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THE FOUNDATION: BUREAUCRACY

“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

POLITICAL FUTURES

“Politics has its puzzling moments. John McCain and most of the GOP experienced one late last week. That was when five of their own set about dismantling the best issue Republicans have in the upcoming election. It’s taken time, but Sen. McCain and his party have finally found - in energy - an issue that’s working for them. Riding voter discontent over high gas prices, the GOP has made antidrilling Democrats this summer’s headlines. Their enthusiasm has given conservative candidates a boost in tough races. And Mr. McCain has pressured Barack Obama into an energy debate, where the Democrat has struggled to explain shifting and confused policy proposals. Still, it was probably too much to assume every Republican would work out that their side was winning this issue. And so, [on 1 August], in stumbled Sens. Lindsey Graham, John Thune, Saxby Chambliss, Bob Corker and Johnny Isakson - alongside five Senate Democrats. This ‘Gang of 10’ announced a ‘sweeping’ and ‘bipartisan’ energy plan to break Washington’s energy ‘stalemate.’ What they did was throw every vulnerable Democrat, and Mr. Obama, a life preserver. That’s because the plan is a Democratic giveaway. New production on offshore federal lands is left to state legislatures, and then in only four coastal states. The regulatory hurdles are huge. And the bill bars drilling within 50 miles of the coast - putting off limits some of the most productive areas. Alaska’s oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is still a no-go. The highlight is instead $84 billion in tax credits, subsidies and federal handouts for alternative fuels and renewables. The Gang of 10 intends to pay for all this in part by raising taxes on... oil companies! The Sierra Club couldn’t have penned it better. And so the Republican Five has potentially given antidrilling Democrats the political cover they need to neutralize energy through November.”  - Kimberley Strassel

FOR THE RECORD

“Barack Obama remains opposed to new offshore drilling (although he now says he would accept a highly restricted version as part of a comprehensive package). Just [recently], he claimed that if only Americans would inflate their tires properly and get regular tune-ups, ‘we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling.’ This is bizarre. By any reasonable calculation of annual tire-inflation and tune-up savings, the Outer Continental Shelf holds nearly a hundred times as much oil. As for oil shale, also under federal moratorium, after a thousand years of driving with Obama-inflated tires and Obama-tuned engines, we would still have saved only one-fifth the oil shale available in the United States.”  - Charles Krauthammer

FAMILY

“It’s always good to take a break from the madding crowd, but especially now that American politics has surpassed itself in self-mockery. After four days avoiding television, blogs, YouTube, and cell phones, it is possible to wonder how we get so exercised about the insignificant. Not that politics isn’t important. The debate about what role government should play in our lives is no small thing. And while we can’t all kick back at once and hope that our enemies work out their anger issues, a little perspective is salutary and productive in a fallow field kind of way... The family is what gives our life meaning and makes our nation strong. The family is also what keeps government at a respectful distance - working for us and not the other way around. All our political choices should be made in the service of that understanding. That’s all. And we’ve got work to do.”  - Kathleen Parker

CULTURE

“Mapping America, a project cataloguing the societal effects of the family and church, has found that adolescents from broken homes are much more likely to use hard drugs, according to data from the National Longitudinal Sample of Adolescent Health. Of adolescents who live with married or cohabiting parents or with an always-single parent, up to 11% have used hard drugs. When their living environment has been disrupted, however, that number shoots up: 15% for adolescents living with divorcees, 18% for those in stepfamilies, and 19% for those living with one biological parent in a cohabiting relationship. Divorce and parental separation increase both the likelihood of trying drugs and the amount of drug addiction and intravenous use, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fourteen-year-olds of divorced parents are nearly four times more likely to try illegal drugs and twice as likely to use them as adults. What can be done? Sometimes - not always, but sometimes - complex problems can be addressed with simple solutions. In the case of teenager and pre-teenager drug abuse, a little bit of faith can go a long way.”  - Ken Blackwell

THE GIPPER

“I have always believed that America is strongest and freest and happiest when it is truest to the wisdom of its Founders. In Federalist 45, James Madison wrote that ‘The powers delegated by the Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Government are numerous and indefinite.’ Or to put it another way, ‘We the People.’ As long as we remember these words - ’We the People’  - and make them our guide, so long as we remember that America has always drawn its inspiration from the people and has always been governed best when governed most by those governments closest to the people, America will remain strong and free, the envy of the world.”  - Ronald Reagan
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GOVERNMENT

“Edgar K. Browning, professor of economics at Texas A&M University, has a new book aptly titled ‘Stealing from Each Other.’ Its subtitle, ‘How the Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit,’ goes to the heart of what the book is about. The rise of equalitarian ideology has driven Americans to steal from one another. Browning explains that certain kinds of equality have been a cherished value in America. Equality under the law and, within reason, equality of opportunity is consistent with a free society. Equality of results is an anathema to a free society and within it lie the seeds of tyranny... [Browning]... reminds us of the biblical admonition ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ Government income redistribution programs produce the same result as theft. In fact, that’s what a thief does; he redistributes income. The difference between government and thievery is mostly a matter of legality. Browning’s solution is captured in the title of his last chapter, ‘Just Say No,’ where he proposes, ‘The federal government shall not adopt any policies that transfer income (resources) from some Americans to other Americans.’ He agrees with James Madison, the father of our Constitution, who said, ‘I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents’.”  - Walter Williams

RE: THE LEFT

“It’s getting tricky to know how to refer to he who presumes to be the next president. It was made clear several months ago that mentioning his middle name is a forbidden act. (Pass out more eggshells.) Then, having nothing honorable to say, Obama warned his followers last week that Sen. McCain would try to scare voters by pointing to Obama’s ‘funny name’ and the fact that ‘he doesn’t look like all the presidents on the dollar bills.’... But He has made it clear that the mere use of His name would be freighted with coded innuendoes of something too horrible to say straightforwardly. One has to go back to Exodus 3:13-14 to find such strict instructions concerning the use of a name. Moses explained: ‘Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?’ And God said to Moses, ‘I Am Who I Am.’ And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’ ‘So perhaps we can call Him, for short, Sen. I Am (full code name: I Am who you have been waiting for). ... [T]he more I watch this man the more stunned I am at His overconfidence and towering pride.”  - Tony Blankley

CAMPAIGN WATCH

“You’re in a plane and you’re flying over the campaign at a level of about 10,000 feet, and you look down and see: Not much has changed. Battle lines fixed, topography the same, troops pretty much where they were. But land the plane, walk around and talk to people, and you realize: This thing is moving. Things are shifting around a bit. That’s what I see looking back at the past four weeks. For the first time the idea began to take hold that John McCain can win this thing. You saw the USA Today-Gallup poll this week, with Mr. McCain gaining six points since late June among those Gallup dubbed likely voters. Mr. McCain took the lead, 49% to 45%. Among registered voters, it’s still Barack Obama, 47% to 44%. A poll came out saying people are tