last [Tuesday] night, the state of Massachusetts was the site of yet another revolt, only this time it was Attorney General Martha Coakley, the Democratic Party, and President Obama, health care and health care reform that were thrown into the drink, following the stunning election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate. Yet on the eve of the election, the White House suggested … that they would not moderate the president’s policies, but in a fit of madness akin to King George’s, would double down and strike a more combative tone. I have a feeling that over the next few days, the White House will want to … amend their remarks. … In response to the tea party protest, King George passed the ‘Coercive Acts,’ which was every bit as punishing as it sounds. Will King Barack respond to the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts with moderation and scrap health care or with madness and shove a coercive bill down America’s collective throats?” –columnist Brian Doherty

Political Futures

“The stunning upset in Massachusetts should send shock waves through the Democratic Party nationwide. The people have spoken, yet again, with the election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate and as such, have soundly rejected the leadership of the president and the Democratically-controlled Congress. The elections in Virginia and New Jersey this past November should have been a wake-up call for Democrats. Democratic candidates were defeated because the people thought the candidates, like the leadership of the Democratic Party, were out of touch with the needs of the citizenry. While Republicans focused on the economy, job creation, deficit reduction and responsibility, Democrats were bogged down — almost exclusively — on health care, blaming Bush and defending their failed economic policies. … The Democrats set forth an agenda that was 180 degrees opposite of what needed to be done and what the American people wanted to see done. The Democrats manufactured a ‘crisis’ on health care, when we have an honest to goodness economic crisis and recession — the worst since the Great Depression. … The American people are more than disappointed with the ‘change’ they got this past year and are worried about their future and the condition of the economy. But it’s not over, the people will continue to let their frustration be known this coming November in the midterm elections.” –Georgetown University professor Bradley Blakeman

Opinion in Brief

“The Democrats have no natural majority because they have no fundamental principles — at least none that they are willing to state out loud. They are like a drunken vagrant who emerges from the alley to cause havoc every few years. They are the perpetual toothache of American politics. To be sure, the fact that 52 percent of Massachusetts voters are racist, sexist tea-baggers — i.e., voted for a Republican — means only that the Democrats just went from having the largest congressional majority in a generation to the second largest. But this was ‘Teddy Kennedy’s seat.’ And it was in Massachusetts. Now, no Democrat is safe. But the country just got a lot safer.” –columnist Ann Coulter

Re: The Left

“Americans have been sick and tired of dishonest and destructive policies emanating from the Feds of both R and D varieties for longer than [Barack Obama's] single year of fiddling, and, in fact, longer than George W. Bush’s eight years. For several decades, at least, Americans have been spitting mad about the state of their federal government. So, what is our current Politician-in-Chief going to do about it? … What the president will do, in the age-old tradition of Washington, is to change the subject. He’s already found new areas of the economy to attack and demonize. First up are the banks. … Further, bad-mouthing Wall Street and slapping banks with a new fee, after handing them sacks of taxpayer cash, seems a weak alternative to not handing them sacks of taxpayer cash in the first place. Consider the failed $787 billion stimulus spending bill. Obama acknowledges it hasn’t much helped Main Street. So, in his State of the Union address this Wednesday, the president will take the bold step of calling for another ‘economic recovery package,’ i.e. doing the same thing again. If borrowing hundreds of billions to spend stimulating an economy crippled by too much borrowing doesn’t work, thank goodness there is always the option of borrowing hundreds of billions (if not trillions) more. Feeling better yet?” –columnist Paul Jacob

Insight

“The [U.S.] Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals… It does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government… It is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen’s protection against the government.” –philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

The Gipper

“Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, ‘What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.’ But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.” –Ronald Reagan

Culture

“A company well-named Neocutis now offers a skin cream made from human fetal tissue. To quote the company’s Web site: ‘Inspired by fetal skin’s unique properties, Neocutis’s proprietary technology uses cultured fetal skin cells to obtain an optimal, naturally balanced mixture of skin nutrients.’ This outfit, it may not surprise Gentle Reader to learn, is based in San Francisco, and says its product can ‘turn back time to create flawless baby-skin again.’ What good news for those suffering from dry skin — and who doesn’t this time of year? … But there’s sure to be some reactionary who objects to progress, and a niggling objection did indeed surface here and there to this latest advance in the commodification of the unborn. In its defense, Neocutis issued a statement to all concerned: ‘Our view — which is shared by most medical professionals and patients — is that the limited, prudent and responsible use of donated fetal skin tissue can continue to ease suffering, speed healing, save lives and improve the well-being of many patients around the globe.’ And improve the company’s balance sheet, too. Call it another benefit from the ever-growing abortion industry. And another triumph of supply-side economics! Create the supply and demand will follow. It does make one wonder why, if the use of human fetuses for such purposes is so unalloyed a good, the company feels the need to assure us that the practice is ‘limited, prudent and responsible.’ Is that a faint echo of some vestigial conscience?” –Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editor Paul Greenberg

For the Record

“Some expect Haiti’s 7.0 earthquake death toll to reach over 200,000 lives. Why the high death toll? Northern California’s 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was more violent, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, resulting in 63 deaths and 3,757 injuries. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake measured 7.8 on the Richter scale, about eight times more violent than Haiti’s, and cost 3,000 lives. As tragic as the Haitian calamity is, it is merely symptomatic of a far deeper tragedy that’s completely ignored, namely self-inflicted poverty. The reason why natural disasters take fewer lives in our country is because we have greater wealth. It’s our wealth that permits us to build stronger homes and office buildings. When a natural disaster hits us, our wealth provides the emergency personnel, heavy machinery and medical services to reduce the death toll and suffering. Haitians cannot afford the life-saving tools that we Americans take for granted. President Barack Obama called the quake ‘especially cruel and incomprehensible.’ He would be closer to the truth if he had said that the Haitian political and economic climate that make Haitians helpless in the face of natural disasters are ‘especially cruel and incomprehensible.’ The biggest reason for Haiti being one of the world’s poorest countries is its restrictions on economic liberty. … Private property rights are vital to economic growth. … Haiti’s disaster demands immediate Western assistance, but it’s only the Haitian people who can relieve themselves of the deeper tragedy of self-inflicted poverty.” –economist Walter E. Williams

Reader Comments

“I think it would be fun and also a good exercise for those of us who are going to listen to Mr. Obama’s State of The Union Address on January 27th to print off this list and keep count of how many times he says the following phrases, which I lifted from Mark Alexander’s essay, State of Disunion:

• “let me be clear”
• “make no mistake”
• “back from the brink”
• “signs of recovery”
• “restored our reputation”
• “fiscal restraint”
• “greed on Wall Street”
• “affordable health care”
• “relief for working families”
• “job creation”
• “inherited” as in “I inherited this mess”

And some I’d be interested hearing him say:

• “Constitution”
• “Founding Fathers”
• “Individual liberty”

I’m sure many of you could more. In any event, keeping score might be a good way to vector in on this man’s next moves.” –Fred

“[Mark Alexander's essay, 'Lincoln's Legacy at 200,' was very difficult for me to read because of my affection for President Lincoln. After reading it, however, so much makes sense and so many questions I had were answered. There were so many things that didn't add up in my head about the war and this period of time and why things are the way they are today. I knew that Lincoln had done things that violated the Constitution, so I chalked it up to ... 'Well, it was war.' I knew he had uttered words that showed he was racist. I never understood how someone of the caliber of Robert E. Lee could have fallen to the side of slavery even under the banner of states' rights. Now I do. I am not one who's beliefs can not be challenged by truth. No matter how devastating to my very soul, I would rather every foundational belief I stood on crumble to the ground than remain ignorantly proud on a pedestal of lies believed. Thank you for being truthful about one of my undeserved heroes." --bondroid

"Regarding the Jan. 20 Chronicle, actor John Ratzenberger is not in the Village Idiot camp. He is a Patriot who has studied the inventions and greatness of our capitalist wealth generating machine known as manufacturing and what the dismantling of that wealth generator has done to this nation. I watched him on Huckabee last fall and I promise he is not a Village Idiot." --Mark, Valley Station, KY

Editor's Reply: Several readers complained about our placement of Ratzenberger's quote in the Chronicle, however, there was a tag line before the quote that should have put it in perspective: "Sometimes Hollywood gets it right." Those tag lines are often critical -- please read them. Juxtaposed with the Meryl Streep quote right after it, the quote from Ratzenberger fit by way of saying that not all Hollywood celebrities are Village Idiots. We regret the confusion.

The Last Word

"Democratic cocooners will tell themselves that [Martha] Coakley was a terrible candidate who even managed to diss Curt Schilling. True, Brown had Schilling. But Coakley had Obama. When the bloody sock beats the presidential seal — of a man who had them swooning only a year ago — something is going on beyond personality. That something is substance — political ideas and legislative agendas. Democrats, if they wish, can write off their Massachusetts humiliation to high unemployment, to Coakley or, the current favorite among sophisticates, to generalized anger. That implies an inchoate, unthinking lashing-out at whoever happens to be in power — even at your liberal betters who are forcing on you an agenda that you can’t even see is in your own interest. Democrats must so rationalize, otherwise they must take democracy seriously, and ask themselves: If the people really don’t want it, could they possibly have a point? ‘If you lose Massachusetts and that’s not a wake-up call,’ said moderate — and sentient — Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, ‘there’s no hope of waking up.’ I say: Let them sleep.” –columnist Charles Krauthammer

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Digest · Friday, January 22, 2010

The Foundation

“It is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.” –Thomas Jefferson

Government & Politics

‘The People’s Seat’   

Hope floats in Boston Harbor

“Here’s my assessment of not just the mood in Massachusetts, but the mood around the country: The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office.” So said Barack Obama when asked about Tuesday’s special election to fill the Senate seat held for 46 years by the late Ted Kennedy.

Naturally, to Obama, everything is about him; though, in a sense, Brown’s shocking victory was about Obama — but not in the way he thinks. In fact, we’re hoping the president campaigns for more Democrats come fall. Voters have responded to his presence on behalf of fellow Democrats with resounding rejections in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races, and now in deepest-blue Massachusetts.

Then again, Obama says, it’s Bush’s fault. “People are angry and they’re frustrated,” he explained, “not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”

So Scott Brown became the first Republican senator elected in Massachusetts since 1972 because voters are still angry with George W. Bush?

In reality, Brown won for several reasons. First, he was a first-rate candidate. His regular-guy persona resonated with voters and he communicated the right message — that we need less government, not more. He ran explicitly against ObamaCare, saying, “I can stop it.” In his victory speech, he said, “People do not want the trillion dollar health care plan that is being forced on the American people, and this bill is not being debated openly and fairly. It will raise taxes, it will hurt Medicare, it will destroy jobs and run our nation deeper into debt.”

Best of all, in a debate with Democrat opponent Martha Coakley, Brown answered a challenge from moderator David Gergen about taking Ted Kennedy’s seat only to derail health care: “Well, with all due respect, it’s not the Kennedy seat, and it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat.”

That’s when the sea change in the polls began.

Second, Martha Coakley was a lousy candidate. Briefly, for example (and there are many), in a state with a large percentage of Catholic voters, Coakley offered the advice that if you object to abortion and are a devout Catholic, then “you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.” She derided Red Sox hero Curt Schilling as a “Yankee fan” and scoffed at greeting people in the cold at Fenway Park, which is precisely what hungry candidates do in sports-crazy Boston. In addition, a member of her staff was caught on video knocking a conservative reporter to the ground. In short, her arrogance and inanity are out of touch.

Finally, health care became an albatross for Coakley, and the Leftmedia didn’t help, continuing to refer to the seat as “Kennedy’s seat” in order to play up that debate. Kennedy spent a lifetime fighting for socialized health care, and, when he died, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) even suggested naming the health care bill after him. The irony is that the senator from Massachusetts was supposed to steer socialized medicine to passage; now it looks like the senator from Massachusetts could be the one to sink it. As PBS’s Judy Woodruff sobbed, it would be “a tragedy of Greek proportions if Ted Kennedy’s successor … is the one who was responsible for the death of health care.”

Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.

Americans who want to see the current health care bills die owe a debt of gratitude to Republican Mitt Romney. As Massachusetts governor, he signed universal health care into law in 2006 (as a state legislator, we should note, Brown voted for it). The law is similar to the one being debated in Washington in that Massachusetts residents are required to buy health insurance. The program is currently 20 percent more expensive than projected, and premiums are rising at least 7 percent per year. The reason Bay State voters don’t want to pay for socialized medicine is that they’re already paying for it. They believe that Washington’s bill is redundant, and they have serious questions about the affordability and sustainability of their own state’s health care plan. That’s federalism at its best.

Nancy Pelosi doesn’t think so, however. “Massachusetts has health care and so the rest of the country would like to have that too,” she defiantly lectured. “So we don’t [think] a state that already has health care should determine whether the rest of the country should.”

Brown’s win Tuesday may well end up being a victory for liberty. Many Democrats (finally) appear cautious about proceeding on health care. Even Pelosi admits she doesn’t have the votes to pass the Senate version in the House. Some, including Obama, are talking about a much smaller bill.

We won’t hold our breath, but those metaphorical crates of tea floating in Boston harbor this week may just be a promising sign.

Quote of the Week

“Martha Coakley’s resounding defeat in the Massachusetts Senate race is hardly the sort of anniversary gift President Barack Obama could have predicted. Yet there it was, wrapped in a bow and plopped on his doorstep like a flaming bag of dog poo to mark the end of his first year in office.” –Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch of Reason magazine

From the ‘Non Compos Mentis’ File

Sen. John Kerry, in a fundraising appeal for Martha Coakley, continued Democrat ridicule of the Tea Party sentiment bubbling up in Massachusetts. He warned that Scott Brown’s “allies in the right wing dream of holding a ‘tea party’ in Kennedy country.”

Uh, John, the original Tea Party was in Boston.

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton took the opposite tack, though at least he acknowledged the first Tea Party. “The Revolutionary War was first won here,” Clinton told a Boston crowd. “It started with the Boston Tea Party, and the right-wing Republicans have appropriated that on the premise the Tea Party was against government. What they were against was abuse of power.”

Try parsing that one in a way that favors Democrats.

This Week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ Award

“That I do think is a mistake of mine — I think the assumption was if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on this provision or that law or if we’re making a good rational decision here, then people will get it.” –Barack Obama on his proposed health care takeover

Got that, folks? Even when he’s admitting a “mistake of mine,” he’s throwing the blame onto others. His failures are your fault because you just don’t get it. That’s called pathological narcissism.

New & Notable Legislation

Senate Democrats want to raise the federal government’s debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion to a mind-boggling total of $14.3 trillion. The current debt limit was just established by an increase of $290 billion snuck in at the end of December 2009, but will be reached by mid-February. If the ceiling is not raised again, then the government will default on payments to millions of Social Security recipients, defense contractors and other beneficiaries of government disbursements. Just 10 years ago, an increase of this size would have covered government spending for an entire year. Now, they’re sweating just getting through February.

The proposal is coupled with a new PAYGO proposal that would offset increased spending with tax hikes and cuts in other areas of the budget. Previous attempts at PAYGO fell by the wayside in recent years, as both Republicans and Democrats have given up on even the appearance of fiscal responsibility — which is all PAYGO is.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Evan Bayh (D-IN) have indicated they will not support PAYGO or a debt increase unless they are accompanied by a bipartisan commission that would create fiscal reform measures. House Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, are against the idea of a commission because it would take power away from their own budget committee leaders. The Obama administration attempted to bridge this logjam by announcing the creation of a similar commission at the executive level that would include Democrats and Republicans appointed by both Congress and the president. Any commission created by Obama, however, wouldn’t release any recommendations until after the November elections. How convenient. The dodge around fiscal responsibility continues.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee is considering the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which, in essence, would allow the Obama administration to nationalize the student loan industry. Currently, federally subsidized loans through the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program make up approximately 80 percent of the industry. The government subsidizes or profits from a set interest rate and also guarantees loans for both student and lender. The bill under consideration would drop private lenders entirely and turn student lending over to the government. The proposal originated in Obama’s 2010 budget, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, it would save the government $87 billion over 10 years. Forget the Constitution — not that the status quo holds to it — Obama’s solution to every problem is nationalization.

Essential Liberty Project — Conference Presentation

This coming Feb. 4-6, the Constitutional Coalition is presenting their Educational Policy Conference 21, “Lessons Children and Others Must Hear.” The Thursday through Saturday event in St. Louis, Missouri, will feature Fox News host Glenn Beck, radio talk-show host Michael Medved, several stalwart conservative senators and representatives, and many principled authorities, including a presentation by our own Essential Liberty Project Executive Director, Jim Cuffia. Visit www.ConstitutionalCoalition.org for conference and registration details.

Hope ‘n’ Change: Obama Pens Haiti Story

The disaster in Haiti is a perfect example of Americans doing their best to help others in need, and it has once again brought out the finest qualities of the American character. Unfortunately, politics is at play. For example, Newsweek magazine, which years ago gave up its mission as an objective news source to become a propaganda organ of the Left, premiered its reporting on the crisis with a cover story by Barack Obama. His unremarkable piece offered the liberal rag an opportunity to boost its plummeting circulation. The latest Obama issue of the magazine hit the newsstands days before his first year as president comes to a close — a year in which he has experienced an unprecedented drop in popularity and support.

To add further political twist to a natural disaster, Narcissist in Chief Obama asked Americans to donate for Haitian relief through the White House Web site, not directly to Red Cross. How this is beneficial, we don’t know, but maybe he wants to first take the government’s typical 30-70 percent cut.

The House unanimously passed a bill that will allow cash contributions to Haitian relief made through March 1 to count against 2009 taxes. Americans didn’t need this incentive, though. In the week since the earthquake, we committed over $275 million to relief efforts, with a third of that amount coming from American companies. The $83 million that those evil corporations have contributed in just seven days has received little recognition by the media, however.

Meanwhile, America’s attempts to help the wounded and keep order in the fragile nation have come under fire by the French, joined by Cuba and Venezuela. Alain Joyandet, the French minister in charge of humanitarian relief, called upon the UN to curb America’s military role in Haiti, claiming that our military personnel resembled an occupying force, and he asked the UN to “clarify” our role. Of course, to the French, every foreign army is an occupying force.

Halls of Justice: SCOTUS Overturns Part of McCain-Feingold

The Supreme Court of the United States overturned two precedents and struck down limits on corporate political spending in a 5-4 ruling this week, with the usual suspects in dissent. The Court found that at least part of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, known as McCain-Feingold, violates the First Amendment by prohibiting corporations from funding political ads leading up to an election.

As The Wall Street Journal reports, “The case before the court, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, originated in a 2008 feature-length movie critical of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group, wanted to promote the film, but the election commission called it an ‘electioneering communication’ subject to McCain-Feingold restrictions.” In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld the law.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority in a 57-page opinion, “The government may regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but it may not suppress that speech altogether.”

Additionally, of requiring that money be funneled through political action committees — those now-hated 527s — Kennedy wrote, “When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful.”

Barack Obama called the decision a victory for Wall Street, Big Oil and other special interests hated by the Left, and he promised to work with Congress on a “forceful response.” That’s nothing but hypocrisy coming from the first major-party presidential candidate to reject public funds, opting instead to run solely on money from special interests.

The BIG Joke

“When you think about the First Amendment … you think it’s highly overrated.” –White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, joking (or so he says) at the May 9, 2009, White House Correspondents Association Dinner

From the Left: Edwards Admits Paternity After Affair

Former Democrat presidential candidate and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards admitted this week to fathering a child with Rielle Hunter, a former campaign groupie, in an affair that he says ended in 2006. His campaign has been under investigation for illegal use of funds in connection with the affair. Edwards, a former trial lawyer who became John Kerry’s running mate in 2004, initially confessed to the affair in August 2008, after the National Enquirer beat the Leftmedia to the story while they were busy slamming John McCain’s choice of a running mate. Until now, however, Edwards had avoided acknowledging paternity, while another staffer took the fall. Edwards’ wife, who has been battling breast cancer for years, was “relieved” that the truth is out, but family friends say the couple has now separated.

National Security

Department of Military Correctness: Hood-winked

The Pentagon just released its report on the Ft. Hood massacre, and having reviewed it, we have some questions: Has anyone been fired yet? If not, why not? And what’s wrong with naming Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the terrorist who killed 14 people, including an unborn child, in the report? Or what’s wrong with mentioning “radical Islam” — the fuel fanning Hasan’s fire — and perhaps a discussion of its role in why this attack happened?

We can’t understand how the deaths of the innocent could be so spackled over by 86 pages of politically correct twaddle that identified neither the terrorist nor the root cause of his action. While the report indicates that commanders must be provided suitable tools and guidance to differentiate between appropriate religious practices and those leading to “violence or self-radicalization,” it offers little, if anything, to accomplish that task.

With this in mind, we suggest a starting point for commanders, supervisors and pretty much everyone else on the planet to help navigate these complex religious nuances. If someone under your command not only acts wacky but also professes a profound hatred for America — the same America he or she, upon entering the military, swore an oath to support and defend — rip up that person’s security clearance. “Nutjob” and “hate-my-country” are excellent reasons to deny someone access to national secrets and secure sites. Next, relieve the individual of duty and bring administrative action toward a discharge. Serving in the military is a privilege, not a right. Moreover, that privilege is not extended to those with an acknowledged hatred of their country, whatever their religious preference. Finally, have the courage to do the right thing, which is almost always diametrically opposed to the politically correct thing, for you too have sworn an oath to “support and defend.”

Notwithstanding the red herring, armchair-quarterbacking communication between domestic law enforcement and military agencies, the real issue in this case isn’t intelligence or intelligence sharing. It’s naming the evil and doing something about it. Hasan’s activities and mindset were known well before he became an active threat. These indicators were ignored for the sake of political correctness, so Hasan was passed like a bad penny from one assignment to another. However, the failure of any of Hasan’s supervisors or commanders in his chain of command to stand up and act on information they had — or at least should have had — is not just “a failure of the system.” It’s personal and professional cowardice on the part of each individual in Hasan’s supervisory and command chains.

TSA Nominee Withdraws

Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration, Erroll Southers, withdrew from the process Wednesday. Southers cited political opposition, saying, “I am not a politician. I’m a counterterrorism expert. They took an apolitical person and politicized my career.”

Despite his virginal claim, Southers is the one who warned that the real terrorists are the Left’s stereotypical view of right-wingers. “Most of the domestic groups that we pay attention to here are white supremacist groups. They’re anti-government, in most cases anti-abortion, they are usually survivalist type in nature, identity oriented,” he explained in 2008. “Those groups are groups that claim to be extremely anti-government and Christian identity oriented.”

His qualifications were in doubt, as well. Twenty years ago, Southers, then an FBI agent, improperly used law enforcement databases to access information about his then-estranged wife’s new boyfriend. He then lied to Congress about this blatant abuse of power.

The White House complained about Republican “obstruction,” but nominating anyone for the post didn’t seem to concern Obama until more than eight months into his term. The agency failed miserably on Christmas Day (and, notably, Department of Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano’s report to Congress, like the Ft. Hood report, avoided mention of terrorism or Islam) but TSA has managed to keep an 8-year-old boy on the “no fly” list.

ACOG Kerfuffle

ABC News has discovered that there are sinister “secret codes” stamped on many of our military’s rifle sights. The shocking revelation has the Leftmedia searching for answers. To them, these secret codes are offensive and must be removed.

The codes in question are Scripture verses stamped on sights made by Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan. According to ABC News, “The biblical references appear in the same type font and size as the model numbers on the company’s Advanced Combat Optical Guides, called the ACOG.” References such as 2COR4:6 and JN8:12 point to Bible passages on light (the sights use available light to illuminate the reticle). The company says the inscriptions have been there for nearly three decades without complaint, and their Web site explains, “We believe that America is great when its people are good. This goodness has been based on Biblical standards throughout our history, and we will strive to follow those morals.”

Predictably, ABC and others screamed “separation of church and state!” Michael “Mikey” Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation declared that “it violates the Constitution.” But we would remind leftists yet again that there is no mention of the term “separation of church and state” in the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, we are unaware of any contract prohibition against serial numbers containing biblical references.

Certainly, this tempest in a teapot was yet another distraction we don’t need. Unfortunately, Trijicon came to the same conclusion, announcing Thursday that they would remove the references from future sights ordered by the military, as well as provide modification kits for current ones.

Business & Economy

Regulatory Commissars: Obama Goes After Banks

Last week, we reported the White House’s scheme to impose a so-called “financial crisis responsibility fee” (read: tax) which, according to the Treasury Department, “would require the largest and most highly leveraged Wall Street firms to pay back taxpayers for the extraordinary assistance provided so that the TARP program does not add to the deficit.” (This proposal ignores the fact that nearly all the banks targeted by this tax have already repaid their bailout money.) Now Wall Street is fighting back, exploring a potential challenge to the tax on the grounds that its bank-specific, industry-specific bull’s-eye makes it unconstitutional. The market responded with its worst two-day decline since August.

In classic “ignore the issue, attack the source” fashion, Barack Obama warned, “Instead of sending a phalanx of lobbyists to fight this proposal or employing an army of lawyers and accountants to help evade the fee, I suggest you might want to consider simply meeting your responsibilities.” And the president might want to quit exceeding his.

Furthermore, as The Wall Street Journal reports, “responsibility” hardly seems the right term. “[T]he White House wants to tax more capital away from profit-making banks to offset the intentional losses that the politicians have ordered up at Fan and Fred. The bank tax revenue will flow directly into the Treasury to be spent on whatever immediate cause Congress favors. Come the next ’systemic risk’ bailout, taxpayers will still be on the hook.”

Also this week, the administration proposed adding insult to injury with further regulations on the industry with the goal of limiting the size and activities of the largest banks. The regulations would not allow commercial banks to own, invest in or advise hedge funds or private equity firms. Also, an existing cap would be strengthened so that banks would be prohibited from controlling more than 10 percent of not only the nation’s insured deposits, but non-insured deposits and other assets, as well.

In other words, as The Journal so aptly explains, “Welcome to one more installment in Washington’s year-long crusade to revive private business by assailing and soaking it.”

On Cross-Examination

“I don’t see any reason why [banks] should be paying a special tax. … I don’t see the rationale for it. … Look at the damage Fannie and Freddie caused, and they were run by the Congress. Should they have a special tax on congressmen because they let this thing happen to Freddie and Fannie? I don’t think so.” –billionaire investor and philanthropist Warren Buffet

Actually, that might solve a lot of our problems…

Nanny Statism and Consumer ‘Protection’

Among the many bad ideas for the liberal Democrats’ nanny state utopia was the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency bureaucracy. As a condition for Sen. Chris Dodd’s dying initiative to revamp financial-sector regulations, the future former senator has broached abandoning his push for a new stand-alone agency during negotiations to secure a bipartisan deal on the legislation — so long as Republicans agree to create an intrusive consumer-protection division within another federal bureaucracy. Some deal.

Although the Obama administration and congressional Democrats continue to champion a stand-alone agency, they have been unable to explain a clear need, mission or discernible expertise yet another new federal bureaucracy would bring to the table. Further muddying the waters, this new agency could subject financial institutions to onerous new regulations that conflict with regulations issued by current regulators, not to mention the realities of the financial industry.

Instead of creating ill-defined federal agencies, Congress should focus its energies on straightening out the regulators who failed to do their jobs and unleashed a horrible recession upon the nation. Of course, an even more effective mechanism to bottle the genie would be to retire inept congressmen who played a meaningful role in creating this calamity. After killing reforms when reform could have avoided the recession, and securing sweetheart mortgage deals for himself, Dodd’s retirement is a good start. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), the House version of Dodd whose district just voted for Scott Brown, should follow suit.

Culture & Policy

Climate Change This Week: Another UN Scandal

It wouldn’t meet the research standards of a basic college science class, yet it was enough for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to rely on for claiming that Himalayan glaciers will melt away by 2035. Well, as Investor’s Business Daily put it, “The scientists who said that Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2035 have admitted the claim has as much credibility as sightings of the mythical Yeti. It’s their fraudulent claims that are melting away.”

Actually, the alarm of imminent meltdown in the Nobel Peace Prize-winning report published by the IPCC in 2007 came from a 1999 article in the popular non-peer reviewed journal New Scientist — an article which itself was based on a phone interview with scientist Syed Hasnain, who has since described his views as “speculation.” UN Report lead author Murari Lal was quick to shift blame, however. “We relied rather heavily on grey [not peer-reviewed] literature,” he said. “The error, if any, lies with Dr. Hasnain’s assertion and not with the IPCC authors.”

Hasnain countered, “The magic number of 2035 has not [been] mentioned in any research papers written by me, as no peer-reviewed journal will accept speculative figures,” and, he added, “It is not proper for IPCC to include references from popular magazines or newspapers.”

A Nobel Prize based on a fraud… Has that ever happened before?

Of course, propagating speculative “science” to prop up global warming alarmism is nothing new to the IPCC, whose founding principles assume “the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change.” Perhaps it’s fitting that the panel’s chairman is not a climatologist at all but an economist and engineer. After all, engineering the facts seems to be a favorite IPCC pastime.

Faith and Family: Roe v. Wade Turns 37

Today marks the 37th anniversary of the most tragic Supreme Court decision in American history, Roe v. Wade. The primary issue, of course, remains the right to life affirmed in our Declaration of Independence.

About half of the people in the United States say they are pro-life and the other half say they are pro-”choice.” How is this affiliation determined? For the most part, if you consider a fetus nothing but a blob of tissue within a woman’s body, you become pro-choice. If you believe that a fetus is a human being and that life begins at conception, you are pro-life. Who is right?

It has always been evident to us, scientifically and morally, that life begins at conception. But for the last word on the matter, we consult our Creator’s guidebook. The Psalmist wrote, “For You formed my inward parts; you wove me in my mother’s womb.” And then he noted, “Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were written all the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.” Imago Dei!

Tragically, nearly 50 million lives have been sacrificed on the alter of “choice” since 1973, and now, the most pro-abortion White House and Congress in history are in control of Washington, trying to pass a “health care” bill that funds abortions. May God grant us mercy.

Judicial Benchmarks: Federal Power and Predators

The Supreme Court is currently considering whether the federal government has the right to “civilly commit” sex offenders after they have served out their federal sentence. Specifically, U.S. v. Comstock concerns the validity of the 2006 Adam Walsh Child Protection Act, so named after the young boy whose 1981 murder by a pedophile led to a victims’ rights movement.

As appealing as this law might look at first blush, we must remember that the issue here is not whether sex offenders should be locked up indefinitely, but whether the federal government has the right to usurp a power traditionally left to the states.

Graydon Comstock was sentenced to three years in prison after being convicted of purchasing child pornography. After he had completed his sentence, the feds certified Comstock as a danger to the public and sought to extend his incarceration. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, landing the case squarely in front of the Supremes, where Solicitor General Elena Kagan argued that the federal government, which is responsible for the criminal justice system, should be allowed to commit Comstock under the “Necessary and Proper” clause of the Constitution.

This argument is a thinly veiled attempt to expand federal power. Twenty states have enacted civil commitment statutes for sex offenders, and the feds are seeking to remove that choice from the others. As Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out, the Framers intended the Necessary and Proper Clause to be used in conjunction with powers already bestowed upon the federal government, not take those reserved for the states. “The federal criminal proceeding is terminated,” Scalia stated. “The individual is released. You could say it’s necessary for the good of society, but that’s not what the federal government is charged with. There is no constitutional power on the part of the federal government to protect society from sexual predators.”

Frontiers of Junk Science: Cape Wind May Yet Fly

As the first year of the Obama administration concludes, the list of its unfinished (and urgent) business continues to grow. One of these items is the fate of Cape Wind — an offshore wind energy initiative — which has been in dispute for 10 years. The tips of the 130 proposed wind turbines will, if completed, reach 440 feet above the waters more than 15 miles off Nantucket.

The opposition to the project recently lost one of its biggest (and certainly most famous) members when Sen. Ted Kennedy, whose family compound on Hyannis Port looks out on the proposed site, died last summer. Kennedy was among a group of politicians and Native American groups, who contend that the project would ruin their view of Nantucket Sound and disturb Indian burial grounds. Coincidentally, the project site is close to Kennedy’s Hyannis Port and would marginally obstruct their million-dollar view — but only on a clear, calm day.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has promised to reach a decision on the project by April, stating that renewable energy is a “top priority” of the Obama administration. The president has yet to come down on either side of the issue; perhaps he was torn between his promises to environmental groups and the significant support Kennedy had thrown behind him during his campaign.

And Last…

Can’t get enough of Barack Obama? Longing for more than just the wall-t0-wall Leftmedia coverage of the Patron Saint of Big Government? Then there’s a new iPhone app for you: “The White House.” According to the White House blog, “The White House App delivers dynamic content from WhiteHouse.gov to the palm of your hand.” Yes, now you can watch thrilling press briefings and riveting speeches like the State of the Union right on your phone or iPod touch. As columnist Michelle Malkin writes, “It’s a revolution in open government! Watch the president yakking LIVE, right on your phone. He’s mobile! He’s streaming! Carry him around in your purse or pocket! iObama can now be with you 24/7.” Unfortunately, though, there is one topic you won’t be able to watch Mr. Transparency and his trusty congressional sidekicks tackle, and that’s health care. Apparently, there just isn’t good enough visibility for the video cameras in those smoke-filled cloakrooms.

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Alexander’s Essay – January 21, 2010

State of Disunion

“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” –Article II, Section I, U.S. Constitution

On Wednesday, 27 January, Barack Hussein Obama will deliver his first “State of the Union” speech as president, a self evaluation of his first year’s achievements.

Sprinkled between his infamous “let me be clear” or “make no mistake” introduction to his lies, he will, characteristically, attempt to spin a plethora of failures into something including these phony fallback phrases: back from the brink; signs of recovery; restored our reputation; achieved some successes; more work yet to do; fiscal restraint; greed on Wall Street; affordable health care; relief for working families; job creation.

He’ll also use the word “inherited,” as in “I inherited this mess.” He’ll speak of “unprecedented” reforms or achievements or challenges. And he’ll mention “those who seek to do us harm,” but he won’t dare utter the term “Islamic terrorists.”

In advance of his teleprompted propaganda, then, let’s take a reality check on Obama and his first year.

Never before in the history of our great nation has any sitting president held so much disregard and outright contempt for our Constitution and Rule of Law.

Perhaps the operative words in his oath were, “to the best of my ability”?

Of course, what were we to expect from a Marxist, whose views on government and economy were shaped by his surrogate father and communist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis; whose first campaign for political office was launched by Maoist anarchists William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn; whose political career has been stewarded by the likes of Leftists Richard Daley, Michael Pfleger, Khalid al-Mansour, Rashid Khalidi, et al.

And don’t forget his religious mentor, Jeremiah Wright, who married Barack and Michelle and baptized their children.

Wright preached hate, plain and simple: “The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government gives [black people] drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strikes law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, g-d d— America. G-d d— America for treating our citizens as less than human. G-d d— America.”

Wright sermonized that our great nation is in fact the “U.S. of KKK-A” and is “controlled by and run by rich white people. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in god. And god has got to be sick of this sh-t!”

How did Obama respond when asked about his pastor’s perennial anti-American tirades? “It sounds like he was trying to be provocative,” concludes Obama.

At a foundational level, Obama’s ability and his agenda have been shaped first and foremost by his condition as a pathological narcissist, a young man driven by a blinding need for acceptance and its coefficient, power — the result of a childhood characterized by his father’s, and then stepfather’s, rejection.

It should be noted that the young Barry Obama did not ask for or deserve the hardship he suffered as a child any more than millions of other children abandoned by their fathers today. In that respect, he deserves our compassion.

However, Obama’s insatiable pathological need for power renders him a very dangerous person in power.

He was elected on a promise that should have served as a warning sign: “This is our moment, this is our time to turn the page on the policies of the past, to offer a new direction. We are fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

He ran his charismatic campaign on a promise of “hope,” but in the words of Patrick Henry, “It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth — and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts.”

As for “fundamentally transforming” our nation, that is a thinly veiled reference to an outright assault on our Constitution and our Essential Liberty, one that thrusts an ever more powerful central government upon us.

Not since 1860 has the Union been at such odds with the fundamental rights of the States and the People.

Obama’s effort to endow the central government with absolute authority follows his Socialist political playbook, Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.”

Obama was elected just weeks after an economic collapse which can be tied directly to Leftist economic policies.

His effort to “Reclaim America” involves taxing and borrowing more than a trillion dollars from the private sector, sifting it through the bureaucracies of his political appointees, then “investing” it into the public sector to grow government and pay off his special interest constituencies and other benefactors.

He is plundering private sector resources under the pretense of private sector “job creation.”

He has attempted, with some success, to nationalize, by way of regulation, coercion or “investment,” the major industrial and service segments of the economy — including energy, banking, investment, education, insurance, automotive and real estate — and he has supplanted free enterprise with Socialism.

He is endeavoring to nationalize our nation’s largest single economic sector, health care, and he laughs off any suggestion that there is no constitutional authority for such folly. Moreover, the House version creates 111 new oversight bureaucracies. (1)

He has attempted to advance his domestic agenda on a global scale under the guise of “climate change.”

Further, Obama’s national security failures present even greater peril to life and liberty.

Coddling Islamic extremists, bowing to Saudi kings, apologizing to the world, politicizing terrorist interrogation methods at Gitmo, treating terrorism as “criminal activity” and moving the trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York, using Operation Enduring Freedom as campaign fodder and setting a timeframe for withdrawal from Afghanistan — these and many more grossly errant policy decisions served only to hinder and demoralize us and our allies while empowering and emboldening our enemies, thus enabling jihadi attacks such as the murder of 12 soldiers, one civilian, and an unborn baby at Ft. Hood, and the narrowly averted bombing of a U.S. airliner this past Christmas Day.

Of course, there were other ridiculous gaffes, like the one at his last public press conference (six months ago), when he offered his impromptu assessment of the arrest of his friend, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, by claiming that the Cambridge Police “acted stupidly.” His subsequent “beer summit” was a forced and feeble attempt at damage control.

And then there was the Nobel Peace Prize, a ridiculous Euro-leftist albatross of an award that was bestowed upon Obama just days after he ascended to the presidency.

Were it not for the threat of unbridled laughter, Obama’s SotU address might also reflect on some of the most egregious prevarications from his brief tenure.

On his plans for massive government expansion: “Not because I believe in bigger government — I don’t.”

On his grand Socialist schemes: “I’ve never bought into these Malthusian, woe, Chicken Little, the earth is falling — I tend to be pretty optimistic.”

On the so-called “stimulus package” (i.e., record debt): “Less than one month after taking office, we enacted the most sweeping recovery package in history, and we did so without any of the earmarks, pork-barrel projects that are usually accompanying these big — these big bills.”

On bailouts for behemoth auto producers: “Let me be clear. The United States government has no interest in running GM. We have no intention of running GM.”

On his friends at ACORN: “You know, it’s — frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.”

On blame shifting: “You haven’t seen me out there blaming the Republicans.”

On taxes: “I will tax just the rich. I want to give a tax cut to the middle class.”

On the cost of ObamaCare: “It won’t add to the deficit. And I mean it! … It’s designed to lower it!” And how about this one: “I have not said I am in favor of a single-payer system.”

On the transparency of his health care “reform” deliberations: “It’s going to be on C-SPAN.”

On jobs (record unemployment): “My administration has created or saved… [ad nauseam].” (2)

On the political influence of grassroots Tea Party participants: “Those people waving their little tea bags around…”

Clearly, Obama has underestimated the influence of those who support America’s First Principles. In addition, he has also grossly misread his mandate as the heir of the once-noble Democratic Party.

These miscalculations were manifest in the recent Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections, and again this week in Massachusetts.

Who woulda thunk it — that in the most liberal state of the union, whose legislature hastily amended laws so the governor could immediately appoint a Demo replacement for the seat vacated by the U.S. Senate’s most liberal member, Ted Kennedy, who had occupied the seat for 47 years since the departure of his brother, JFK, and whose life ambition was to nationalize health care, whose designated replacement, Martha Coakley ran on his platform — who woulda thunk that a Democrat who just weeks ago held a 30-point lead in the polls would be defeated by Scott Brown, a moderate Republican state legislator of the Mitt Romney variety, who ran on a platform against nationalized health care?

Clearly, the loss of a Senate seat in Massachusetts is a major reality check for Obama. When asked about the rising rejection of his “vision” for America, Obama responded, “I think the assumption was if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on this provision or that law or if we’re making a good rational decision here, then people will get it.”

In other words, “The people are just too dumb.”

And speaking of “the people,” when Scott Brown was asked in his last debate with Coakley if he would be willing to “sit in Teddy Kennedy’s seat” and vote against the health care bill, he responded, “Well, with all due respect, it’s not the Kennedy seat, and it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat.”

Every Republican and Independent running for election or re-election in 2010 should, first, take that cue from Brown — the seats they seek belong to the people. Second, they should take a cue from Ronald Reagan, who left a timeless template for success: Run on a platform that, first and foremost, insists on the re-establishment of constitutional Rule of Law, and then governs accordingly.

For too long, too many Americans have been complacent about liberty, believing it to be their birthright and the birthright of generations to come. They have enjoyed the fruit of liberty defended by others, taking rights for granted and knowing nothing of the obligations for maintaining that blessing.

Most Americans have never had to fight for liberty and, thus, have little concept of its value or any sense of gratitude for its accumulated cost — a cost paid by generations of Patriots who have pledged their Lives, their Fortunes and their Sacred Honor.

The election of Barack Hussein Obama was an egregious affront to our legacy of Essential Liberty, and a clarion call to action for the many good citizens who honor the rights and obligations of citizenship.

As was the case with the first American Revolution, we now face a crucial battle for liberty. The upcoming elections, more than any other in recent history, are about the restoration of constitutional integrity.

Indeed, fellow Patriots, this is our time. The road to recovery is long, but the momentum is with us.

Footnotes: 1. With the election of Brown, ObamaCare in its present form is dead, but expect Obama to call for passage of revised legislation, which has support of both Republicans and Democrats. Once passed, it can then be readily amended.

2. Credit where credit due — Obama’s recovery plan has not created any real jobs, but it did secure new employment for at least three Republicans: One in Virginia, one in New Jersey and now one in Massachusetts.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander

Publisher, PatriotPost.US

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Chronicle · Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The Foundation

“What a glorious morning this is!” –Samuel Adams

The Scott heard ’round the world

Editorial Exegesis

“It was — for the second time in Massachusetts history — the shot heard round the world, or at the very least from coast to coast and surely in the halls of Congress. Scott Brown won this one fair and square with his down-to-earth charm, his hard work and his forthright position on issues — and with the help of that much-disparaged by the opposition pick-up truck. But it is also true that Brown was the right candidate at the right time with the right message. And it’s that message that the White House and congressional Democrats can no longer ignore. After all, if the people of Massachusetts can send a Republican to the U.S. Senate to fill the seat Ted Kennedy had a lock on for 47 years, then the revolution has indeed begun. And like that battle in Concord more than two centuries ago, this is only the opening round. Her fellow Democrats will attempt to blame the loss entirely on Martha Coakley, her inability to connect with voters, her verbal blunders and on assuming her primary victory was all she needed. Much of that is true, but it is also true that Coakley promised to be simply more of the same. And voters here are tired of more of the same. They don’t see the point of an expensive new health care bill that threatens to damage the health care industry here, disrupt service to Medicare recipients and tax us all — especially when we already insure 97.4 percent of our people. They don’t see the point of paying higher and higher energy costs, when the world’s pollution is not our fault. They don’t see the point of growing the deficit so that our children and grandchildren will be paying for today’s policy mistakes — including a $787 stimulus bill that didn’t. Most of all they are simply tired of the kind of Washington arrogance that says ‘don’t worry, we know what’s best for you.’ Voters of Massachusetts wanted to take back the power that has been so sorely abused. Yesterday they did.” –Boston Herald

Upright

“It really is the people’s seat, and yesterday the people took it back.” –columnist Jeff Jacoby

“Voters in the often wayward Cradle of Liberty looked danger in the eye, stood up, and said, ‘Enough.’ Tuesday’s takeaway is this: if Obama & Co. can’t sell their agenda there, it’s an epic fail everywhere.” –columnist Tom Blumer

“[Scott Brown's] message of lower taxes, smaller government and fiscal responsibility clearly resonated with independent-minded voters in Massachusetts who were looking for a solution to decades of failed Democrat leadership.” –RNC Chairman Michael Steele

“Democrats are settling on a new strategy to blame the defeat not only on Coakley’s inept campaign but also on her personality and strained relations with both the Kennedy family and President Obama.” –columnist Byron York

“[Nancy] Pelosi met with House Democrats yesterday to tell them how the negotiations on a compromise health care bill between the House and Senate were going. As she spoke, one Democratic member whispered to another, ‘It’s like talking about your date on Friday, but the date’s in the emergency room.’ ObamaCare went into the emergency room in Massachusetts and didn’t make it out alive.” –columnist Fred Barnes

“[T]the American people are losing confidence in Team Obama because quite simply they are tiring of being lied to, and treated like children in need of Ivy-League Platonic guardians.” –columnist Victor Davis Hanson

“Obama was supposed to be a great persuader. It turns out that’s only half true. He did persuade most of us that he should be president. But in Year One, he has failed to persuade most of us to support his major proposals. He’s even moved us in the other direction.” –political analyst Michael Barone

“Increasing numbers of Americans are saying that they are having trouble recognizing the country in which they were born and grew up. They will have even more trouble recognizing America if the Washington juggernaut does not lose a substantial part of its power in this year’s elections.” –economist Thomas Sowell

The Demo-gogues

The Wise Sayings of Master Barack: “We can’t win them all.” –Barack Obama (Memo to Obama: Please keep campaigning for other Democrats.)

No change here: “Regardless of the size of their minority caucus, Senate Republicans have always had an obligation to join us in governing our nation through these difficult times. [Tuesday's] election doesn’t change that. In fact it is now more important than before for Republicans to work with us rather than against us if we are to find common ground that improves Americans’ lives.” –Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), himself in election trouble, on how Republicans should now shut up and help pass health care “reform”

What states’ rights? “Massachusetts has health care and so the rest of the country would like to have that too. So we don’t [think] a state that already has health care should determine whether the rest of the country should.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), telling voters what’s good for them

Pot and kettle: “You know how politics is. At times like this, there are always some who are eager to exploit that pain and anger to score a few political points. There are always folks who think that the best way to solve these problems are to demonize others. And, unfortunately, we’re seeing some of that politics in Massachusetts today.” –Barack Obama, who specializes in demonizing George W. Bush at every opportunity

Speaking of blaming Bush: “One thing the Democrats have done wrong? We haven’t kept the focus on this disaster on the Republicans who brought it upon us. We’ve tried too hard to do that right thing, and that’s to fix it, as opposed to spend more of our time and energy pointing the finger at who got us [here] in the first place.” –Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), campaigning for who he kept calling “Marcia” Coakley and doing just what Obama said we shouldn’t do

Tough luck: “Health care was the cause of my friend Ted Kennedy’s life. So it sickens me that the Republican running to take Ted’s place is vowing to be the 41st vote to kill health care reform.” –Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT)

From the crystal ball: “Let’s remove all doubt: We will [take over] health care one way or another.” –Nancy Pelosi

World’s smallest violin: “You know, folks ask me sometimes why I look so calm. I have a confession to make. There are times when I’m not so calm. … There are times when progress seems too slow. There are times when the words that are spoken about me hurt. There are times when the barbs sting. There are times when it feels like all these efforts are for naught. Change is so painfully slow in coming. And I have to confront my own doubts.” –Barack Obama

Ditto: “We’re all pretty unpopular. Why? Because people don’t feel good, and we’re the leaders and we’re in office, and they expect us to do something about it.” –House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

Dezinformatsia

Black Tuesday? “If you are looking for an analogy for a Republican victory in Massachusetts, the best one for Democrats may well be the stock market crash of 1929. … [Y]ou could have Democrats jumping out windows and off roofs.” –Roll Call’s Stu Rothenberg

Unhinged: “It’s that rare election where voters know exactly what they’re voting on. If they’re with Democrat Martha Coakley they get health care reform. If they go for Republican Scott Brown it’s deliberate, premeditated murder for health care!” –MSNBC’s Chris Matthews

Despicable: “I wanted to apologize for calling Senator-elect Scott Brown an ‘irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea bagging, supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees.’ I’m sorry, I left out the word ’sexist.’” –MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann

Predictions: “[I]’s just going to get a lot uglier in Washington.” –CBS News political analyst John Dickerson

Blame game: “[W]hile Coakley is a solid Democrat, she had never really worked directly with Kennedy on anything, according to a former Kennedy aide, so she didn’t have the appellation of ‘a Kennedy person,’ which would have opened the door to a lot more resources earlier in the race.” –Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift with a strange explanation on Tuesday’s election

Cheat to win: “I tell you what, if I lived in Massachusetts, I’d try to vote 10 times. I don’t know if they’d let me or not, but I’d try to. Yeah, that’s right, I’d cheat to keep these bastards out. I would. ‘Cause that’s exactly what they are.” –MSNBC’s radio talk-show host Ed Schultz

Time to worry: “You have top Democrats like Barney Frank of Massachusetts who said flatly if Martha Coakley, the Democrat, loses, health care is dead. So what kind of planning is the White House doing right now for backup? What’s their Plan B?” –ABC’s George Stephanopoulos

Nothing tragic about that: “[It would be] a tragedy of Greek proportions if Ted Kennedy’s successor … is the one who was responsible for the death of health care.” –PBS’s Judy Woodruff

Blame Bush more: “The stimulus was too small; policy toward the banks wasn’t tough enough; and Mr. Obama didn’t do what Ronald Reagan, who also faced a poor economy early in his administration, did — namely, shelter himself from criticism with a narrative that placed the blame on previous administrations.” –New York Times columnist Paul Krugman

Newspulper Headlines:

We Blame George W. Bush: “Blame Beacon Hill” –Joan Vennochi column, Boston Globe ++ “Blame Obama” –Jeff Jacoby column, Boston Globe

And You Thought We Were Kidding!: “After Obama Rally, Dems Pin Blame on Bush” –Hotline on Call, NationalJournal.com

Is That the Left Arm or the Far Left Arm?: “President Obama’s Political Arm Under Fire” –Politico.com

‘Maybe a Little Blow When You Could Afford It’: “White House Offers Drug Deal” –NationalJournal.com

We Blame Global Warming: “UK Universities Warn That They Face ‘Meltdown’” –Associated Press

Questions Nobody Is Asking: “The Big Question: Will a New Bank Fee Help?” –Hill Web site

News of the Tautological: “Democrats Trying to Mollify Unions” –Roll Call

Bottom Stories of the Day: “Body Art and Deviant Behavior: Study Finds Link Between Multiple Tattoos, Piercings and Trouble” –Chicago Tribune

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Village Idiots

Sometimes Hollywood gets it right: “This isn’t the Democratic party of our fathers and grandfathers. This is the party of Woodstock hippies. I was at Woodstock — I built the stage. And when everything fell apart, and people were fighting for peanut-butter sandwiches, it was the National Guard who came in and saved the same people who were protesting them. So when Hillary Clinton a few years ago wanted to build a Woodstock memorial, I said it should be a statue of a National Guardsman feeding a crying hippie.” –actor John Ratzenberger

Most of the time, though, they don’t: “I went to the White House and was star-struck by our president and first lady. … I think it is thrilling to have someone who is thoughtful and can articulate with a certain amount of passion and dispassion, the necessary choices that we have in the world.” –actress Meryl Streep, admiring the actor in the White House

From the global village: “What is happening in Haiti seriously concerns me as U.S. troops have already taken control of the airport.” –Nicaragua’s Commie-Red “President” Daniel Ortega

“I read that 3,000 soldiers are arriving, Marines armed as if they were going to war. There is not a shortage of guns there, my God. Doctors, medicine, fuel, field hospitals, that’s what the United States should send. They are occupying Haiti undercover.” –Venezuela’s Commie-Red strongman Hugo Chavez

“This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti.” –French International Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet (Of course, the moment the French see foreign troops, they have to assume it’s an occupation.)

Short Cuts

“Televangelist Pat Robertson said the earthquake in Haiti happened because they were cursed. He says when they were a French colony, they made a pact with the devil to get rid of the French. Pat, please! You don’t need a pact with the devil to beat the French.” –comedian Jay Leno

“I’ve been out of the country for a couple of days, so let me see if I’ve got this right: America’s preparing to celebrate the first anniversary of Good King Barack the Hopeychanger’s reign by electing a Republican? In Massachusetts? In what the tin-eared plonkers of the Democrat machine still insist on calling ‘Ted Kennedy’s seat’?” –columnist Mark Steyn

“The Cambridge Chronicle reports that the union representing policemen in the college town near Boston has endorsed Scott Brown for Senate. This is especially amusing because Martha Coakley has intimate ties to the Cambridge police: ‘Ms. Coakley along with some of her campaign workers have talked publicly about how her husband is a retired Cambridge Police Officer, giving appearances that she is being endorsed by the Cambridge Police,’ the endorsement reads in part. President Obama did not say whether he thinks the Cambridge police acted stupidly.” –Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

“Democrats regularly say things that would end the career of any conservative who said them. And still, blacks give 90 percent of their votes to the Democrats. Reid apologized to President Obama, and Obama accepted the apology using his ‘white voice.’ So now all is forgiven. Clinton also called Obama to apologize, but ended up asking him to bring everybody some coffee. Now the only people waiting for an apology are the American people who want an apology from Nevada for giving us Harry Reid.” –columnist Ann Coulter

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Brief · Monday, January 18, 2010

The Foundation

“Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.” –Samuel Adams

Martin Luther King Jr.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ … I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. … And if America is to be a great nation this must become true.” –Martin Luther King Jr.

Historian Shelby Steele observed, “There is an awful lot of conservative sentiment in black America, but at the moment, the party line is ruthlessly enforced.” Indeed, some of King’s chief lieutenants, like Jesse Jackson, tolerate no dissension from their liberal ranks now. They have abandoned King’s dream, and aligned themselves with political and social agendas obsessed with color at the expense of character.

Black conservatives of national stature, such as Clarence Thomas, Ward Connerly, Michael Steele, Jesse Lee Peterson, Alan Keyes, Don Scoggins, Alvin Williams, Ken Blackwell, Thomas Sowell, Star Parker and Walter Williams are routinely castigated by the Black Supremacists, as “Uncle Toms” and “puppets.” Yet these are the men and women who really understand King’s central message about character.

Today, Barack Obama will be waxing eloquently about King’s legacy. But it is worth noting that prior to his murder in 1968, Martin King went to Obama’s hometown of Chicago to meet with Mayor Richard Daley, father of the current Windy City Don. Chicago was a hotbed of racial hatred under Daley, and not much has changed.

King observed of that enmity, “This is the most tragic picture of man’s inhumanity to man. I’ve been to Mississippi and Alabama and I can tell you that the hatred and hostility in Chicago are really deeper than in Alabama and Mississippi.”

Chicago was not only a denizen of racial hatred but the violent black supremacist movement was born there. King said, “Those who are associated with ‘Black Power’ and black supremacy are wrong.”

It is that very racial hatred and hostility in which Obama has been steeped, particularly by mentors such as Jeremiah Wright.

At King’s funeral, one Bible passage, Matthew 5:9, summed up his life’s mission: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”

Obama was not stewarded by peacemakers.

Finally, irrespective of one’s conclusion about Martin Luther King’s proper place in history (given the historical account of his sometimes-lacking personal integrity and character), the two texts cited below (from The Patriot’s Historic Documents section) are well worth reading — for each of them proclaim truth.

“I have a dream”

Letter from a Birmingham jail

The Gipper

“In 1968 Martin Luther King was gunned down by a brutal assassin, his life cut short at the age of 39. But those 39 short years had changed America forever. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had guaranteed all Americans equal use of public accommodations, equal access to programs financed by federal funds, and the right to compete for employment on the sole basis of individual merit. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 had made certain that from then on black Americans would get to vote. But most important, there was not just a change of law; there was a change of heart. The conscience of America had been touched. Across the land, people had begun to treat each other not as blacks and whites, but as fellow Americans. … Now our nation has decided to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by setting aside a day each year to remember him and the just cause he stood for. We’ve made historic strides since Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus. As a democratic people, we can take pride in the knowledge that we Americans recognized a grave injustice and took action to correct it. And we should remember that in far too many countries, people like Dr. King never have the opportunity to speak out at all.” –Ronald Reagan

Character: Lee and Jackson

“Let each man resolve to be victorious, and that the right of self-government, liberty, and peace shall find him a defender.” –Robert E. Lee

“[M]y religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me. That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave.” –Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson

Today we take a moment to remember the birth anniversaries of Robert E. Lee (Jan. 19) and Stonewall Jackson (Jan. 21), two of the greatest military commanders in American history. They also were great men of faith who gave their all (Jackson his life) for the cause of liberty and states’ rights, which we at The Patriot hold so dear. Some may question our decision to honor men of the Confederate States of America, but we encourage those readers to consider our correction of the record. The honor we give these men has its roots in the founding of this great nation.

Mark Alexander notes in his essay,”Lincoln’s Legacy at 200,” that “the causal case for states’ rights is most aptly demonstrated by the words and actions of Gen. Lee, who detested slavery and opposed secession. In 1860, however, Gen. Lee declined Lincoln’s request that he take command of the Army of the Potomac, saying that his first allegiance was to his home state of Virginia: ‘I have, therefore, resigned my commission in the army, and save in defense of my native state… I hope I may never be called on to draw my sword.’ He would, soon thereafter, take command of the Army of Northern Virginia, rallying his officers with these words: ‘Let each man resolve to be victorious, and that the right of self-government, liberty, and peace shall find him a defender.’”

Re: The Left

“[W]hen you look back over the surges of enthusiasm in the politics of the last two years, you see something like this: The Obama enthusiasts who dominated so much of the 2008 campaign cycle were motivated by style. The tea party protesters who dominated so much of 2009 were motivated by substance. Remember those rapturous crowds that swooned at Barack Obama’s rhetoric. ‘We are the change we are seeking,’ he proclaimed. ‘We will be able to look back and tell our children’ that ‘this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.’ A lot of style there, but not very much substance. … In retrospect, the Obama enthusiasts seem to have been motivated by a yearning for a rapturous, nuanced leader. Send that terrible tyrant with his tortured sentences and moral certitude back to Texas and install The One in the White House, and all would be well. The Obama enthusiasts have achieved that goal, and perhaps it’s not surprising that, as polls show, they’re not much engaged in the details of the health care bills or cap-and-trade legislation or looming tax increases and the like. They, or at least most of them, were never much interested in those things anyway. In contrast, the tea party protesters … are interested in substantive political issues. They decry the dangers of expanding the national debt, increasing government spending and putting government in command of the health care sector. Their concerns have basis in fact. The national debt is on a trajectory to double as a percentage of the economy over 10 years, and the Democrats’ health care bills threaten to bend the cost curve up. Higher taxes could choke off economic recovery and keep unemployment up near double-digit rates for years. Last year’s stimulus bill surreptitiously raised the budget baseline for many domestic spending programs and sent money to state and local governments — a payoff to the public employee unions who spent more than $100 million to elect Democrats in 2008. Agree with the tea party folk or not, these are substantive public policy issues of fundamental importance.” –political analyst Michael Barone

For the Record

“The word ‘capitalism’ is used in two contradictory ways. Sometimes it’s used to mean the free market, or laissez faire. Other times it’s used to mean today’s government-guided economy. Logically, ‘capitalism’ can’t be both things. Either markets are free or government controls them. We can’t have it both ways. The truth is that we don’t have a free market — government regulation and management are pervasive — so it’s misleading to say that ‘capitalism’ caused today’s problems. The free market is innocent. But it’s fair to say that crony capitalism created the economic mess. … What is crony capitalism? It’s the economic system in which the marketplace is substantially shaped by a cozy relationship among government, big business and big labor. Under crony capitalism, government bestows a variety of privileges that are simply unattainable in the free market, including import restrictions, bailouts, subsidies and loan guarantees. … Crony capitalism, better know as government bailouts, saved General Motors and Chrysler from extinction, with Barack Obama cronies the United Auto Workers getting preferential treatment over other creditors and generous stock holdings (especially outrageous considering that the union helped bankrupt the companies in the first place with fat pensions and wasteful work rules). Banks and insurance companies (like AIG) are bailed out because they are deemed too big to fail. Favored farmers get crop subsidies. If free-market capitalism is a private profit-and-loss system, crony capitalism is a private-profit and public-loss system. Companies keep their profits when they succeed but use government to stick the taxpayer with the losses when they fail. Nice work if you can get it. … It’s time we acknowledged the difference between the free market, which is based on freedom and competition, and crony capitalism, which is based on privilege.” –columnist John Stossel

Government

“[Last Wednesday], President Barack Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and nine other lawmakers met face-to-face for seven hours to resolve differences between the House and Senate health care bills. At the same time these talks were going on, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern and United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger met with other Obama administration officials in a separate room in the White House. This all comes after these same labor leaders met personally with Speaker Pelosi yesterday, and after they met face-to-face with President Obama in the White House on Monday. Despite then-candidate Barack Obama’s explicit promises to the American people, absolutely none of these meetings were open to the public or televised on C-SPAN. In fact, Politico reports: ‘Those involved in the talks sought to keep details of their progress under wraps.’ And just what deals were Big Labor, the leftist majorities in Congress and the Obama administration making behind closed doors? How to pay for President Obama’s likely $1 trillion health care plan without raising taxes on one of the President’s most loyal constituencies: labor unions. Specifically, Big Labor reportedly has struck a deal with health care negotiators to exempt union members from the 40% excise tax on high-priced health insurance premiums. By some estimates, the tax would hit one in four union members. Now Big Labor will get all of the big government health care spending they always wanted, but they will not have to pay for it. … So where does the White House and Congress propose to regain the revenue lost from exempting unions from the health care excise tax? The people who fund job creation: investors. The Obama administration wants to apply the Medicare payroll tax not just to wages but to capital gains, and for the first time ever, to dividends and other forms of investment income.” –The Heritage Foundation’s Morning Bell

Liberty

“Although Democrats think their health care legislation faces smooth sailing to implementation, there is a rock dead ahead — a constitutional challenge to the legislation’s core. Democrats who assume it is constitutional to make it mandatory for Americans to purchase health insurance should answer some questions: Would it be constitutional for the government to legislate compulsory calisthenics for all Americans? If not, why not? If it would be, in what sense does the nation still have constitutional, meaning limited, government? Supporters of the mandate say Congress can impose it under the enumerated power to regulate interstate commerce. Since the New Deal, courts have made this power capacious enough to include regulating intrastate activity that ’substantially affects’ interstate commerce. Hence Congress could constitutionally ban racial discrimination in ‘public accommodations’ — restaurants, motels, etc. — as an impediment to interstate commercial activity. Opponents of the mandate say: Unless the Commerce Clause is infinitely elastic — in which case, Congress can do anything — it does not authorize Congress to forbid the inactivity of not making a commercial transaction, of not purchasing a product (health insurance) from a private provider. … [I]f any activity, or inactivity, can be declared to have economic consequences, then anything can be regulated — or required. Furthermore, judicial review, and the Constitution itself, is largely nullified by a doctrine of virtually unlimited judicial deference to Congress’ estimates of what is ‘necessary and proper’ for the regulation of commerce. If Congress does something beyond its constitutional powers, that something does not become constitutional merely by Congress saying it is necessary for this or that. … [G]overnment’s primary purpose is not to organize the fulfillment of majority preferences but to protect pre-existing rights of the individual — basically, liberty.” –columnist George Will

Reader Comments

“Once again, Mark Alexander has written a outstanding essay on global warming and the loss of liberty facing our country. His statement that the Obama administration has ‘usurped the banking, investment, insurance, and auto industries and is attempting to slice up the national health care sector and enact CO₂ legislation to take over the industry sector’ hit the nail right on the head! The people in this country need to wake up before it is too late.” –Phillip

“Good article with the exception of the fact that you apparently accept the theory of evolution. That’s your mistake. Genesis 1:1– ‘In the beginning…’ In six 24-hour days, God created the heavens and the earth and all they contain. That answers all the questions. God is in control, always has been and always will be. There is no global warming/cooling other than what God allows. The problem is mankind turning its back on God.” –Roy

Editor’s Reply: Believing that the earth is old isn’t the same thing as believing evolution. Many Christians believe, with good reason, that the earth really is as old as it appears to be, and that God, who is timeless, created it a really long time ago.

“Although I am one of your biggest fans, I take issue with your condemnation of Pat Robertson’s remarks concerning the fact that some Haitians had made a pact with the devil at some point in history. In fact, voodoo has a long history in Haiti and is still a considerable influence there today. I was not sure whether you were challenging the authenticity of Robertson’s statement or simply regretting that he made such a comment at an inappropriate time. As you well know, God will not be mocked. Keep up the good work.” –Mac

Editor’s Reply: We were taking Robertson to task for saying something seemingly foolish at a very inappropriate time. We understand, too, that the number of self-identified Christians in Haiti is a number to be taken with a grain of salt. Voodoo is certainly prevalent and God does, we believe, still work in this world to counter evil.

The Last Word

“I’ve been out of the country for a couple of days, so let me see if I’ve got this right: America’s preparing to celebrate the first anniversary of Good King Barack the Hopeychanger’s reign by electing a Republican? In Massachusetts? In what the tin-eared plonkers of the Democrat machine still insist on calling ‘Ted Kennedy’s seat’? Remember the good old days when the glossy magazine covers competed for the most worshipful image of the new global colossus? If you were at the Hopeychange inaugural ball on Jan. 20, 2009, when Barney Frank dived into the mosh pit, and you chanced to be underneath when he landed, and you’ve spent the past year in a coma, until suddenly coming to in time for the poll showing some unexotically monikered nobody called Scott Brown, whose only glossy magazine appearance was a Cosmopolitan pictorial 30 years ago (true), four points ahead in Kennedy country, you must surely wonder if you’ve woken up in an alternative universe. The last thing you remember before Barney came flying down is Harry Reid waltzing you round the floor while murmuring sweet nothings about America being ready for a light-skinned brown man with no trace of a Negro dialect. And now you’re in some dystopian nightmare where Massachusetts is ready for a nude-skinned Brown man with no trace of a Kennedy dialect. How can this be happening?” –columnist Mark Steyn

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Digest · Friday, January 15, 2010

The Foundation

“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” –Thomas Jefferson

Government & Politics

The Modern-Day Plantation

Democrats run the Capitol like a plantation

The new book “Game Change” by journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin has Washington buzzing. The book revealed some comments made by prominent Democrats that they probably wish had stayed in the smoke-filled room. The one receiving most attention is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s remark that Barack Obama would succeed as a presidential candidate because he is “light-skinned” and speaks “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Reactions on the Left were all too predictable: Reid groveled before Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and Democrats circled the wagons. It almost goes without saying that, were a Republican to have said the same thing, he would have been run out of town on a rail. But Republicans didn’t have to say anything before Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, thundered, “Senator Reid’s record provides a stark contrast to actions of Republicans to block legislation that would benefit poor and minority communities — most recently reflected in Republican opposition to the health bill now under consideration.” Reid also last month called opponents of health care racists in the vein of those who resisted civil rights legislation in the 1960s (i.e., Democrats).

More interesting, though, is that conservatives disagree on how to handle the revelation. RNC Chairman Michael Steele, who is black, called for Reid to resign his leadership post because that’s what Sen. Trent Lott did in a similar situation in 2002. Steele is an attack dog; it’s his job to say this. But what would Republicans gain by collecting Reid’s scalp? Probably not much. Given his dismal poll numbers, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund doesn’t believe Reid will even run for re-election, much less win it, so the GOP may pick up his seat anyway.

National Review’s Jonah Goldberg took issue with Steele’s premise as well, writing, “[B]y demanding Reid’s resignation, Steele is making an idiotic, nasty and entirely cynical game bipartisan. Yes, there’s a double standard, but the point is that the standard used against conservatives is unfair, not that that unfair standard should be used against Democrats as well.”

Thanks to Democrats, racism has been so broadly defined that practically anything Republicans do or say can be construed as such. As long as that doesn’t change, the double standard will remain in effect.

Beyond the political chess match, however, the core of the matter is that Reid’s observation isn’t necessarily racist. He was partly correct, too. Besides the fact that no Republican was going to win the White House last year, Obama’s race helped him.

As Martin Luther King Jr. once put it, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Democrats still have that reversed: “I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the content of their character but by the color of their skin.” What’s truly racist is that Democrats demand absolute allegiance and ideological purity from blacks, in effect keeping their prized constituency on the modern-day plantation.

News From the Swamp: Health Care Cost Shuffle

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is the latest organization to analyze the health care fiasco currently being cooked up behind closed doors in Washington, and its assessment is not good. According to the report, the legislation will force health care spending to rise by $222 billion over the next 10 years. Conveniently, revenue for the legislation is spread out over a 10-year budget period, but most of the spending provisions are in effect for only six years.

The report also attacks the idea that cuts in Medicare will help fund the health care bill, pointing out that doctors and hospitals will bear the brunt of these reductions. It’s obvious to anyone willing to admit it that this will lead to a lower quality of service and doctors turning away patients insured by the government in favor of those with private coverage and “relatively attractive payment rates.” This report, and several like it from numerous nonpartisan groups, have pointed out repeatedly that the health care bill in its current form will do exactly the opposite of what Democrats claim it will do, yet our “representatives” in Congress continue the proverbial march off of the cliff.

Open Query

“We’re looking at 37 Democrats who are in districts that are particularly upset and vulnerable to the provisions of this health care bill. Are they going to be with the people or are they going to be with Pelosi?” –House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), saying that “this health care bill can be defeated”

From the Left: Mass. Hysteria

While Massachusetts is one of the bluest states in the country, Republican Scott Brown has come within striking distance of beating Democrat Attorney General Martha Coakley in the special election to fill the state’s empty U.S. Senate seat. The special election will be held on Tuesday, Jan. 19, and in recent days Brown has gone from also-ran to serious contender. His meteoric rise demonstrates that the public has serious issues with Democrats, and particularly the health care bill.

Brown made a strong showing in a debate against Coakley in which he fielded considerably tougher questions than she did. While Coakley was asked questions about her campaign style and strategy, Brown was grilled about global warming and health care legislation. He held his own and offered a nice zinger when moderator David Gergen asked him if he would be willing to “sit in Teddy Kennedy’s seat” and vote against the health care bill. Brown responded, “Well, with all due respect, it’s not the Kennedy seat, and it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat.”

Absolutely true, but try telling that to Paul Kirk and the Massachusetts Democrat machine. Kirk was handpicked by Gov. Deval Patrick to hold the seat after Kennedy died, and he offers a crucial vote on health care should the vote come before the special election. Kirk has promised that he will vote for final passage, while Brown has indicated he will offer the 41st vote to prevent it. But now that it seems sure that the election will pass before the final vote, Kirk and the secretary of state’s office, which oversees the special election, may be prepared to stall final certification of the results if Brown wins. They claim they will have to wait a minimum of 10 days for absentee and military ballots. This standard certainly wasn’t in play when Kennedy himself was seated the day after the special election in 1962.

On Cross-Examination

“For some time now, leading Democrats have seemed to suffer from an ideological monomania vis-à-vis ObamaCare. No matter how unpopular the measure is, and thus how politically perilous for Democratic office-holders — they are determined to push it through. But this reaches a new level of pathology. One can understand why they might want to play games with the certification of a Brown victory, but what in the world do they gain by saying so ahead of time? If Brown becomes the first Republican elected to the Senate from Massachusetts since 1972, it would be as clear a message of opposition to ObamaCare as one could hope to have…. For Democrats to announce pre-emptively that they will ignore such a message shows a stunning contempt for democracy.” –Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

Judicial Benchmarks: Washington’s Felon Vote

In its ongoing war against sanity, the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals has once again decided it knows better than the people and their elected representatives. Why wouldn’t it? After all, there are upwards of 30 of our most politically connected former lawyers on the Circuit. Why shouldn’t they know more about what to do about 100-year-old provisions of the Washington State constitution than the 6.5 million citizens of Washington?

The Court is offended that prison inmates in Washington are disproportionately minorities (this is a painful fact across America). Thus, two members of the Circuit concluded that the provision in the state’s constitution denying felons the right to vote was racial discrimination, violating the federal Voting Rights Act. Now, we always thought that convicted felons became convicted felons because a jury found them guilty of committing a felony. We find it hard to believe that Washington juries are motivated to convict by the race of the accused. We also find it difficult to believe that the citizens of Washington would tolerate such a racist judicial system. However, we find it all too believable that two members of the most reversed court in America would rule this way. After all, judges know best. Soon, however, the case may head to the U.S. Supreme Court, where sanity is more likely to prevail.

Our Part of the Copenhagen Carbon Footprint

While he really didn’t have to go, Barack Obama decided it was best for him to lead the United States at the recent Copenhagen climate summit. So we sent Air Force One and the usual presidential entourage with him to chilly Denmark. On the other hand, individual Congressmen had absolutely no reason to go, but many went anyway — at taxpayer expense — and managed to rack up quite an impressive carbon footprint.

A Gulfstream 5 and two 737 jets were required just for the congressional delegation of more than 100 people, who also managed to book 321 hotel nights at five-star accommodations and consume thousands of dollars worth of meals.

Most damning was the estimate that the carbon dioxide produced by that delegation alone would be enough to fill 10,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. On the whole, it would have been more useful to the average American to heat their home this historically cold winter by burning the money wasted giving certain members of Congress and their staffers a European vacation.

Around the World: Freedom Declines

Since 1972, Freedom House has done the world a service by the annual publication of its Freedom in the World, which monitors trends in democracy and tracks improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. This year’s just-released edition has bad news for freedom lovers. For the fourth consecutive year, global declines in freedom outweighed gains in 2009, representing the longest continuous period of decline for global freedom in the nearly 40-year history of the report.

The survey analyzes developments that occurred in 2009 and assigns each country a freedom status — Free, Partly Free or Not Free — based on a scoring on key indicators. Five countries moved into “Not Free” status, and the number of electoral democracies declined to the lowest level since 1995. However, 16 countries made notable gains, with two countries improving their overall freedom status. The most significant improvements in 2009 occurred in Asia.

Freedom House found “declines for freedom were registered in 40 countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union, representing 20 percent of the world’s total polities. Authoritarian states including Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Vietnam became more repressive. Freedom also declined in countries that had registered positive trends in previous years, including Bahrain, Jordan, Kenya, and Kyrgyzstan.”

Commenting on the Freedom House report, The Wall Street Journal noted:

The recent reversals coincide, however, with America’s own waning interest in democracy promotion. This didn’t start with the Obama ascendancy. Chastened by the 2006 midterm election debacle and sinking public support for his Mideast policies, President Bush took rhetorical and practical emphasis off his own flagship foreign-policy agenda.

The current administration has changed the focus entirely. In its dealings with Russia and China, strategic issues trump any talk of democracy or human rights, which earlier this year in Beijing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton notably called a distraction to bilateral relations. Ditto in Iran.

Is this the change that we were promised during the presidential campaign? Has America changed from being “the shining city on the hill” to a country which disregards the inscription on the Liberty Bell to “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof” and considers the promotion of democracy a “distraction to bilateral relations”?

National Security

Department of Military Correctness: SEAL Trial Moved to Iraq

The Courts Martial of Navy SEAL Petty Officers Matthew McCabe, Jonathan Keefe and Julio Huertas continues apace with two of the three heroes being forced to move their trial to Iraq in order to avail themselves of their constitutional right to confront their accuser in open court. This rare, if not unprecedented, move should be viewed with extreme caution and we hope defense counsel has taken appropriate measures to protect fully the rights of the accused.

For them to enter the sovereign territory of Iraq, even under the auspices of a military court, may place them in peril both physically and legally. What’s to prevent the Iraqi government from bringing additional trumped up criminal charges and ordering their arrest? How will the U.S. military protect them from such arrest should such action take place?

One possible alternative would be to insist they hold the trial aboard a U.S. naval vessel in international waters off the Iraqi coast. Failing that, the U.S. Embassy is a second logical alternative.

In a related question, there is an interesting legal position we may be forced to confront in light of the criminal trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City. If, as this administration insists, KSM (and others) are just “criminals,” then under what legal authority has this administration justified the continued Predator attacks on these civilian “criminals”? We know this administration fully supports a double standard in tax cases and racism allegations, and we certainly don’t expect anything different in this case.

This Week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ Award

“Most of the domestic groups that we pay attention to here are white supremacist groups. They’re anti-government, in most cases anti-abortion, they are usually survivalist type in nature, identity oriented. … Those groups are groups that claim to be extremely anti-government and Christian identity oriented.” –TSA nominee Erroll Southers

Meanwhile, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the radical Muslim who actually tried to bomb a U.S. airliner, pleaded “not guilty” in federal court last Friday.

China’s Successful Missile Interceptor Test

As China’s economic might continues to grow, with its auto and banking industries overtaking the U.S. in world dominance, the Red Dragon’s military might also is advancing ominously. This week, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported that China tested “ground-based midcourse missile interception technology.” Xinhua also said, “The test has achieved the expected objective. The test is defensive in nature and is not targeted at any country.” The U.S. military confirmed the test did take place and apparently was successful. Pentagon spokeswoman Major Maureen Schumann said, “We detected two geographically separated missile launch events with an exo-atmospheric collision also being observed by space-based sensors.”

China’s successful anti-ballistic missile test comes just days after Beijing complained about U.S. weapon sales to Taiwan, including Patriot PAC-3 air defense missiles, which are themselves capable of intercepting short- and medium-range ballistic missiles and could be used against Red Chinese missiles deployed along China’s coast and aimed at Taiwan. Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Pentagon said they did not consider China’s test to be related to these Taiwanese arms sales. While that may be technically true, since it typically takes many days or weeks to prepare such a missile test, there is little doubt that Beijing intended to send Washington a message — that message being, “Taiwan is ours, stay away. And if you don’t stay away, you will have to contend with our rapidly growing military technology.” Just one more rattling saber that our waffling Dear Leader will have to deal with, or ignore at our country’s peril.

Iranian Bombing and Nuclear Talks

Iranian nuclear scientist Masoud Ali Mohammadi was killed Tuesday when a nearby motorbike exploded as he left his house in Tehran. The blast was powerful enough to blow several doors and windows out of surrounding buildings. Ali Mohammadi was a particle physicist and reportedly an ardent supporter of the Iranian revolution. Initial speculation was that this was the work of one of the world’s premier intelligence services — perhaps Israel’s Mossad — who have conducted many similar operations over the past decade. Indeed, as sure as the sun rose in the east, Iranian officials leapt to blame Israel for the attack.

However, Ali Mohammadi was not exactly a top-level figure. He was an academic who played an apparently marginal role in nuclear activities, which seems to indicate that it wasn’t Mossad.

Even still, the attack will do nothing to improve Iran’s attitude toward the UN Security Council or the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as negotiations proceed over Iran’s nuclear program. In fact, the Iranian regime itself could have perpetrated the assassination to bolster its case at home.

The U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China, which, together with Germany, represent the P-5+1 (the five permanent Security Council member states plus Germany) are scheduled to meet Saturday in New York to discuss Iran’s continued failure to meet its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and five UNSC resolutions going back to 2006. Iran is likely to become more defiant as that process advances.

Meanwhile, China made it known on Thursday that they could not attend the P-5+1 meetings after all, as Foreign Minister He Yafei “has a busy schedule.” How nice of China, which currently occupies the UNSC presidency, to do all they can to keep pressure on Iran. Fortunately, China’s one-month presidency of the UNSC is followed in February by France, which has been tougher on Iran over the last year than anyone, including the United States.

Business & Economy

Obama’s Magical Mystery Jobs Tour

Barack Obama and congressional Democrats promised the $787 billion stimulus package would spur 3.5 million new jobs over two years. Nearly one year later, the tally is approaching four million — jobs lost, that is. December’s report revealed 85,000 jobs lost and unemployment at 10 percent (though real unemployment — including those who have simply stopped looking for a job — is over 17 percent). The president’s solution? Why, another stimulus, of course.

Philosophizing that “the road to recovery is never straight,” Obama claims that the $75 billion “Jobs for Main Street Act” currently before the Senate will continue the smashing success of the first stimulus. Success? Oh yes, to manipulate the numbers in its favor, the administration has designed its own job-tracking formula that gives new meaning to the term “fuzzy math.” The administration has dropped the ridiculous jobs “saved or created” mantra, opting instead for the stat of jobs “funded” by the stimulus. Under this convenient formula, Obama claims to have created two million jobs to date. Miracles never cease.

If you haven’t seen these jobs in your town, though, you’re not alone. For example, according to an Associated Press analysis, reviewed by independent economists from five universities, $20 billion-plus in transportation spending from the first stimulus has yielded virtually zip in local job growth. Even Thomas Smith, a pro-stimulus Emory University economist who reviewed the analysis, stated, “As a policy tool for creating jobs, this doesn’t seem to have much bite.”

Despite the Norman Rockwellian title of the Jobs for Main Street Act, Main Street isn’t buying it. GDP growth and stock market improvements notwithstanding, small businesses, which propel real economic growth, simply aren’t hiring. In the New York Post, Charles Gasparino explains why: “Having weathered the recession, they now fear the administration will choke off the nascent recovery and increase their costs through higher taxes to pay for the myriad of programs President Obama has in store for us, including the hyperexpensive health-care overhaul.”

This “damn-the-torpedoes, full-speed-ahead” approach is no mistake. Regardless of recovery rhetoric, the president’s aim has been clear from the start: “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” he said during the campaign. Of course, the 15.3 million Americans who are unemployed might take issue with this.

Yet, as Christina Romer, Chairwoman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, stated, the stimulus “has done exactly what we have anticipated it would do.” She was referring to the supposed job growth. But substitute the president’s “redistribute the wealth” intent, and Romer’s statement is disturbingly true.

Administration Announces New Bank Tax

A regional convenience store has an interesting placard at the cash register informing patrons that the store pays more in debit and credit card transaction charges than it makes in net profits. The placard further invites the customer to sign a petition to tell Congress to limit transaction fees charged by the “evil banks.”

Perhaps Barack Obama has been sneaking out of the White House after hours for a slushee because he also has decided that the evil banks are a potential revenue source for the Treasury. It seems that his Treasury Department has looked at the $46 billion earned by the Federal Reserve Bank in 2009 and concluded that the banking industry could support a donation to offset the cost of the TARP spend-a-thon. The terms of the Troubled Asset Relief Program do require the beneficiary to pay interest to the Treasury, but Obama’s proposed fee would be an addition to those interest charges.

The Wall Street Journal reports, “If approved by Congress, the new tax — which the White House calls a ‘financial crisis responsibility fee’ — would force about 50 banks, insurance companies and large broker-dealers to collectively pay the federal government roughly $90 billion over 10 years.” Furthermore, “Banks that have repaid their TARP money wouldn’t escape taxation.” GM and Chrysler are exempt, however.

As a socialist, Obama has as much tolerance for profits as Superman does for Kryptonite (our apologies to Superman for the comparison) … unless those profits are derived from a fictional autobiographical memoir of a 40-year-old man whose accomplishments couldn’t fill a 3×5 index card. However, just in case he reads our humble publication, we would like to remind Mr. Obama that profits represent the return for risk. Profits beget retained earnings, beget capital formation, beget expansion — the one sustainable source of job growth.

Don’t get us wrong — the federal government (read: taxpayers) never should have bailed out banks in the first place. But many of them have already paid back TARP money, or are working to pay it back (some never wanted it in the first place but were forced to take it), and another tax is not exactly the right remedy for a struggling economy. That $90 billion could cost the economy $1 trillion when the lost capital results in less lending. Alas, everything looks like a nail to someone with a hammer.

Regulatory Commissars: No Salt For You!

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg envisions a healthy world — one with no cigarettes, trans-fat, or guns — and he is going to make you healthy, doggone it, whether you like it or not.

As the mayor begins his third term (which, to those familiar with New York City term limits, is a whole other matter), he has found yet another menace to his utopia: salt. As with his other nanny state goals, the mayor’s vision goes far beyond his own backyard to cities and states across the nation.

His administration’s new salt initiative calls for food manufacturers and restaurants across the country to cut their salt content by 25 percent over the next five years. They claim that national cooperation is necessary due to interstate sales. For now, participation of New York businesses is voluntary, but this means little to those of us familiar with the war on trans-fat. That was originally voluntary too, but when restaurants didn’t jump on the bandwagon, the city government legislated them into submission.

While the benefits of lowering salt have been well documented in the fight against high blood pressure, not everyone is convinced of the benefits of across-the-board sodium reduction. There has been no large-scale study of the negative effects of cutting salt, and several medical researchers point out that there are too many variables to assume that this measure is good for everyone. Dr. Michael H. Alderman of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, likened the plan to “an uncontrolled experiment with the public’s health.”

Several companies, including Campbell (which has already cut sodium in their products without government strong-arming), will not be joining the plan. They prefer to adjust their recipes according to what the market calls for — at least while they still have a choice.

Culture & Policy

Second Amendment: Interpol and the Executive Order

There have been disarming reports of late about an Executive Order by Barack Obama concerning the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol). According to the NRA-ILA, “President Obama’s order amends a 1983 order by President Reagan, in which the U.S. recognized Interpol as an international organization that is entitled to certain legal immunities under the International Organizations Immunities Act (IOIA).” Interpol, founded in 1923 and composed of 188 countries that share information about international criminal investigations, has long been immune from civil lawsuits, so the claim that the immunity comes from Obama is incorrect. Many reports assert that Interpol personnel would be granted diplomatic immunity and would then have the ability to seize firearms, among other violations of U.S. citizens’ rights. These fears are likely unfounded.

Diplomatic immunity applies only to diplomats, not agents. The immunity the agents do have is only “relating to acts performed by them in their official capacity.” Furthermore, the NRA notes, “Law enforcement officers working with Interpol are detailed from agencies in various countries, such as the FBI or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They have no power of arrest outside their own countries. Therefore, a seizure of an American (or of an Americans’ firearms) would likely not fall within the official duties for which Interpol officials would be immune from prosecution.”

Granted, we are wary of Obama and other leftists around the world — particularly when it comes to Second Amendment rights — but this appears to be a false alarm.

From the ‘Non Compos Mentis’ File

Our thoughts and prayers are with those in Haiti after the terrible and deadly earthquake there this week. The disaster, though, provided fodder for, of all things, the health care debate. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann asked how U.S. health care would withstand such a disaster: “[H]ow would survivors of something like this here fare in terms of getting on their own feet economically afterwards, with the health care system we have in place right now?”

In our estimation, we think our system would fare just fine. We’re certainly the first to come to the aid of a nation such as Haiti, sending our own doctors and supplies, not to mention our military. Does Olbermann really think that once health care is rationed and doctors themselves are in short supply, America will be able to help itself, much less other nations? American generosity is possible because of our (mostly) capitalist system — the system that Olbermann and other leftists want to replace with the graveyard of socialism.

Meanwhile, Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, also made regrettable remarks about Haiti’s tragedy. On his show “The 700 Club,” Robertson claimed that during the 18th century when Haitian slaves sought freedom from the French they made a “pact to the devil.” He concluded, “Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.” Thus the earthquake. Robertson made similar comments after Hurricane Katrina. We would remind Pat that most Haitians are Catholic.

Actor Danny Glover had his own theory as to the cause of the earthquake: “All this hell because of global warming. … When we did what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens, you know what I’m sayin’?” What Glover is sayin’ is that because there wasn’t an agreement at Copenhagen, climate change is causing earthquakes. Robertson says the Haitians offended God, Glover claims they angered Gaia.

Barack Obama has their back, though. Speaking to the Haitians, he said, “[A]fter suffering so much for so long, to face this new horror must cause some to look up and ask, ‘Have we somehow been forsaken?’ To the people of Haiti, we say clearly, and with conviction, you will not be forsaken; you will not be forgotten. In this, your hour of greatest need, America stands with you.” In other words, the Chosen One hasn’t forgotten them.

Faith and Family: Bicoastal Fronts on the Same-Sex Marriage War

From sea to shining sea, Americans are being divided on the moral issue of whether two people of the same gender should have the right to declare themselves married. Californians thought they had settled the question (for the second time) when the ballot issue and constitutional amendment Proposition 8 narrowly passed in 2008. But their verdict was soon called into question and eventually landed in the courtroom of Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, with a trial to overturn the will of the voters starting this week.

In addition, Judge Walker has promised to turn this trial into a three-ring circus by posting delayed video of the proceedings on YouTube, citing a recently approved federal pilot program which allowed telecasting certain non-jury civil trials. Supporters of Proposition 8 objected to this, citing that ongoing harassment by opponents would have a chilling effect on the willingness of witnesses defending Proposition 8 to be filmed. The filming question went before the United States Supreme Court, which has blocked filming the trial indefinitely.

Across the country, the New Jersey Senate denied the bid of activists to make the Garden State the fifth to allow same-sex marriage. While the state has allowed civil unions since 2006, the same-sex marriage bill was voted on hurriedly so outgoing Gov. Jon Corzine could sign it since incoming GOP Governor-elect Chris Christie opposes the bill.

The bill was rejected by a 20-14 vote, falling seven votes short of passage in the 40-member body and never making it to the Assembly. Same-sex marriage supporters vow to make their next move in court.

And Last…

If you haven’t had enough Hope ‘n’ Change lately, Barack Obama, the musical, is set to open in Germany. “Hope — the Obama Musical Story” will feature 30 singers, actors and dancers in a bilingual mix of English and German, often quoting from Obama’s stump speeches from the 2008 campaign. There are also love songs between Barack and Michelle, duets with Hillary Clinton and numbers featuring defeated GOP candidates John McCain and Sarah Palin.

As usually happens with this kind of story, we have our own ideas for songs in this musical. Simply borrowing from “Phantom of the Opera” provides plenty of fodder. Given Obama’s narcissism, he could sing “Think of Me” to himself, while the media chorus could croon of Michelle, the “Prima Donna.” Joe Biden would be a perfect fit for “All I Ask of You [Is That You Pay Your Taxes].” And there are several numbers for the American people: “Masquerade,” “Why Have You Brought Me Here?”, “Twisted Every Way,” “The Point of No Return,” and, perhaps best of all, “Poor Fool, He Makes Me Laugh.”

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Alexander’s Essay – January 14, 2010

Climate Change: Back to the future?

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” –John Adams

My father phoned from the Florida Keys this week. At 86, he likes warmer climates in winter, but there has been nothing warm in Florida lately — it was zero degrees Celsius the morning he called.

Three decades ago, scientists coldly calculated that another ice age was imminent. (See AccuWeather’s analysis of these predictions.) But, no longer. Today, they are prophesying that ice caps will melt within the next hundred years and swamp coastal lowlands. That is unless, and only unless, an international governing authority is established posthaste to control economic/industrial development that is blamed for global warming.

What is the truth?

Earth’s climate is changing. It always has, and it always will. Mean global temperatures might, in fact, have trended upward, though recently, many climatologists are now suggesting that the planet might be in a 10-30 year cooling trend.

If anthropogenic (manmade) CO₂ really has been responsible for a global warming trend over the last two decades, then why, with more man-caused CO₂ today than at any other time in history, would the climate be cooling now? CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere are estimated to have increased from 280 parts per million before 1750 (industrialization) to 387ppm today — a 38 percent increase, so the ice age hype of the 1970s notwithstanding, how could a warming trend be interrupted?

The Obama administration and their Leftmedia minions are double-talking this apparent contradiction, claiming that global warming is responsible for global cooling, and the lemmings are buying it wholesale.

Moreover, why would those scientists who insist they can predict the temperature 100 years from now, fail to predict the current cooling trend?

There are many factors influencing climate. Variations in solar cycles, solar radiation deflection/absorption, the earth’s core, ocean currents, complicated climate cycles, urban islands, rain forest depletion in some regions, reforestation in other regions and volcanic eruptions are just a few. The influence and interaction of all these factors and many more are much too complex to model precisely enough to draw conclusions about temperature rises and drops next month, much less next century.

According to the best scientific evidence available, much of our planet has been buried under ice for most of the last million years. The duration of the ice ages was about 100,000 years, the most recent beginning approximately 114,000 years ago when global temperatures abruptly plummeted. Just as suddenly, about 10,000 years ago the planet warmed and glaciers receded.

I checked, and there were no coal-burning fuel plants or SUVs in 8000 BC, but that will, of course, not deter the climate alarmists and their cult following.

The most recent effort at establishing an international economic/industrial regulatory body, ostensibly to control CO₂ production, was the December ‘09 confab in Copenhagen. Representatives from 200 nations gathered an effort to draft a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the last attempt at controlling CO₂ output of industrialized countries.

Kyoto called for the reduction by 2010 of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases to a level that was 5.2 percent less than their 1990 output, an average 29 percent cut of current emissions levels.

The accords failed at Kyoto and Copenhagen, primarily because the biggest growth in CO₂ production is from China, India and other developing economies. These nations are not about to submit to international agreements to suppress or depress their industrial output.

Despite scandals involving global warming alarmists — most recently the suppression of contradictory evidence by climatologists at the University of East Anglia — and Albert Gore’s outright lies at Copenhagen, it is important to understand that there is a relationship between CO₂ levels and global temperature — the “greenhouse effect.”

Though 99 percent of our atmosphere consists of nitrogen (78 percent by volume) and oxygen (21 percent by volume), without greenhouse gasses, primarily in the form of water vapor, in the remaining one percent of air, the mean temperature of earths climate might be as much as 40C degrees lower.

However, the overriding question is not whether the climate is changing — it is — but why is the climate changing? Answering that question requires steady, rational analysis and conclusions, not hyped-up fear mongering driven by political agendas and bolstered by phony so-called “carbon credit” scams.

Though we mere mortals have a natural desire to predict the future and be the arbiters of our own destiny and that of our planet, when it comes to our ability to control global climate, the fact is we probably have less control than a butterfly has in a tornado.

Of course, all the hyperbole about climate change is not so much about global warming or cooling as it is about centralization of the global economy and usurpation of national sovereignty by supranational governing entities.

As Alexander Hamilton warned, “Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.”

Though the climate may be cooling or warming, Leftists never let facts impede their power grabbing agenda, and such is the case with Obama’s “cap and trade” tax legislation.

After usurping the banking, investment, insurance and auto industries and attempting to slice up the national health care sector, the Obama administration will be redoubling its efforts to enact CO₂ legislation in order to control the industrial sector of our economy.

The bottom line is this: Human activity does affect the climate. Every time you exhale CO₂, you increase the concentration of that minuscule greenhouse gas in the atmosphere — but if you want to make a positive impact upon the environment, don’t hold your breath. Roll up your sleeves and promote liberty, because, per capita, it is the free nations of the world that have the cleanest environments.

Conservation is not a bad word — it even shares the same root word as “conservative.” Indeed, our family makes every effort to use energy and resources wisely. The “waste not, want not” principle is good economic practice.

But make no mistake; those who are attempting to enact global mandates are advancing, first and foremost, socialist economic agendas under the guise of concern for the global climate. The implication for liberty, in those few pockets of the world where it still exists, is ominous.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander

Publisher, PatriotPost.US

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Chronicle · Wednesday, January 13, 2010

The Foundation

“The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.” –Samuel Adams

Reid under fire

Editorial Exegesis

“We can think of several reasons for Harry Reid to resign as Senate Majority Leader, though the flap over his obtuse racial comments isn’t one of them. The uproar is nonetheless instructive about the perils of identity politics. Mr. Reid is apologizing to all and sundry for saying in private in 2008 that Barack Obama should run for President because he was ‘light-skinned’ and spoke with ‘no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.’ Republicans are calling for Mr. Reid to resign, on grounds of the Trent Lott precedent. When the Republican leader in 2002 joked at a birthday party for Strom Thurmond that America might have been better off had the one-time Dixiecrat won his 1948 Presidential campaign, Democrats demanded Mr. Lott’s resignation. An Illinois state senator with a big political future went so far as to suggest at the time that Republicans needed to ‘drive out’ Mr. Lott in order to ’stand for something.’ Mr. Lott resigned, notwithstanding his profuse apologies. In contrast, Mr. Obama and various black Democrats have rushed to Mr. Reid’s defense. … In any event, this is hardly Mr. Reid’s worst rhetorical offense. That prize goes to his all too public comments in April 2007 that ‘the war is lost’ in Iraq, even as the surge was finally making victory possible. That was a betrayal of American soldiers risking their lives in Iraq, and to the extent it emboldened the enemy, it may have cost American lives. If Mr. Reid has apologized for that defeatism, we don’t recall it. That’s reason enough to resign.” –The Wall Street Journal

The Demo-gogues

Race bait: “[Harry Reid] was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a ‘light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,’ as he said privately.” –excerpt from the book “Game Change,” by journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

But back then: “If you tell ethnic jokes in the back room, it’s that much easier to say ethnic things publicly. I’ve always practiced how I play.” –Harry Reid in 2002 after Trent Lott’s resignation from leadership after similar racially insensitive remarks

Circling the wagons: “I don’t know why people are making such a fuss about this. What is the big fuss about the word ‘Negro’? I support the United Negro College Fund. I support the National Council of Negro Women. We still use those two terms because they have been a part of our history for a long time. So I don’t know what all this fuss is about.” –Rep. James Clyburn, former Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and current House Majority Whip

“Senator Reid’s record provides a stark contrast to actions of Republicans to block legislation that would benefit poor and minority communities — most recently reflected in Republican opposition to the Health Bill now under consideration.” –Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus

More deep thoughts: “A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.” –Bill Clinton in 2008, as reported in “Game Change”

The BIG Lie: “The Senate thinks [their health care bill] is fairer. We think ours is. We’ll see which mirror cracks. But we will proceed in a way that is fair to the American people.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who has anything but fairness to the American people on her mind

You don’t say: “This is far from a perfect piece of legislation.” –Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) on the health care bill

Hope ‘n’ Change: “The jobs numbers are reminder that the road to recovery is never straight.” –Barack Obama (The road has been straight … down. The U.S. lost another 85,000 jobs in December.)

Too much information: “I’m not worried about them touching my private parts.” –Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) on airport screening procedures

Upright

“White liberals have built a political culture that is little different from the plantations of another generation. African-Americans are given just enough to help them survive, but not opportunity which will allow them to escape and become independent of government programs.” –columnist Cal Thomas

“We know two thousand pages of ‘gov-speak’ is one of the largest compendiums of bribes, favors and pork ever devised. We know that in all two thousand pages, there’s not a single word about tort reform because the Democratic party is owned by the trial lawyers. We know the overwhelming majority of Congress won’t even bother to read the bill before voting on it. And above all, we know the very same people who are foisting this boondoggle on the rest of us will never be subjected to its mandates, because they have their own Rolls Royce health care coverage. … 2010 can’t come soon enough.” –columnist Arnold Ahlert

“The special deals and payoffs are incidental to the [health care] bill in one sense; if they were all removed it would still be a bad bill. But in another sense, they reveal something essential about a government takeover of health care: it is all about looting, about how one group of people can tax and regulate others in an attempt to get something for nothing. All statist programs are rife with this kind of scheming, and they have to be, because whenever wealth is seized by force, there is a battle among the looters over how to divide the spoils.” –columnist Robert Tracinski

“The White House is … being completely dismissive … concerning legitimate questions about the constitutionality of Obamacare. Consider this: No fewer than 13 state attorneys general signed a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, expressing their ‘grave concern’ over the constitutionality of one provision of the bill. This provision would cause the federal government to grant special favors to Nebraska (subsidizing its Medicaid costs) pursuant to the Democrats’ bribe to secure Sen. Ben Nelson’s support. … How did the White House respond when asked about this letter? Well, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, after admitting he hadn’t even read the letter, said, ‘I do not believe that anybody has legitimate constitutional concerns about the legislation.’ That settles it then. Chief Justice Gibbs has spoken.” –columnist David Limbaugh

“The most startling news since Barack Obama’s colossal victory over Hillary Clinton in Iowa was the Democratic poll in Massachusetts the other day showing the little-known Republican Scott Brown beating the state’s attorney general, Martha Coakley, in the special contest for the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat by a point. A subsequent poll by the Boston Globe had the Democrat winning by 15. Somebody is very wrong here, obviously, and we won’t know until next Tuesday’s election which poll got the Massachusetts electorate right. But if the Democratic poll is closer to the truth, and if Coakley can’t come up with something to pull Brown’s numbers down over the next week, she is going to lose and a Republican is going to win an ineffable symbolic victory against Barack Obama and especially against health care.” –columnist John Podhoretz

Insight

“We owe these blessings, under Heaven, to the Constitution and Government … bequeathed to us by our fathers, and which it is our sacred duty to transmit … to our children.” –President Millard Fillmore (1800-1874)

“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” –American industrialist Henry Ford (1863-1947)

“If at first you don’t succeed, then quit! There’s no use being a stupid fool about it!” –American comedian and writer W. C. Fields (1880-1946)

Dezinformatsia

Bumbling into the truth: “Is it possible it’s not what he said but what he didn’t say? Isn’t Harry Reid implying that a dark-skinned African-American who speaks in a way that some would consider more stereotypical would not be electable?” –NBC’s Matt Lauer

Talk about racist: “And they’re monochromatic right? … Every picture I see shows them to be. … Meaning they’re all white. All of them, every single one of them is white.” –MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Tea Party protesters (Bob Parks, a black man who attended a Tea Party, begs to differ.)

Shut up, she explained: “There are a lot of interesting ways to talk about the right way to respond to [climate change], but instead, it’s ClimateGate, it’s all made up. Following the Republican framing into nonsense land and we’ve ended up talking about stuff that is not real instead of talking about policy. I want to have policy fights. I don’t want to be fighting with people who refuse to acknowledge reality.” –MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow

Bush Derangement Syndrome: “[E]ven George Bush said that, you know, we could be attacked tomorrow. He didn’t like to talk about it. I knew him well and knew that he was counting the minutes and the days until he got out of there and could claim he kept us safe.” –Newsweek’s Howard Fineman

Blame America: “I think that we have inspired more jihadis against us.” –NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

Liberals just need a dad: “Our professorial president is no feckless W., biking through Katrina. He is no doubt on top of the [the Christmas bomber] crisis in terms of studying it top to bottom. But his inner certainty creates an outer disconnect. He’s so sure of himself and his actions that he fails to see that he misses the moment to be president — to be the strong father who protects the home from invaders, who reassures and instructs the public at traumatic moments. He’s more like the aloof father who’s turned the Situation Room into a Seminar Room.” –New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd (He’s more like one of the children play-acting the role of father — unsuccessfully.)

Belly Laugh of the Week: “Democratic ‘progressives’ now feel let down because they had assumed the new president was a ‘liberal’ who believed that the government should initiate New Deal-style programs to get the country back on its feet. Instead, he has conducted his first year in office as a cautious centrist, guided by a more moderate social philosophy than had been generally assumed.” –White House press corps journalist Helen Thomas, sounding the world’s smallest violin

Newspulper Headlines:

‘These Aren’t the Droids You’re Looking For’: “Mind-Reading Systems Could Change Air Security” –Associated Press

We Blame Global Warming: “Flames Too Hot for Predators” –Canadian Press ++ “Talks Frozen in Belarus Oil Dispute” –Moscow Times

Climate Scientists Share Data With Anyone — Now That Would Be News: “C.I.A. Is Sharing Data With Climate Scientists” –The New York Times

Comet Eats Sun — Now That Would Be News: “Sun Eats Comet Flying Too Close” –WTVW-TV Web site (Evansville, IN)

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “Self Destructing Supernova Explosion May Wipe Out Earth” –News.com.au

Bottom Stories of the Day: “Comments by Fox’s Brit Hume Upset Some Buddhists” –Associated Press

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Village Idiots

Vast, right-wing conspiracy: “Most of the domestic groups that we pay attention to here are white supremacist groups. They’re anti-government, in most cases anti-abortion, they are usually survivalist type in nature, identity oriented. … Those groups are groups that claim to be extremely anti-government and Christian identity oriented.” –TSA nominee Erroll Southers

It’s cold ’cause it’s hot: “I think that one only has to step outside here or visit where I used to work in Chicago to understand that climate change, and the record temperature that climate change is likely causing, is with us…. I would say that eve in places that are used to getting very cold weather, record cold … our weather patterns have been affected by change in our climate.” –White House climatologist Robert Gibbs

Non Compos Mentis: “I’m blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived. I saw it all growing up.” –former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich

And the apology: “It’s a stupid metaphor to say I’m blacker than Barack Obama, that I apologize for. It’s not appropriate for me, a white person, to stand out somehow and claim to be a black person, that’s just wrong.” –Rod Blagojevich

Short Cuts

“President Obama ordered airport passenger scanners upgraded Thursday. It’s all tied in with health care reform. If you don’t have a personal physician you just fly somewhere and the TSA screener will tell you if your gall bladder looks all right.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“In an effort to calm people after the latest security problems, the White House said it is working even harder to find Osama bin Laden. The frustrating part is that we almost had him. Earlier this year, he snuck into the White House state dinner.” –comedian Jay Leno

“Thus, one of the most unsavory troikas in the history of American politics — Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama — are cobbling together a take-it-or-leave-it takeover of one-sixth of the American economy. Moe, Larry and Curly couldn’t have done a better job of mocking transparent government.” –columnist Arnold Ahlert

“How do you explain why anyone in a theoretically free society would willingly surrender his brain to Soviet-like thought control? The best answer I can come up with is that there’s a herd instinct among human beings that’s akin to the one that governs the behavior of cattle, sheep and lemmings. To think like a liberal, a conservative merely needs to get down on all fours and then bang his head on a wall until he’s managed to knock 50 points off his IQ.” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Brief · Monday, January 11, 2010

The Foundation

“Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.” –Benjamin Franklin

Security or security theater?

Culture

“The fact is that post-Umar Farouk, post-Richard Reid, and eight years post-9/11, this country is still flying blind when it comes to airline security. Another young male Islamic extremist tries to kill hundreds of innocent people, and the response is the same: Heightened airport security for travelers of all ages, nationalities, and religious backgrounds — instead of increased focus on those who look, act, worship, and travel like terrorists. Even worse, this is the second major vulnerability revealed inside of a few weeks. Remember the embarrassment of the leaked 93-page TSA Standard Operating Procedures manual? Most reports focused on the fact that the document revealed how certain government or law enforcement credentials looked. Or that only 20 percent of checked bags are given a ‘full open-bag search.’ Or that disabled individuals’ wheelchairs, casts, and orthopedic shoes are potentially exempt from explosives screening. But most frightening to me was that while the leaked document deemed that holders of passports from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, and Algeria should be subjected to additional screening, no such special attention was given to holders of passports from Saudi Arabia — the home of 15 of the 9/11 hijackers. And now it’s worth noting that the list doesn’t include Pakistan or Nigeria — Umar Farouk’s home — either. At the time of the memo’s leak, Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA unit tasked with tracking Osama bin Laden, told me that the federal government ‘knows without question that al-Qaeda and its allies pore over the U.S. media for operationally applicable information.’ There was ‘no chance’ that the misstep had gone unnoticed by our enemies, he said. Nor, I suspect, will the fact that in the wake of this latest attempted act of Islamic terrorism, the United States will keep refusing to apply the most invasive screening techniques to travelers with the most in common with the 9/11 attackers.” –columnist Michael Smerconish

Re: The Left

“President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — all of whom have in recent years promised unprecedented levels of transparency in government — are flouting their own words by meeting in secret to write the final version of Obamacare. They are doing this to avoid the public meetings of a bipartisan conference committee representing the Senate and House and the multiple, on-the-record roll call votes required in both chambers on a conference committee report. The most radical expansion of central government power in American history is happening right under journalists’ noses, and yet they raise not a peep of protest when the doors close, effectively barring them from doing their jobs at a critical juncture. … It’s time for a sit-down protest by journalists whose first job is to uphold the public’s right to know what its government is doing. Invite readers to come join them in demanding open meetings. The last thing Reid and Pelosi want is the spectacle of the Capitol Hill Police dragging protesting journalists away from the closed doors. It’s time to show some cojones, people.” –The Washington Examiner

Government

“President Obama is a great admirer of the Mayo Clinic. Time and again he has extolled it as an outstanding model of health-care excellence and efficiency. … They ‘offer the highest quality care at costs well below the national norm,’ he wrote. ‘We need to learn from their successes and replicate those best practices across our country.’ On the White House web site, you can find more than a dozen other instances of Obama’s esteem. So perhaps the president will give some thought to the Mayo Clinic’s recent decision to stop accepting Medicare payments at its primary care facility in Glendale, Ariz. More than 3,000 patients will have to start paying cash if they wish to continue being seen by doctors at the clinic; those unable or unwilling to do so must look for new physicians. For now, Mayo is limiting the change in policy to its Glendale facility. But it may be just a matter of time before it drops Medicare at its other facilities in Arizona, Florida, and Minnesota as well. Why would an institution renowned for providing health care of ‘the best quality and the lowest cost’ choose to sever its ties with the government’s flagship single-payer insurance program? Because the relationship is one it can’t afford. Last year, the Mayo Clinic lost $840 million on its Medicare patients. At the Glendale clinic specifically, a spokesman told Bloomberg, Medicare reimbursements covered only 50 percent of the cost of treating elderly primary-care patients. Not even the leanest, most efficient medical organization can keep doing business with a program that compels it to eat half its costs. In breaking away from Medicare, the Mayo Clinic is hardly blazing a trail. Back in 2008, the independent Medicare Payment Advisory Commission reported that 29 percent of Medicare beneficiaries — more than 1 in 4 — have trouble finding a primary-care doctor to treat them. A survey by the Texas Medical Association that year found that only 38 percent of that state’s primary-care physicians were accepting new Medicare patients. But if you think things are bad now, just wait until Congress enacts the president’s health care overhaul.” –columnist Jeff Jacoby

For the Record

“For those of you who may have been off the grid over the weekend the big news was an item in a new book by Mullpal Mark Halperin and John Heilemann titled ‘Game Change’ in which Majority Leader Harry Reid was quoted as using inappropriate language when describing then-Senator Barack Obama. According to the reporting: ‘Reid said Obama could fare well nationally as an African-American candidate because he was “light-skinned” and didn’t speak with a “Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.”‘ Ok. The whole double standard thing was duly marinated over the weekend — if this had been an Republican would Al Sharpton have given him/her a pass as he did to Reid? And so on. … President Obama issued a statement forgiving Harry Reid before the ink had even dried on the pages of the book. Yet it took him three days to figure out what to say about the guy who tried to blow up that plane on Christmas Day. Second, according to the reporting, Reid made those statements to ‘a group of reporters.’ Whoa! Check, please! To a group of reporters? None of whom thought this was newsworthy? For whom did those reporters write, ‘My Weekly Reader’? If not evidence of a double standard, then it is certainly evidence of journalistic incompetence.” –political analyst Rich Galen

Faith & Family

“The secular left — and some self-described Christians — criticize Brit Hume, the Fox News commentator, for suggesting that the solution to Tiger Woods’ problems is a relationship with Jesus Christ. Hume made his remarks on ‘Fox News Sunday.’ Disclosure: I also appear on Fox News. Hume said, ‘My message to Tiger would be: Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’ That is a message shared for 2,000 years by those who follow Jesus of Nazareth. It apparently continues to escape the secular left that Christians feel compelled to share their faith out of gratitude for what Jesus has done for them (dying in their place on a cross and offering a new life to those who repent and receive Him as savior). In a day when some extremists employ violence to advance their religion, it is curious that many would save their criticism for a truly peace-bringing message such as the one broadcast by Brit Hume. Criticism of Hume has taken two forms. One is that it is hubris to presume the Christian faith is superior to other faiths. The other criticism is that Hume used Fox as a pulpit and if he wants to preach he should resign from the network and go door to door like a Jehovah’s Witness. … Christians like Hume are not trying to impose anything on anyone. They know the difference Jesus has made in their lives and they care enough about others to want to share His message in the hope that other lives will be similarly transformed.” –columnist Cal Thomas

Opinion in Brief

“If there is any lesson in the history of ideas, it is that good intentions tell you nothing about the actual consequences. But intellectuals who generate ideas do not have to pay the consequences. Academic intellectuals are shielded by the principles of academic freedom and journalists in democratic societies are shielded by the principle of freedom of the press. Seldom do those who produce or peddle dangerous, or even fatal, ideas have to pay a price, even in a loss of credibility. … Even political leaders have been judged by how noble their ideas sounded, rather than by how disastrous their consequences were. … It may seem strange that so many people of great intellect have said and done so many things whose consequences ranged from counterproductive to catastrophic. Yet it is not so surprising when we consider whether anybody has ever had the range of knowledge required to make the sweeping kinds of decisions that so many intellectuals are prone to make, especially when they pay no price for being wrong. Intellectuals and their followers have often been overly impressed by the fact that intellectuals tend, on average, to have more knowledge than other individuals in their society. What they have overlooked is that intellectuals have far less knowledge than the total knowledge possessed by the millions of other people whom they disdain and whose decisions they seek to override. We have had to learn the consequences of elite preemption the hard way — and many of us have yet to learn that lesson.” –economist Thomas Sowell

The Gipper

“Since when do we in America believe that our society is made up of two diametrically opposed classes — one rich, one poor — both in a permanent state of conflict and neither able to get ahead except at the expense of the other? Since when do we in America accept this alien and discredited theory of social and class warfare? Since when do we in America endorse the politics of envy and division?” –Ronald Reagan

Political Futures

“A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll taken in mid-December showed that 55 percent of Americans believed the country was headed in the wrong direction. Just 47 percent approved of the job Obama was doing as president. Twenty-two percent approved of the job Congress was doing. And a whopping 35 percent have positive feelings toward the Democratic Party. And yet the public seems to like Republicans even less. Just 28 percent have positive feelings toward the GOP — a rating lower than poll results just before the party’s defeats in 2006 and 2008. You can’t make as many mistakes as Republicans did and expect to be forgiven quickly. That could lead to a dilemma for voters next November. Many will be fully ready to vote Democrats out of office but will not be fully ready to vote in Republicans. Faced with an either/or choice, they will weigh whether they want to get rid of Democrats more than they want to stay away from Republicans. That dilemma could have been avoided. A slightly less disastrous end to the Republican reign might well have resulted in one or two additional GOP senators this year. And that, in turn, might have prevented some of the runaway Democratic excesses we’ve seen. Republicans think about that a lot these days, as Democrats overreach in ways that could burden the country for generations. All GOP lawmakers can do now is to oppose. But in their heart of hearts, they know they share some of the blame.” –columnist Byron York

Insight

“Well, there’s something known as American conservatism, though it does not even call itself that. It’s been calling itself ‘voting Republican’ or ‘not liking the New Deal.’ But it is a very American approach to life, and it has to do with knowing that the government is not your master, that America is good, that freedom is good and must be defended, and communism is very, very bad.” –National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008)

Reader Comments

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“Even though I may be homeless on the streets of San Diego by Summer, I just sent The Patriot $100. That is an investment I wouldn’t make with any other publication but you are the best. As an ex-WWII Submariner, I recommend The Patriot to everyone I know. Cast off and take in all lines! Clear the Bridge, Take ‘er down. Fire one, Fire two, Fire three and reload! I’m fired up! Semper Fi.” –San Diego

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Editor’s Note: Not everyone loves us, however…

“why don”t you waste your time on something the people care about?leave the man alone. STOP!!!!!!!BEING A HATER!!!!!!!!!!!.” –a.b.

The Last Word

“2010 is going to be a tough year. We are going to have huge struggles over terrorism, war, shockingly large new deficits and public debt policies, crushing tax proposals on energy, income, health care and many other human activities. We have every right to dissent, and to do so vigorously even on such matters as terrorism policy. Contrary to White House and Democratic Party complaints in the last few days, there is nothing partisan or improper about sharply criticizing such administration policy. As a loyal conservative Republican, I nonetheless wrote an entire book in 2005 criticizing Bush’s anti-terrorism policy and operations. As did many other conservative Republicans dissent. At a much, much grander level, Winston Churchill in the 1930s powerfully dissented from a policy of appeasement that Britain’s leaders at the time were convinced were vital to secure the peace. Dissenting with honesty, ferocity and courage is one of Churchill’s lessons to us today. And, whether fighting as an underdog in a political struggle or trying to keep things together as a breadwinner in this second hard economic winter, Churchill’s last words in his last speech in Parliament as prime minister in 1955 are sturdy guides to conduct: ‘Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair.’” –columnist Tony Blankley

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Digest · Friday, January 8, 2010

The Foundation

“Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be…” –John Adams

Government & Politics

If By ‘Transparent’ You Mean ‘Secret’…

After much bribery and arm-twisting, the Senate managed just before Christmas to pass its version of ObamaCare by a 60-39 vote (amazingly, without a single GOP “aye”). Now, the bill heads for conference deliberation televised by C-SPAN, just as the cable channel offered and Barack Obama promised numerous times.

Or not.

Democrats let slip this week that there would be no typical conference committee on the competing House and Senate versions of the health bill, as “leaders” opted instead for private negotiations with “key” congressmen and senators, none of whom is Republican. Once an agreement is reached, each legislative chamber will vote again and send the unified bill to the president.

Without a conference committee, a rule requiring public access to the conference report for at least 48 hours before a vote would conveniently not apply. That means even more liberty-stealing treachery can be slipped into the bill with little notice. Funny how the “public option” doesn’t mean that the public gets to know what’s in the bill.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) nevertheless had the gall to declare, “There has never been a more open process for any legislation in anyone who’s served here’s experience.” In response, Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto mocked, “Has a more false or awkwardly worded statement ever come out of anyone who has served as speaker of the House’s mouth?”

In spite of Democrats’ best efforts at “transparency,” there are many extra-special things that we actually do know about the bill. For example, on page 1,020, the Senate bill states: “It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.” In other words, the bill creates an eternal law by prohibiting future elected Congresses from making changes to this subsection.

What’s in the subsection in question? The infamous “death panel” — the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (IMAB), whose objective will be to “reduce the per capita rate of growth in Medicare spending” (read: to ration health care).

Meanwhile, the bill contains what amounts to a marriage penalty worth $2,000 or more in insurance premiums each year. The Wall Street Journal explains, “The disparity comes about in part because subsidies for purchasing health insurance under the plan from congressional Democrats are pegged to federal poverty guidelines. That has the effect of limiting subsidies for married couples with a combined income, compared to if the individuals are single.”

Finally, Obama signaled this week that he’s willing to break another campaign promise: The “no tax increases on the middle class” pledge. He threw his support behind the Senate’s tax on higher end “Cadillac” insurance plans, something unions and House Democrats oppose.

The more the public learns about this continuing saga, the more vigorously opposed they become to “reform.” No wonder Democrats want the process to remain secret.

The BIG Lies

“We will have a public, uh, process for forming this plan. It’ll be televised on C-SPAN…. It will be transparent and accountable to the American people.” –Barack Obama, November 2007

“That’s what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are, because part of what we have to do is enlist the American people in this process.” –Barack Obama, January 2008

“[T]hese negotiations will be on C-SPAN…” –Barack Obama, January 2008

“We’re gonna do all these negotiations on C-SPAN so the American people will be able to watch these negotiations.” –Barack Obama, March 2008

“All this will be done on C-SPAN in front of the public.” –Barack Obama, April 2008

“I want the negotiations to be taking place on C-SPAN.” –Barack Obama, May 2008

“[W]e’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who is, who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.” –Barack Obama, August 2008

“We will work on this process publicly. It’ll be on C-SPAN. It will be streaming over the Net.” –Barack Obama, November 2008

Democrat ‘Constitutional Scholars’ at It Again

When questioned several weeks back about the constitutional authority for ObamaCare, Obama’s publicist, Robert Gibbs, issued this disclaimer: “I don’t believe there’s a lot of — I don’t believe there’s a lot of case law that would demonstrate the veracity” of questions about constitutional authority. Ah, yes, “case law.” That’s code for amending our Constitution by judicial diktat rather than via its prescribed method as stated in Article V.

This week, Gibbs reiterated, “I do not believe that anybody has legitimate constitutional concerns about the [health care] legislation.”

Furthermore, when asked where the authority to mandate that Americans buy health insurance — that they be forced under penalty of fine or imprisonment to engage in a particular commercial enterprise — is located in the Constitution, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) answered, “Well, I would assume it would be in the Commerce clause of the Constitution. That’s how Congress legislates all kinds of various programs.”

Congress too often uses this clause to do whatever it wants to do (the legislative target might, just might, some day engage in interstate commerce, don’t you know,) but this incorrect interpretation certainly doesn’t make this legislation constitutional.

Quote of the Week

“America’s founders intended the federal government to have limited powers and that the states have an independent sovereign place in our system of government. The Obama/Reid/Pelosi legislation to take control of the American health-care system is the most sweeping and intrusive federal program ever devised. If the federal government can do this, then it can do anything, and the limits on government power that our liberty requires will be more myth than reality.” –Wall Street Journal op-ed by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Liberty University School of Law professor Kenneth Blackwell and American Civil Rights Union senior legal analyst Kenneth Klukowski

This Week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ Award

“I think it was a mistake to take health care on as opposed to continuing to spend the time on the economy.” –Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE)

After being bribed with $100 million in Medicaid savings for his state in a “cash for cloture” deal, Nelson provided the 60th Senate vote for health care. We’re glad he’s come around, but talk about too little too late.

This Week’s ‘Braying Jenny’ Award

“We want our final product — as I’m sure everyone in the House and Senate would agree — to insure affordability for the middle class.” –Nancy Pelosi, whose main dilemma with the middle class is whether to use a Phillips or a flathead…

News From the Swamp: Democrats Cut and Run

The political world tilted on its axis this week with the announced retirements of three key Democrats — Senators Christopher Dodd (CT) and Byron Dorgan (ND), and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter. Each Democrat trotted out the standard “spending more time with the family” excuse, but the reality is that all three men were on the endangered list in this year’s election cycle. Dodd in particular has been losing ground in his home state of Connecticut since 2008 when it became known that he was on the receiving end of a sweetheart mortgage deal from Countrywide Financial, one of the firms he publicly accused of causing the subprime mortgage meltdown and the ensuing financial crisis. In fact, Dodd is in such bad shape politically it seems that Democrats have a better chance of holding his seat without him in it.

The retirement announcements, which came within hours of each other, added to several Democrat House retirements announced at the end of 2009. The trend suggests that senior and some freshman Democrats are headed for the exits in expectation of a bruising midterm election. Several Demo strategists and congressional leaders were in full spin mode in an attempt to contain the damage and downplay the significance of these recent developments. Historically, the party in power loses seats in the midterms, so the fact that Democrats are cutting and running isn’t particularly unusual — in more ways than one.

Additionally, Democrats believe a string of congressional Republican retirements may blunt any potentially sweeping gains the GOP would otherwise make this year. What the pols and pundits don’t realize, or what they don’t want you to realize, is that Democrats around the country are increasingly losing public support for passing legislation that is attempting to convert America into a completely socialist country. High taxes, excessive regulation and larger, more intrusive government, combined with a complete disregard for national security in time of war, is a cocktail that is likely to create a bigger shift in November than liberals can imagine.

Meanwhile, Alabama Congressman Parker Griffith recently switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican, stating that he could not align himself with a party that was pushing a notoriously bad health care bill. He also added that Nancy Pelosi is divisive and polarizing and he cannot support her. All but one of his staff quit after Griffith’s defection, stating that they hoped to “soon find ourselves in the employment of principled public officials.” Sorry, kids, but you actually just left one.

New & Notable Legislation

Before breaking for Christmas, Congress passed a last-minute bill to increase the federal debt ceiling by $290 billion. This pushes the acknowledged national debt to $12.4 trillion (while total national debt, acknowledged plus unfunded liabilities, pushes over a mind boggling $128 trillion). The increase should carry the government through to only February, at which time a more substantive bill will have to be crafted to deal with the debt issue. The vote in both the Senate and the House was mostly along party lines, and was just about the last order of business before they ducked out for the holidays.

The Senate also managed to pass a $636.3 billion defense-spending bill that includes $128 billion in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hope ‘n’ Change: Diversity for Diversity’s Sake?

Compared to several other Obama appointments, the selection of Amanda Simpson to be a senior technical adviser to the Commerce Department drew comparatively little news coverage — even the White House didn’t comment on her appointment. Apparently, America is at a point where selecting a transgender appointee isn’t such a big deal. Though Simpson said that “as one of the first transgender presidential appointees to the federal government, I hope that I will soon be one of hundreds, and that this appointment opens future opportunities for many others.”

As we step into the brave new world of furthering “diversity” in America, we must ask: Would he/she have been selected if he/she hadn’t been born as a he? Simpson was previously a test pilot and Deputy Director in Advanced Technology for Raytheon, but there are certainly many others who had similar qualifications that were overlooked in the process. Obviously, it will be a question which dogs the onetime Hillary Clinton delegate and unsuccessful state legislative aspirant as he/she begins the new job.

National Security

Warfront With Jihadistan: Hot Pants, Cold Shoulders, Lukewarm Policy

“The system worked.” So said of one of Obama’s best and brightest smooth-brains — Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano — following the narrowly averted Christmas Day disaster that was Northwest Flight 253. Napolitano’s subsequent attempts to remove both feet from her mouth only left her deeper in the hole, as evidenced by the Chosen One’s acknowledgment of “systemic failures” that led to the incident. No word yet on whether Napolitano, who heads the organization charged with protecting the nation from such an attack, will soon bear the hypovehicular tread marks from being thrown under the Hope ‘n’ Change Express.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the “undi-bomber,” attempted to ignite PETN, a highly explosive compound used in plastic explosives, during the flight with 288 people on board. The PETN lined Abdulmutallab’s underwear, and the terrorist used an acid-filled syringe as the catalyst-detonator. Fortunately, the reaction was incomplete, resulting in an incendiary, rather than explosive, effect, and Abdulmutallab was severely burned while the plane remained intact. (Considering his injuries, perhaps “eunuch bomber” is a more apt moniker.) Flight attendants quickly put out the fire, and passengers and crew worked together to subdue the terrorist and keep the aircraft safe and secure until landing.

The system worked? Okay, let’s recap, adding a few relevant details: A terrorist from Nigeria, trained in Yemen, pays cash for a ticket and boards a flight in Amsterdam for Detroit. He has neither a passport nor any checked bags and was escorted by a man who did not board the plane. His own father visited the U.S. embassy as early as four weeks before the incident, specifically to warn officials that his son had become involved with jihadis, and the U.S. intelligence community knew all of this before the terrorist boarded the flight. If only they had tried profiling…

Here are some other facts regarding the “system” Napolitano thinks worked so well: Like all other terrorists who are lucky enough to touch U.S. soil, Abdulmutallab immediately lawyered up after being taken into custody. No “unlawful enemy combatant” status for him; he’ll be treated like any other constitutionally protected domestic criminal. Of course, he could have been even luckier — some of those held at Guantanamo actually have been released to terrorist-hosting countries, only to return to the front lines of the war on terror, but we digress. Meanwhile, we’re reminded that we can’t even use the term “war on terror” — it’s now “overseas contingency operations.” Even the term “terrorism” has fallen out of favor, having been replaced by “man-caused disasters.” In fact, the seven-page indictment doesn’t use the word “terrorism.” But at least Abdulmutallab’s visa was revoked — 11 days after the attempted bombing.

No, this “system” — the “man-caused disaster” that masquerades as Obama’s homeland security and counterterrorism policy — most emphatically did not work. It brought America to within one failed detonator of losing nearly 300 lives; it allowed an individual with red flags hanging all over him to board a flight bound for our shores; and it once again forced flight crew and passengers into roles as ill-equipped counterterrorism and law enforcement surrogates.

Meanwhile, Democrats have mobilized their “truthspeak” (a.k.a. lie-making) apparatus to shift blame away from its true source, The Chosen One, citing holdup by the GOP of Erroll Southers’ nomination as Transportation Security Administration Chief — as if that somehow would have saved the day in this case. Moreover, the “holdup” dodge is an interesting tactic to say the least, considering that the Democrat-controlled Senate finally got around to bringing the nomination up for a vote only on Nov. 19 — more than 300 days after Obama assumed office. On top of that, there is the small matter of Southers’ misuse of confidential records to spy on his estranged wife’s boyfriend and then lying about it to Congress. That may have had something to do with any delay that occurred. But then, at least, so far as we know, he isn’t a tax cheat.

The truth is that the current system relies on serendipity, divine intervention and a proactive civilian populace to prevent loss of innocent lives. This, in and of itself but especially after the billions of dollars given to TSA over the years, is wholly unacceptable. To be sure, the fault does not lie primarily with intelligence; if anything, that community has succumbed to paralysis as a direct result of policy infected by political correctness. The real failure stems from this administration’s denial (in spite of contrived statements to the contrary) that we remain at war against Muslim extremists. As Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer summed it up, “Obama may have declared the war over. Unfortunately al-Qa’ida has not. Which gives new meaning to the term ‘asymmetric warfare.’”

Department of Military Readiness: START Treaty

As Barack Obama continues to pretend that the U.S. is not at war with Jihadistan, our Dear Leader also continues to pretend that sacrificing our nuclear arsenal will make our adversaries and enemies play nice with us. As we detailed previously, Obama appears ready to slash U.S. nuclear capability with minimal, if any, Russian concessions, as a follow-up to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991.

It now seems that Obama is willing to let whatever remains of the U.S. nuclear stockpile rot in place after the new treaty, in spite of a little known 2009 report from a formal U.S. bipartisan commission that examined the safety and capabilities of the existing U.S. nuclear arsenal. The report noted that the U.S. needs new nuclear warheads and research facilities in order to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent. Unfortunately, Obama, wearing his utopian, antinuclear and rose-colored glasses, continues to oppose a new warhead program despite widespread support at the Pentagon, including the backing of Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Fortunately, the U.S. Senate, which would have to consent to any new arms treaty with at least 67 votes, has warned Obama that any new START treaty is NO GO unless the administration also agrees to a warhead modernization program. In a recent letter to the White House, 40 Republican Senators and Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman reminded the president that, under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2010, any new START treaty legally requires the commander in chief to present a budget for modernizing U.S. nuclear forces. It’s nice to see that the Senate takes seriously its obligation to advise and consent on treaties, and that it’s also willing to warn Obama that, unless the administration ensures that any remaining nuclear weapons will work if needed, START II is DOA.

Business & Economy

Income Redistribution: The Death Tax Dies … For Now

Founding Father Benjamin Franklin once observed that in this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes. That and the predictable Democrat gnashing of teeth when the federal estate tax expired for 2010.

Instead of celebrating the (temporary) end of unfair government double-jeopardy confiscation of a person’s wealth, liberals fretted as if a family now keeping the fruits of their labors was some sort of undeserved gift from Congress. Liberal news reporters even bemoan a “loss” of $14 billion to the U.S. Treasury, although they fail to explain how that reduction in confiscations of private estates would meaningfully dent the trillions of dollars being accumulated in government debt through shameless spending.

Given the destructive power this particularly unfair tax has upon small businesses and family farms, the death tax should never be resurrected. Unfortunately, we can expect a Democrat-controlled Congress bent upon funding its grandiose health care schemes to have an epiphany about the pound of flesh it isn’t extracting from departed Americans. Accelerated collections of the death tax through ObamaCare’s death panels can’t be far behind.

Bailout Bonanza

It’s like Christmas, graduation and a slew of birthdays all in one for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who recently found themselves the recipients of a limitless supply of blank checks signed by the U.S. government. Just in time (conveniently) to miss the year-end deadline after which congressional approval would be required, the Treasury Department nixed the $400 billion limit on bailout money authorized for Fannie and Freddie. Instead, on the heels of $111 billion in taxpayer dollars already doled out to the ailing mortgage giants, the Feds have adopted a “flexible formula” for bailout bucks. As history shows, even Stretch Armstrong has nothing on the flexibility of Uncle Sam, who can bend laws, wiggle around limitations, and reach over, under and through constitutional constraints to raid taxpayer pockets.

Meanwhile, in an oh-so-shocking (or not) development in the auto bailout saga, Chrysler and GM saw end-of-year sales drop by 3.7 percent and 5.7 percent, respectively, while Ford, Toyota and Honda reported significant sales increases — as high as an impressive 33.5 percent for Ford. Of course, it must be coincidence that the duo with diminishing sales consists of the only two companies bailed out, taken over and now run by Barack Obama.

Around the Nation: A Story of Forgive and Forget

In 2009, a total of 13 states attempted to regain revenue once thought lost by engaging in tax amnesty programs. Tax cheats (like Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner) were encouraged to set things right with state tax collectors and be spared civil and criminal penalties in return. Some states even forgave interest on the delinquent amount just to bring much-needed revenue into their coffers.

The strategy worked. For example, the state of New Jersey was a big winner, collecting over $700 million in just six weeks — far outstripping its own estimate of $100 million overall.

So it’s notable that California isn’t trying that approach. Instead the Golden State is going to the federal government with hat in hand in hopes of closing a $21 billion budget shortfall with taxpayer dollars from other states. If the feds don’t come through with $8 billion, warned RINO Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the welfare recipients and 200,000 state workers will get it. In some circles that’s called a threat.

Yet California has descended economically to the point that its 13 percent of the national population now accounts for about 30 percent of the welfare rolls, and businesses are leaving in droves because of the state’s unfriendly policies. The state’s legislators don’t seem to care because they have theirs — the state offers members of the Assembly a salary of more than $95,000 plus $30,000 extra to cover “expenses.”

California became a state after prospectors stricken with gold fever settled there in the 1840s. Their descendants in 2010 still have gold fever … they just forgot how to work for their prosperity.

Culture & Policy

Climate Change This Week: The Copenhagen Accord

After a year of hype, the “Copenhagen Accord” didn’t live up to its billing. December’s UN summit on climate change quickly disintegrated into a battle of competing national interests, culminating with the 200 participating nations leaving without a binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol. In addition, there is no current plan to reach such an agreement, just a vague reference to the next major UN climate change conference, scheduled to take place late this year in Mexico, where it should be warmer than Copenhagen in December turned out to be.

The Accord was hurriedly hammered out in the eleventh hour after infighting had threatened to scuttle negotiations and thereby rain on the parade of the late-arriving Barack Obama. In the end, the main players were Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, leaving many other nations feeling as though they had been shut out of the process altogether. While that may be the case, it is all but irrelevant, given that the final document does not obligate anyone to do anything. In essence, the agreement calls for both wealthy and developing nations to make a list of common goals (which is unlikely, given the fact that they could not agree at the conference), with some means for an international bureaucracy to oversee “progress.” Wealthy nations also pledged to give $30 billion to help developing nations deal with climate change, with an eye to giving $100 billion annually by 2020. Leaders, however, were vague (not surprising in this economic climate) about the sources for this money.

Finally, the pièce de résistance: a “vow” to keep the global average temperature from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over estimated pre-industrial levels. Of course, if we could control that, the summit would have been completely unnecessary.

This is a big blow to those hoping for a financial windfall. Climate change has become big business (as Al Gore’s growing bank account will attest), and those with money to invest in lower-carbon technologies are not going to be so quick to put their hands in their pockets for a pact that isn’t legally binding.

About That Carbon Dioxide…

The e-mail scandal at the University of East Anglia; Al Gore’s misstatements of fact in Copenhagen; the coldest winter since little Algore pulled on his first pair of ‘jammies — the myth of man-made climate change is falling apart piece by piece, and the latest blow is a new study out of England, where scientists are relying not on computer-generated models of the Earth, but the real thing.

Wolfgang Knorr of the University of Bristol’s Department of Earth Sciences has found that in the past 160 years the Earth’s absorption of carbon dioxide (CO2) has remained unchanged. In fact, Knorr’s study found that only 45 percent of carbon emissions caused by man’s progression (including industrialization) remains in the atmosphere as opposed to the 100 percent that the warmers are claiming.

Warming “science” is based largely on the supposition that the Earth can take only so much CO2, and that once its limit has been reached, we’re cooked. But more and more dissenters, who had been silenced for several years by the media and ostracized by colleagues, are now stepping forward. Their position is that the Earth’s ecosystems are much more complex and robust than we understand, and that computer systems used by scientists crying climate change are limited in their comprehension — better known by people with common sense as garbage in, garbage out.

Meanwhile, with winter hardly a month old, just as in March 2009, when a snowstorm buried the “civil disobedience” climate change protest in Washington, DC, Mother Nature is weighing in now with record cold temperatures and snowfall around the nation. In fact, Joe Bastardi of Accuweather.com is predicting that the winter of 2010 will be the most severe in 25 years. Gore had better schedule the next protest during the summer.

Second Amendment: 2009 Gun Sales

It looks as if a correlation between gun ownership and murder rates exists after all — but not the one gun-control crusaders claim. According to 2009 data, more guns mean fewer murders. The FBI’s preliminary 2009 crime report shows that murders from January to June 2009 fell 10 percent from the same period in 2008. Granted, correlation doesn’t always equal causation, but the number of privately owned guns rose in 2009 by about 2 percent. During the first six months of last year, national instant background checks jumped by 24.5 percent over the first six months of 2008.

According to one gun store owner, the problem, even amid the economic downturn, hasn’t been keeping customers; it’s been keeping up with customers. “For most of the year we couldn’t even find guns to sell,” says Kevin Miller of K&D Gunsmithing in San Bernardino, California. “The manufacturers don’t have guns. They say sales are so high in the United States they can’t keep up.” Indeed, gun manufacturer Sturm, Ruger, & Co. reported that first quarter 2009 production skyrocketed by 69.3 percent over first quarter 2008 levels. The most popular guns purchased were those most commonly used for self defense.

Hmm, gun ownership translating into personal safety and lower crime rates. Maybe our Founding Fathers were onto something after all.

To Keep and Bear Arms

Late last month, two men wearing masks broke into the home of a family in Corpus Christi, Texas, in the wee hours of the morning. Upon hearing the noise, the owner of the home grabbed his gun and made his way towards the intruders. Upon confrontation, both parties exchanged fire. One of the attackers was hit and killed while his partner fled the scene. The ensuing investigation by the Corpus Christi Police Department revealed “an occupant, a resident, defending his home,” according to Lt. Isaac Valencia, who further stated, “If you apply the Castle [doctrine], you have a right to defend your home.” And, as noted in the previous story, gun owners do just that every day.

And Last…

As if the failed undi-bomber wasn’t bad enough Christmas news for jihadis, this New Year’s note just came in from the Department of Premature Detonation: “Fourteen suspected terrorists died Tuesday night when the bus they rigged with explosives blew up prematurely,” CNN reports. “The explosion occurred as the suspects were riding the bus in the province of Kunduz,” Afghanistan.

Around our humble shop, we like to call this sort of incident “self-solving.” More to the point, however, it sounds like these jihadis had a bad case of ED — explosive dysfunction.

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Alexander’s Essay – January 7, 2010

Great News for 2010

“All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of superintending providence in our favor. … Have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without His notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?” –Benjamin Franklin

I have been asked on occasion what most defines the difference between conservatives and liberals. There are, of course, many clear delineations between our diametrically opposed philosophies, but there is one that is defining.

Conservatives, The Patriot variety, serve a higher calling — First Principles — a calling superior to their own self-interest — with the objective of enhancing individual and national liberty for the benefit of all.

Ideological liberals, on the other hand, no matter what the cause, tend to be motivated by pathological egocentrism, which generally correlates with the acquisition of power and the suppression of liberty.

The opposition between these competing philosophies is an expression of the light and dark sides of humanity. The struggle between liberty and tyranny is as old as mankind, and though our nation was founded on constitutional Rule of Law — republican government in support of liberty — the assault on freedom has been constant since our founding.

However, while this attack is more vigorous today than at anytime in our history, liberty will prevail.

Here, I give you just one small example of why I know that liberty, the Light, the Truth, will trump the darkness of tyranny.

Every year since we launched PatriotPost.US as a touchstone for Patriots across the nation, we have had significant growth over the previous year, both in readership and revenue, which has ensured our growth in successive years.

We are chartered as a “for profit” business (so we can exercise our First Amendment rights without IRS permission) but are donor based, and like most other public interest organizations, we raise most of our operating revenue within the last two months of each year. Needless to say, this highly irregular business model causes some heartburn for our bankers, accountants and legal team — not to mention your executive editor.

In 2008, as we were ramping up our year-end fundraising campaign, economic collapse coincided with the election of über-Leftist Barack Hussein Obama, though that may have been no coincidence. I prepared to make the necessary cuts to scale our operation to what the economy would support. But much to my relief, our readers fully funded our budget (oh me of little faith).

This year, I was even more apprehensive about sustaining our mission, not to mention the modest budgets of our young staff and their families. However, I am pleased to report that, once again, thanks to Patriots across the nation, we met our budget requirements in full. More remarkable is the fact that PatriotShop.US — all sales proceeds from which support our mission — experienced a year-over-year sales increase of more than 30 percent.

I deduce three conclusions from these donor and sales results.

First, our readers are not, in the words of Thomas Paine, “summer soldiers and sunshine patriots.” You, fellow Patriots, are cut from the same cloth as our Founding Fathers and all American Patriots throughout our history. You do not “shrink from the service of our country” when times are tough.

Second, these results indicate that a broad swath of Americans are taking a much more active stand for liberty, for now that they see its antithesis in the Oval Office and Congress, they have a tangible example of tyranny in action.

Third, concern for the preservation of liberty is so endemic that we received funding from many readers who fall within three groups from which we do not ask support: Military personnel, students and those in the mission field, or who otherwise have limited income. The letters below are representative of many we received from Patriot donors in those groups.

“I have been a reader of The Patriot for 10 years. I know you do not seek support from uniformed Patriots, but as a Marine officer and combat veteran of two wars, one who understands the full implications of my oath to ’support and defend’ our Constitution against enemies ‘foreign and domestic,’ it gives me great pleasure to support the ‘Voice of Constitutional Conservatism.’”

“As a student with no income other than what I earn through summer internships, I have a very limited budget. But the value of The Patriot to my education and growth has been incalculable. Consequently, I make my small but sincere contribution. My one regret is that any amount donated to The Patriot will never adequately reflect its worth.”

“I just made a donation, even though I was laid off last month and am still unemployed. I receive The Patriot every day and I have been putting off a donation because I didn’t think I could afford it. I realize now that I can’t afford not to support this beacon of liberty.”

“As a retired command fighter pilot with more than 500 hours in combat, I am honored to support the vital work you are doing for our great nation. Every day, I look forward to The Patriot and its inspiration to reaffirm my devotion to our Constitution.”

These words speak volumes.

Though we have a long way to go to restore the integrity of our Constitution, we should all take comfort in the fact that America’s strength, her Patriot defenders, are standing up and standing firm, and our ranks are growing. Indeed, the time has come.

And the Left is taking note.

Just this week, two senators, a member of the house, a governor and a lieutenant governor, all members of the once noble Democrat Party, announced that they will not seek re-election in 2010.

This is good news, for it is the strongest indication that all the activism this past year is taking its toll. But the great news, the unwavering verity upon which we can all depend in good times and bad, is, in the words of that wise sage Ben Franklin, “God governs in the affairs of men.”

This year, and the two that follow, present enormous challenges for all who want to restore Rule of Law. We are mindful of the enduring words of George Washington at the dawn of American liberty: “We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.”

In 2010, The Patriot will respond to the exigency of our times, in part, by sponsoring the Essential Liberty Project. Clarity of mission and purpose — First Principles — are needed now, more than ever.

Let’s make this a year to which our posterity will point and say, “They rose in defense of Liberty,” a year that overflowed with Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Thanks to all of you for your support and for your steadfast loyalty to our Constitution and Republic. Make peace with no oppression and keep your powder dry!

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander

Publisher, PatriotPost.US

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Chronicle · Wednesday, January 6, 2010

The Foundation

“The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.” –Thomas Jefferson

Pelosi lies about transparency

Editorial Exegesis

“Democratic leaders reportedly plan to forge a final reform bill behind closed doors. They should not be able to get away with hiding public policy from the public it will adversely affect. Both the House and Senate must pass identical bills before the president can sign the legislation into law. When differences pop up, as with separate health care bills, the legislation traditionally goes to a conference committee where lawmakers iron them out. The committees are made up of members from both chambers and often from both parties. The committee meetings have typically been conducted in public, as they should be. They can be moved out of public view only when a majority of conferees, in a vote in an open session, agree to hold closed meetings. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, has called the Democrats’ plan to bypass a conference committee a ’shady backroom deal.’ An overstatement? Hardly. One House Democratic aide told a blogger that ‘this process cuts out the Republicans.’ The Democrats fear that if they follow the traditional route, the GOP could use the Senate filibuster rule to shut down the process of organizing the committee. Bypassing a conference committee also cuts out a public that will suffer losses from whatever monstrosity is produced by the cover of darkness. Americans stand to lose their power of choice over health care decisions and be stripped of a significant portion of their earnings to pay for a plan most don’t want. They deserve to see in an open forum what is being done to them. Instead, they’re likely to get whatever the Democrats want to force on them.” –Investor’s Business Daily

The Demo-gogues

“There has never been a more open process for any legislation.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on the “transparency” of legislating the health care bill (The only thing transparent about the process is Democrats’ motive to nationalize private health care.)

The world’s oldest profession: “I don’t know if there is a senator that doesn’t have something in this bill that was important to them. And if they don’t have something in it important to them, then it doesn’t speak well of them.” –Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Godfather) on making offers that Democrats couldn’t refuse

That’s racist: “Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? All to break the momentum of our new young president. [Republicans] are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one.” –Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) calling opponents of the health care bill racists

The BIG Lie on all counts: “I listened to you and took a common-sense approach to improve the bill. Now it lowers costs for families and small business, protects Medicare, finally guarantees coverage for pre-existing conditions and reduces the deficit. And it’s not run by the government. I’m convinced this is right for Nebraska.” –Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) on voting for the health care bill after a grand show of playing hard to get

Principled Democrats? “They think I shouldn’t be expressing my views on this bill until they get a chance to try to sell me the language [on an abortion compromise]. Well, I don’t need anyone to sell me the language. I can read it. I’ve seen it. I’ve worked with it. I know what it says. I don’t need to have a conference with the White House. I have the legislation in front of me here. … A review of the Senate language indicates a dramatic shift in federal policy that would allow the federal government to subsidize insurance policies with abortion coverage. … We’re getting a lot of pressure not to say anything, to try to compromise this principle or belief. … We are not just going to abandon it in the name of health care.” –Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI)

On the undi-bomber: “This was a screw up that could have been disastrous. We dodged a bullet but just barely. It was averted by brave individuals — not because the system worked — and that is not acceptable. While there will be a tendency for finger pointing, I will not tolerate it.” –Barack Obama, who tolerates the blame game well enough when his finger is forever pointed at George W. Bush

Savior of the world: “The most important thing we did this year was to ensure that the financial system did not collapse.” –Barack Obama

Insight

“We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.” –philosopher and writer Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

“There should be a tax on every man that wanted to get a government appointment, or be elected to office. In two years that tax alone would pay our national debt.” –American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

Upright

“Barack Obama’s quest for historic health care legislation has turned into a parody of leadership. We usually associate presidential leadership with the pursuit of goals that, though initially unpopular, serve America’s long-term interests. Obama has reversed this. He’s championing increasingly unpopular legislation that threatens the country’s long-term interests. ‘This isn’t about me,’ he likes to say, ‘I have great health insurance.’ But of course, it is about him: about the legacy he covets as the president who achieved ‘universal’ health insurance.” –columnist Robert Samuelson

“The president’s health care monstrosity is an even more unwieldy government effort than Homeland Security. Its goals are more various and vaguer. Its protocols are already in chaos. The lesson the president should have learned from last week’s ’systemic failure’ is that government is a very imperfect instrument. A government that takes over 16 percent of our economy promising to bring us good health at a reasonable cost is an instrument doomed to failure and at a catastrophic cost.” –American Spectator editor in chief R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.

“It’s a (literally) bloody disgrace that our ragtag enemies innovate faster and more effectively than our armed forces and the legion of overpaid contractors behind them. They ask themselves, ‘What works?’ We ask ourselves what the lawyers will say. The crucial difference? Our enemies believe in victory, even if we don’t.” –columnist Ralph Peters

“The question should not be how to make terrorists like us, but how to find them, eliminate them and, most important of all, keep them from entering the country in the first place. The Obama administration, like the Clinton administration, continues to view terrorists as criminals who ought to be subject to the American judicial system. In fact, they are soldiers in a war unlike any this country has ever faced. Until we start treating these people as soldiers and not criminals, there will be more incidents like this, as there have been previous ones. Without a serious approach to domestic terrorism, the next attempted attack on an airliner might succeed, as did the ones during another less serious time which gave us 9-11.” –columnist Cal Thomas

“For its part, the Obama administration should frankly acknowledge that the ‘war on terror’ wasn’t a Bush-Cheney construct to scare and manipulate the American public. The same Napolitano who initially portrayed the near-miss on Christmas as a vindication did her utmost to avoid even uttering the word ‘terror’ at a congressional hearing earlier this year, preferring the absurd neologism ‘man-caused disaster.’ That’s a phrase best applied to the shoeless shuffle at the airport security lines, not the heinous acts of war plotted by Abdulmutallab and his inevitable successors.” –National Review editor Rich Lowry

“[A]s we approach this new year and reflect upon 2009 and think of ways to improve our situations in 2010, I ask that my fellow Republicans join together to have a respectful debate during our upcoming primary process and then give their full support to our selected nominees even if there remain some philosophical differences. I know this is the approach my father personally took and I cannot think of a better beacon of light than his legacy to help us once again find our way.” –radio talk-show host Michael Reagan

Dezinformatsia

Alpha Jackass: “What … if terrorists were killing 45,000 people every year in this country? Well, the current health care system, the insurance companies, and those who support them are doing just that. … Those fighting health care reform — not those debating its shape or its nuance — people who demand the status quo, they are killing 45,000 Americans a year. … Remind me again, who are the terrorists?” –MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann

What are we waiting for? “The law [in Switzerland], finally approved in a 1994 national referendum, guaranteed health care for everyone by requiring everyone to have insurance. It amounted to a law recognizing health care as a human right…. They choose their own doctors and their own insurance company, and the whole country is covered. True to its national reputation, Switzerland devised a health care system that’s been praised as efficient and neutral. Basic insurance is the same price for everyone. Also true to the Swiss reputation, it’s turned out to be expensive. … Given an aging population and high-tech medicine, some say costs are bound to rise three percent or four percent a year. Health care reform [in Switzerland] has been more expensive than reformers predicted.” –CBS’s Richard Roth

From the Commie Pinko Department: “The most overrated [political concept] is freedom. When faced with economic uncertainty, people don’t want freedom. When they can’t see their economic future, they want the nanny state.” –John McLaughlin, long-time moderator of ‘The McLaughlin Group’

Poor guy: “[Obama] had hoped to spend this vacation recharging his batteries, but now he appears to be spending most of it working. For New Year’s Eve, he’ll be reviewing nearly a dozen new reports from homeland security agencies, all part of a massive effort to figure out what went wrong.” –CBS’s Chip Reid, lamenting that Obama actually has to do the job he signed up for

Sometimes they get it right: “If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch? We are headed toward the moment when screeners will watch watch-listers sashay through while we have to come to the airport in hospital gowns, flapping open in the back.” –New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd

Newspulper Headlines:

Life Imitates the Onion: “Suicide Bombing a Cry for Help, Vengeance Against the Infidel” –The Onion, April 28, 2004 ++ “Web Posts Suggest Lonely, Depressed Terror Suspect” –Associated Press, Dec. 30, 2009

What Would We Do Without Sources?: “Explosives in Detroit Terror Case Could Have Blown Hole in Airplane, Sources Say” –The Washington Post

Yes We Can: “Obama: We Can’t Treat Tax Dollars Like ‘Monopoly Money’” –RealClearPolitics.com

We Blame Global Warming: “Earth’s Upper Atmosphere Cooling Dramatically” –Space.com

News You Can Use: “Meat May Be the Reason Humans Outlive Apes” –MSNBC.com

Bottom Story of the Year: “Democrats See Greater Role for Government in Health Care” –New York Times Web site

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Village Idiots

Trust her! “The system worked.” ++ “In many ways, this system has worked.” ++ “Once the incident occurred, the system worked.” –Homeland “Security” chief Janet Napolitano on the undi-bomber’s attempt to blow up an American airliner on Christmas

Then again… “Why wasn’t he flagged at a higher screening level? How did he get an explosive substance on to the plane? All of those are serious questions that we are now looking at. … Our system did not work in this instance. No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way.” –Janet Napolitano

Welcome to the job: “I want to know how this individual got on this plane with this material. I want to know so we can figure out what we should be doing to defeat that.” –Janet Napolitano (How about profiling?)

Can’t we all just get along? “This should not be a tug-of-war between the two political parties. I hope that everyone will resolve in the new year to make protecting our nation a nonpartisan issue.” –White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (It’s a partisan issue because Democrats are completely wrong, not because Republicans are just “mean-spirited.”)

Village Idiot, California style — with an accent: “When it comes to effort, [Obama] should get a straight A. He’s out there with tremendous energy and he’s selling his ideas. And he has great enthusiasm there. He’s a great speaker, a great communicator. He has to hang in there, be tough, just continue on, never give up, eventually he’s going to get all those things done.” –California RINO Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

Short Cuts

“Put enough money on the table and just about any Democratic U.S. Senator will think, gulp, blink, and drag the pot with the rationalization that ‘this is all for the greater good.’ Pelican Pellets. This is no different than putting a horse’s head into Jack Woltz’ bed to force him into giving Johnny Fontaine a part in his movie in The Godfather. It was a deal [Senator Ben] Nelson couldn’t refuse.” –political analyst Rich Galen

“And just to make sure even the dimmest understand, Obama banishes the term ‘war on terror.’ It’s over — that is, if it ever existed. Obama may have declared the war over. Unfortunately al-Qa’ida has not. Which gives new meaning to the term ‘asymmetric warfare.’ … More jarring still were Obama’s references to the terrorist as a ’suspect’ who ‘allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device.’ You can hear the echo of FDR: ‘Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — Japanese naval and air force suspects allegedly bombed Pearl Harbor.’” –columnist Charles Krauthammer

“President Obama was ripped Tuesday for responding slowly to the failed airline bombing. He did everything he could. When word got to him on the fifteenth hole that the country had been attacked he asked the next three groups if he could play through.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“All I know is that at my age, I can do without blankets, pillows and even honey-roasted peanuts. But I think the airlines better rethink those bathroom restrictions. The last thing they’re going to want is a planeload of seniors sounding like cranky four-year-olds, screaming for the last 500 miles of the flight, ‘Are we there yet?’” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Brief · Monday, January 4, 2010

The Foundation

“National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman.” –John Adams

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian Muslim who tried to blow up a plane on Christmas

Culture

“In response to a Nigerian Muslim trying to blow up a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, the government will now prohibit international travelers from going to the bathroom in the last hour before the plane lands. Terrorists who plan to bomb planes during the first seven hours of the eight-hour flight, however, should face no difficulties, provided they wait until after the complimentary beverage service has been concluded. How do they know Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab didn’t wait until the end of the flight to try to detonate explosives because he heard the stewardess announce that the food service was over and seats would have to be placed in their upright position? I can’t finish my snack? This plane is going down! Also prohibited in the last hour of international flights will be: blankets, pillows, computers and in-flight entertainment. Another triumph in Janet Napolitano’s ‘Let’s stay one step behind the terrorists’ policy! For the past eight years, approximately 2 million Americans a day have been subjected to humiliating searches at airport security checkpoints, forced to remove their shoes and jackets, to open their computers, and to remove all liquids from their carry-on bags, except minuscule amounts in marked 3-ounce containers placed in Ziploc plastic bags — folding sandwich bags are verboten — among other indignities. This, allegedly, was the price we had to pay for safe airplanes. The one security precaution the government refused to consider was to require extra screening for passengers who looked like the last three-dozen terrorists to attack airplanes. Since Muslims took down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, every attack on a commercial airliner has been committed by foreign-born Muslim men with the same hair color, eye color and skin color. Half of them have been named Mohammed. An alien from the planet ‘Not Politically Correct’ would have surveyed the situation after 9/11 and said: ‘You are at war with an enemy without uniforms, without morals, without a country and without a leader — but the one advantage you have is they all look alike. … What? … What did I say?’ The only advantage we have in a war with stateless terrorists was ruled out of order ab initio by political correctness. And so, despite 5 trillion Americans opening laptops, surrendering lip gloss and drinking breast milk in airports day after day for the past eight years, the government still couldn’t stop a Nigerian Muslim from nearly blowing up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day.” –columnist Ann Coulter

Opinion in Brief

“If Barack Obama wants to reassure a nervous public that bureaucratic incompetence won’t be tolerated, he might look to the example of what happened to the director of FEMA in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But no one expects the president to sack Janet Napolitano, the secretary of something the government insists on calling Homeland Security. That’s not how an administration that regards words and deeds as equals actually works. The lessons in the latest Islamist attempt to bring down a Western airliner could be useful, but such lessons are too painful for the guvvies to think about. Mzz Napolitano’s early assurance, since amended, that ‘the system worked’ was either dopey beyond belief, or an unintended ringing endorsement of the ancient folk ethic that ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ Better God than a guvvie, but not everyone can count on having as a fellow passenger a young Dutchman with quick instincts, athletic grace, a sharp eye and a full complement of bravery and courage. That’s not really a ’system’ for securing the homeland. President Obama, interrupting a day at the beach, told reporters in Hawaii that he would pursue the plotters in Arabia and he would not rest until they are caught. This time he did not promise they would be executed, as he did of the Guantanamo plotters who are to be tried in New York City. But the attempt to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it approached Detroit was ‘a serious reminder’ of the dangers George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and other Republicans warned us about. (Of course, he couldn’t afford to say it quite that way.) … Mr. Obama’s tough-guy rhetoric, his words plain, pretty and well-parsed, is more reassuring than his deeds, or would be if there was evidence that he really understands what must be done. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the young jihadist from Nigeria by way of Yemen, was quickly indicted on federal charges of trying to destroy an aircraft, which means that he will have the full array of rights accorded to every defendant in an American court. Someone will have to read his Miranda rights, and he will have the right to a lawyer. This will please the civil rights radicals who imagine the Constitution to be a suicide pact, and who don’t, or can’t, understand that the most important civil right of all is the right not to be murdered.” –columnist Wesley Pruden

Liberty

“Obama didn’t undertake his radical agenda to turn America into a full-blown socialist state because of ‘the size of the problems (he) inherited.’ That was just a convenient excuse. He has been groomed, mentored and polished for this very task since he was a little boy. He is taking out his grudge against America, an America he views as fundamentally unfair, inequitable, imperialistic and exploitive, but as a powerful resource for change — if only he can fundamentally transform it. … Obama’s agenda didn’t significantly change with the unfolding of the financial crisis that led to TARP. He has had his sights on a single-payer health care system for years. He had plans to ’spread the wealth around’ long before TARP became an acronym. He and his wife were trashing America as arrogant and dismissive long before this economic crisis fell into their laps just months before the 2008 election. So, yes, Obama’s standing with the American people is related to ‘the battles he chose to take on during his first year,’ but not in a positive way. Those battles don’t qualify as mitigating factors … because they were undertaken not to improve the economy, but to consummate, in substance, a Cold War victory for the communists after they had otherwise been defeated. The fainthearted among us can blanch at the suggestion that Obama is a Marxist — and accuse me of name-calling or incivility — but my intention is not to inflame. It is to communicate the truth in accurate terms to help people understand the magnitude of the threat we face by this assault on our liberties. Obama didn’t impose his Draconian stimulus bill or omnibus spending bills to jump-start the economy. He did it to transfer wealth and establish slush funds for re-election. He didn’t push cap and trade to reduce ‘global warming,’ but to bring America down to size with the ‘underdeveloped’ nations of the world. He didn’t obsessively promote Obamacare to improve the economy, ‘bend the cost curve’ (what a joke!), achieve universal coverage or improve the quality of health care. He did it to amplify the federal government’s power over all aspects of our lives. … Obama isn’t even trying to ‘get serious about the deficit and spending.’ That’s a cruel ruse. Look at his projected deficits in the out-years. He is planning on deficits in excess of a trillion dollars from here forward, even after the economy fully recovers. The country cannot sustain this. The public knows it and is outraged and horrified by it. Our children cannot live in freedom if this insane recklessness is not stopped.” –columnist David Limbaugh

The Gipper

“You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream — the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, ‘The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.” –Ronald Reagan

Government

“If Congress and the president are successful in making the Pre-existing Condition Patient Protection Act the law of the land, their treachery won’t stop there. Insurance companies will attempt to charge people with pre-existing health conditions a higher price to compensate for their higher expected cost. Those people will complain to Congress. Then Congress will enact insurance premium price controls. Insurance companies might try to restrict just what treatments they will cover under such restrictions. That means Congress will play a greater role in managing what insurance companies can and cannot do. The dilemma Congress always faces, when it messes with the economy, was aptly described in a Negro spiritual play by Marcus Cook Connelly titled ‘Green Pastures.’ In it, G0d laments to the angel Gabriel, ‘Every time Ah passes a miracle, Ah has to pass fo’ or five mo’ to ketch up wid it,’ adding, ‘Even bein G0d ain’t no bed of roses.’ When Congress creates a miracle for one American, it creates a non-miracle for another. After that, Congress has to create a compensatory miracle. Many years ago, I used to testify before Congress, something I refuse to do now. At several of the hearings, I urged Congress to get out of the miracle business and leave miracle making up to G0d. For a president and congressman to shamelessly propose something like the Pre-existing Condition Patient Protection Act demonstrates just how far we’ve gone down the road to perdition. The most tragic thing is that most Americans have no idea that such an act violates every principle of insurance and it’s something that not even yesteryear’s lunatics would have thought up.” –George Mason University economics professor Walter E. Williams

Re: The Left

“The liberals keep telling us that, thanks to Obama’s policy of speaking endlessly and carrying a very small stick, America has gained renewed respect around the world. But, as usual, they don’t specify which countries respect us more these days now that they have good reason to fear us less. We know pretty darn well they’re not referring to Russia, Iran, Somalia, North Korea, Syria or China. They’re not even able to point to such erstwhile allies as Poland, Israel and the Czech Republic, all of whom are staggering around these days with American-made switchblades in their back. Liberals, as well as a great many conservatives, were upset with George W. Bush for his massive spending. But these days, when Obama is quadrupling the deficit, the Left is cheering him on. Can you imagine what liberals would be saying if a Republican president announced something as nutty as Obama’s promise to spend his way to solvency? For that matter, what would a typical liberal say if, after he broke the news that they were on the brink of bankruptcy, his wife’s response was to head out the front door, and when he asked her where she was going, she replied, ‘I’ll be back in a minute, honey, I’m just running out to pick up a few things at Tiffany’s’? Is there a jury in America that would find him guilty if he busted a chair over her head? But when it’s Obama going out the door to drop a few trillion on cap and trade and Obamacare, the liberals just shake their heads like besotted newlyweds and say, ‘Isn’t he just cute as a button?’” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

For the Record

“On the last day of 2009, that awful year, I was listening to a report on National Public Radio (yes, I’m a listener). Reporter Tamara Keith presented a by-now-familiar recap of the worst financial and corporate scandals of the decade, from Enron and Martha Stewart to Tyco and Bernie Madoff. It was a depressing slog of greed, venality and theft. When the report was over, ‘Morning Edition’ host Steve Inskeep summarized the report with a tart: ‘The decade in capitalism.’ I don’t want to single out Inskeep, since he was doing what pretty much the entire media establishment has done, particularly of late: reducing ‘capitalism’ to its alleged sins. And that’s the point. There are few areas of life where a thing responsible for so much good gets so little credit for it. Imagine if I were to collect the most infamous deeds of African-Americans over the last decade — say, Michael Vick’s dog-fighting scandal and O.J. Simpson’s most recent criminal exploit — and then put a bow on it with the phrase ‘the decade in black America.’ What if I did the same thing with Jews? Bernie Madoff, the face of Jewish America! Do the scandals of Rod Blagojevich, Charlie Rangel and John Edwards define the Democratic Party from 2000 to 2010? Do Abu Ghraib and the balloon boy sum up America? … Every good thing capitalism helps produce — from singing careers to cures for diseases to staggering charity — is credited to some other sphere of our lives. Every problem with capitalism, meanwhile, is laid at her feet. Except the problems with capitalism — greed, theft, etc. — aren’t capitalism’s fault, they’re humanity’s. Socialist countries have greedy thieves, too. Free markets are in disrepute these days, particularly by the people running Washington. For them, government is the solution and capitalism is the problem. If they have their way over the next decade, they won’t cure what allegedly ails capitalism — people will still steal and lie — but they will impede everything that makes capitalism great. And that will be bad for everyone, even NPR.” –National Review editor Jonah Goldberg

The Last Word

“On Christmas Day, a gentleman from Nigeria succeeded (effortlessly) in boarding a flight to Detroit with a bomb in his underwear. Pretty funny, huh? But the Pantybomber wasn’t the big joke. The real laugh was the United States government. The global hyperpower spent the next week making itself a laughingstock to the entire planet. First, the bureaucrats at the TSA swung into action with a whole new range of restrictions. Against radical Yemen-trained Muslims wearing weaponized briefs? Of course not. That would be too obvious. So instead they imposed a slew of constraints against you. At Heathrow last week, they were permitting only one item of carry-on on U.S. flights. In Toronto, no large purses. Um, the Pantybomber didn’t have a purse. He brought the bomb on board under his private parts, and his private parts weren’t part of his carry-on (although, if reports of injuries sustained in his failed mission are correct, they may well have been part of his carry-off). But no matter. If in doubt, blame the victim. The TSA announced that for the last hour of the flight no passenger can use the toilets or have anything on his lap — not a laptop, not a blanket, not a stewardess, not even a paperback book. … The only good news was that the derision was so universal that the TSA promptly reined in some of their wackier impositions a couple of days later. But by then Janet Incompetano, the Homeland Security secretary, had gone on TV and declared to the world that there was nothing to worry about: ‘The system worked.’ Indeed, it worked ’smoothly.’ The al-Qaida trainee on a terrorist watch list, a man banned from the United Kingdom and reported to the CIA by his own father, got on board the plane, assembled the bomb, and attempted to detonate it. But don’t worry ’bout a thing; the system worked. … A thwarted terror attack at Christmas is bad enough. Spending the following week making yourself a global joke is worse. Every A-list despot and dime store jihadist got that message loud and clear — and so did American allies already feeling semi-abandoned by this most parochial of presidents. Expect a bumpy 12 months ahead. Happy New Year.” –columnist Mark Steyn

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*****

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Essay – December 23, 2009

Light of the Universe

“The Hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.” –George Washington

When our children were young, Ann and I would help them comprehend how great God has always been and always will be, the Alpha and Omega, by using metaphors with tangible examples that they could grasp.

We wanted our children to understand that it is only the rare occasion, given the immensity of His universal plan, which affords us a perfectly clear view of God’s plan for each of us. But we also assured them of the Truth we had learned: that through faith, we always know that He will use our circumstances, however corrupted by our own free will, to guide us to where He wants us to be.

As our kids have grown older, each has demonstrated a substantial interest and aptitude for science. Thus, I was captivated recently when I came across this elucidation of God’s infinite domain from Dr. William Blair, an astrophysicist and research professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Blair wrote: “Today we know that galaxies are as common as blades of grass in a meadow. The Hubble Space Telescope recently completed a particularly deep (faint) census of a tiny ‘pencil beam’ extending far out into the Universe. This survey, called the ‘Hubble Deep Field,’ was targeted on a region of the sky that was nearly devoid of known objects, so as to be (hopefully) representative of conditions in the distant Universe. The resulting images are truly amazing. Strewn across this tiny piece of the sky are perhaps 1500 or more galaxies of all shapes, sizes, and colors! Because this survey pertains to such a small piece of the sky, the implications are staggering: if the region of sky demarked by the bowl of the Big Dipper were surveyed to the same depth, it would contain about 32 million galaxies! And the estimate for the entire visible Universe is that there are upwards of 40 BILLION galaxies, each containing tens to hundreds of billions of stars!”

To put the vastness of creation into perspective, Blair uses a sheet of paper: “Imagine that the distance from the earth to the sun (93 million miles, or about 8 light minutes) is compressed to the thickness of a typical sheet of paper. On this scale, the nearest star (4.3 light years) is at a distance of 71 feet. The diameter of the Milky Way (100,000 light years) would require a 310 mile high stack of paper, while the distance to the Andromeda galaxy (at 2 million light years one of the most distant objects visible to the naked eye) would require a stack of paper more than 6000 miles high! On this scale, the ‘edge’ of the Universe, defined as the most distant known quasars some 10 billion light years hence, is not reached until the stack of paper is 31 million miles high — a third of the way to the sun on the real scale of things!”

Pondering this vastness is a humbling experience indeed.

Knowing quite a few professional physicists who are men and women of faith, I wrote Dr. Blair and asked him, “Are you a person of faith in God as our creator?” and, “If so, what does your analogy reveal about the creator of our universe?”

As to the first question, he answered, “Yes, I am.”

As to the second, he replied, “In short, ‘God created the heavens and the earth.’ Understanding more about the ‘heavens’ and the scale of the Universe only magnifies my personal impression of what it is that God has created. Having a personal connection to that same God is a defining aspect of my faith.”

According to Blair, who heads a NASA project looking into deep space, “Some people can look at the spirals of our galaxy and not see the hand of God, but I beg to differ.”

Of course, my children, like all of us who haven’t obscured knowledge of our Creator by the idolatry of self or materialism, strive for a more personal understanding of God. But how do we grasp such knowledge when the object of our desire is so far beyond mortal understanding — how do we find our way to Him?

The answer is obvious to all who have opened their eyes — just follow the Light.

And it is the dawn of the Truth and Light that we celebrate at Christmas, the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. It is no coincidence that as the story of His birth is recounted, it is a star that guided wise men to his side.

In the Gospel of John (1:5), it is written, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

Now, a physicist will tell you that darkness doesn’t exist except for the absence of light, which isn’t to say that we can’t live in darkness: Given the degraded state of our nation, many among our countrymen have chosen to reside in moral darkness, or worse, have been abandoned there.

But Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

Thus, if we want to see our Creator, we have only to turn toward the Truth and Light, and, as implicit in our motto: Veritas vos Liberabit — the Truth will set you Free (John 8:32).

As for my family and me, Dr. Blair and his family, and hundreds of millions of our brothers and sisters around the world, Jesus Christ is the Light, our personal connection to our Creator. And he is that for anyone and everyone who will just turn toward Him.

The Gospels, which attest to the life of Jesus, reveal what we most need to know about God as our Creator, and His purpose for us.

We live in a world today that is no different from yesterday or tomorrow, in the sense that we have and will always have a deep desire to understand our Creator. Unfortunately, we tend to complicate the fulfillment of that desire by satiating it with all manner of false gods.

I am no stranger to false gods, which, ironically, helped me to distinguish between those idols and my authentic Creator, who endowed me with “certain unalienable rights.”

Our Founding Fathers understood that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” could not be sustained in the absence of Light, that our Creator endows these rights, not men.

According to George Washington, “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

John Adams wrote: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. … Statesmen may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a greater Measure than they have it now, They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty.”

Benjamin Rush proclaimed, “[T]he only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.”

Likewise, Gouverneur Morris wrote, “Religion is the only solid basis of good morals and Morals are the only possible Support of free governments. Therefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God.”

Samuel Adams added, “Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness. … Religion in a Family is at once its brightest Ornament and its best Security.”

Not long before his death, Thomas Jefferson addressed a letter to the son of a close friend in which he wrote, “Your affectionate and excellent father has requested that I would address to you something, which might possibly have a favorable influence on the course of life you have to run…. Few words will be necessary, with good dispositions on your part. Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence.”

Perhaps John Jay said it best: “The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts.”

But as Benjamin Franklin noted, “How many observe Christ’s birth-day! How few, his precepts! O! ’tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments.”

Unfortunately, as it was at the dawn of our great nation, Franklin’s criticism applies to too many of our countrymen.

Fellow Patriots, during these dark days it is my fervent prayer that we, individually and as a nation, turn to the Light by, first and foremost, following God’s Commandments, by acknowledging that we are endowed by our Creator alone with life and liberty, and by restoring these rights for ourselves and for our posterity in accordance with His will.

On behalf of our staff and National Advisory Committee, may God bless and keep each of you.

Merry Christmas.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander

Publisher, PatriotPost.US

Publisher’s Note: To our Patriot readers of faiths other than Christianity, we hope that this edition serves to deepen your understanding of our faith — and the faith of so many of our Founders. Permission to forward or reprint is granted.

As always, we take leave between Christmas and New Year’s to be with our families. Our next edition will be on Jan. 4, 2010.

Finally, we will send you a final update on The Patriot Fund next week. As of this morning, we still need $95,542 to make budget. If you have not already done so, please take a moment to support The Patriot’s Annual Fund today by making a contribution — however large or small. (If you prefer to support us by mail, please use our printable donor form.)

(To submit reader comments click here.)

*****

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

Brief · Monday, December 21, 2009

The Foundation

“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” –Thomas Jefferson

Sen. Ben Nelson — the lonely 60th vote Government

“[Barack] Obama paid off Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb) the way he and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev) had paid off Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La) last month. Put enough money on the table and just about any Democratic U.S. Senator will think, gulp, blink, and drag the pot with the rationalization that ‘this is all for the greater good.’ Pelican Pellets. This is no different than putting a horse’s head into Jack Woltz’ bed to force him into giving Johnny Fontaine a part in his movie in The Godfather. It was a deal Nelson couldn’t refuse. There is no Socialized Option in the bill. Abortions will not be covered. It is unclear who will have to pay how much or when for what coverage. All in all it is health care reform that has nothing to do with health care and contains little, if any, reform. Other than this: If Democrats continue to control all the levers of power at the Federal level, this will change and change and change over the next two or three Congresses until health care in America is pronounced equal for everyone and mediocre for all.” –political analyst Rich Galen

Insight

“A Fatal Tendency of Mankind. Self-preservation and self-development are common aspirations among all people. And if everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing. But there is also another tendency that is common among people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others. … This fatal desire has its origin in the very nature of man — in that primitive, universal, and insuppressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain.” –French economist and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

Liberty

“As we near the eve of another Christmas, I wonder: What would have happened if Mother Mary had been covered by Obamacare? What if that young, poor and uninsured teenage woman had been provided the federal funds (via Obamacare) and facilities (via Planned Parenthood, etc.) to avoid the ridicule, ostracizing, persecution and possible stoning because of her out-of-wedlock pregnancy? Imagine all the great souls who could have been erased from history and the influence of mankind if their parents had been as progressive as Washington’s wise men and women! Will Obamacare morph into Herodcare for the unborn? America doesn’t need to turn the page on culture wars, such as the one on abortion. It needs to reopen the pages of its history to our Founders’ elevated views of and rights for all human beings (including those in the womb), as documented in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. We need to revive and re-instill their value of humanity back into society, our children and our children’s children. And most of all, Washington needs to run our government as Thomas Jefferson outlined in an 1809 letter: ‘The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.’” –columnist Chuck Norris

Faith & Family

“The New York Times recently revealed that, before abandoning the idea, Barack and Michelle Obama had considered eliminating The White House’s traditional nativity scene as part of an effort to celebrate a ‘non-religious’ Christmas. In light of that story, it wasn’t entirely surprising to learn that this year, for the first time, the President’s Christmas card contains neither any mention of Christmas itself nor a quote from the New Testament. Obviously, the Obamas aren’t fans of overt displays of Christian religiosity. The White House has told Fox News Radio that the card represents nothing but an attempt to recognize that Americans are celebrating other holidays at this time of year — not just Christmas. No doubt that approach is imbued with politically-correct, multicultural sensitivity, but it also, perhaps, reflects a world view that’s out-of-step with most regular Americans — and even America’s heritage. For starters, the use of the term ‘Christmas’ doesn’t seem to be as offensive as the politically correct would have us believe. A recent Rasmussen Report found that fully 72% of Americans preferred ‘Merry Christmas,’ compared to 22% who favored a more generic greeting, like ‘Happy Holidays.’ And a December 2008 USA Today/Gallup poll found that 93% of Americans celebrate Christmas. How offended could Americans be by a reference to a holiday that they themselves are celebrating? … So permit me to say what the Obamas’ card does not: Merry Christmas.” –columnist Carol Platt Liebau

Culture

“The most important question any society must answer is: How will we make good people? That is the question Judeo-Christian values have grappled with. There are many and profound theological and practical differences between Judaism and Christianity. But in the American incarnation of Judeo-Christian values — and America is really the one civilization that developed an amalgamation of Jewish and Christian values — the emphasis has been on individual character. One cannot make a good society if one does not begin with the arduous task of making good individuals. Both Judaism and Christianity begin with the premise that man is not basically good and therefore regard man’s nature as the root of cause of evil. … When society blames evil on forces outside the individual rather than on the individuals who perpetrate evil, society will work to change those forces rather than work to improve the character of individuals. That is a key to understanding why the left constantly attempts to radically change society — how else make a better world? … There is no federal budget, no Senate or House bill, no social policy, no health care fix that can do as much good as a society that is filled with decent people.” –columnist Dennis Prager

Reader Comments

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The Gipper

“The Nativity story of nearly 20 centuries ago is … is the fulfillment of age-old prophecies and the reaffirmation of God’s great love for all of us. Through a generous Heavenly Father’s gift of His Son, hope and compassion entered a world weary with fear and despair and changed it for all time. On Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Christ with prayer, feasting, and great merriment. But, most of all, we experience it in our hearts. For, more than just a day, Christmas is a state of mind. It is found throughout the year whenever faith overcomes doubt, hope conquers despair, and love triumphs over hate. It is present when men of any creed bring love and understanding to the hearts of their fellow man. The feeling is seen in the wondrous faces of children and in the hopeful eyes of the aged. It overflows the hearts of cheerful givers and the souls of the caring. And it is reflected in the brilliant colors, joyful sounds, and beauty of the winter season. Let us resolve to honor this spirit of Christmas and strive to keep it throughout the year.” –Ronald Reagan

Opinion in Brief

“Assume you are a scientist and have been given a major financial grant to prove that the mythical unicorn really did exist. You know that as long as you can demonstrate some progress in showing the unicorn might have existed, your financial grant will be renewed each year, provided some other scientist does not come out with substantial evidence that the unicorn could not have existed. Under such conditions, you would have a very strong incentive to disregard much of the evidence that the unicorn could not have existed and each year provide only the data that could demonstrate that the unicorn might have existed. You also would have a very strong incentive to attack any scientist who raised serious questions or provided evidence that the unicorn could not have existed. You even might go so far as to refer to them with the disparaging term ‘unicorn deniers’ and attempt to use your influence with other scientists who also are receiving grants dependent on the existence of the unicorn to try to prevent the unicorn deniers from publishing their findings in well-regarded scientific journals. The recently released e-mails (by whistleblowers or hackers, depending on your prejudice) between some of the best-known scientists behind global warming showed that they succumbed to the all-too-human tendency to protect their turfs and pocketbooks, despite the evidence.” –columnist Richard W. Rahn

Political Futures

“Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress have drawn sharp ideological lines with Republicans — divisions understood best by each side’s strongest partisan supporters. For Democrats, Republicans are ’standing in the way’ of needed reforms. For Republicans, Democratic policies represent European-style government meddling. To many Republicans and conservatives, ‘bipartisanship’ in this type of environment is code for government doing even more. After a year of bailouts, czars, government takeovers, spending sprees and huge debt, many self-identified Republicans and conservative-to-moderate-leaning independents think more bipartisan success is not necessarily accomplishment or a positive outcome. So expect the paradox of partisanship to continue. While many will undoubtedly call for the machinery of Congress to operate smoothly, many important constituents will reward those who throw sand in the gears.” –columnist Gary Andres

For the Record

“He campaigned against private sector economic mismanagement, and the ‘harsh realities’ of global capitalism. He pledged during his campaign to end corruption in both the government, and the private sector. He campaigned against private sector economic mismanagement, and the ‘harsh realities’ of global capitalism. He pledged during his campaign to end corruption in both the government, and the private sector. After he took office, he claimed that he had ‘inherited’ the worst economic situation in his country’s recent history. And then, the new President sought to consolidate his power. Once privately-owned enterprises became government-owned and operated entities, and were ‘restructured’ so as to become, essentially, ‘workers’ cooperatives.’ Not surprisingly, unemployment remained persistently high, even as the new was implementing his much-celebrated ‘reform’ measures. And while private citizens had to struggle with the worsening economic conditions, government officials nonetheless continued to exert increasing levels of control over the nation’s wealth, and also continued to enrich themselves from that wealth, despite the suffering of ‘the governed.’ Does this seem like a description of the first 11 months of the Obama Presidency? What I’ve described here thus far portrays the conduct of President Obama and members of his Administration fairly succinctly. Yet, this is actually a description of the ascendency of Hugo Chavez, the once freely elected President and now rapidly-morphing-into-a-dictator of Venezuela.” –columnist Austin Hill

The Last Word

“Maybe when national universal health care fails, we’ll be able to go international. Then interplanetary — then interstellar! Why should I pay for my gall bladder surgery when some Venusian could? Eighty-five percent of Americans are happy with their health care, but Democrats have a plan to make it worse for more money. As a bonus, national health care will add trillions of dollars to the national debt, and your insurance rates will skyrocket. Democrats are being utterly disingenuous to say that you won’t have to leave your current plan under national health care. Maybe, but it won’t be your choice: Your employer will be making that decision for you. Recall that one of the big selling points of national health care is that it is supposed to reduce costs for American businesses. The only way national health care will make American companies ‘more competitive’ is if they dump their employees into the public health care system. It’s so weird! We expected X number of people to show up for health care and instead 75X showed up! Yeah, just like every other government program in the history of the world. Ten years from now, we’ll be talking about cost overruns of $6 trillion — but by then, national health care will be an untouchable ‘third rail’ of politics, just as Medicare is now. (Ironically, injuries sustained from actually touching the third rail won’t be covered under ObamaCare.) As with Medicare, voters will be terrified to go back to even the wisp of a free market system we have now, afraid that they’ll never be able to get health insurance without the government providing it. Having been dragged unwillingly into the government plan, how will a 58-year-old be able to leave the public system and get insurance on the free market? … The only solution will be for the government to keep running up gigantic deficits and raising taxes on ‘the rich,’ which, in turn, will stifle job creation and economic growth in a phenomenon known to economists as ‘the Carter years.’ In addition to forcing Americans into dealing with surly government workers in order to obtain medical care, sooner or later, there’s no free lunch.” –columnist Ann Coulter

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Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)

*PUBLIUS*

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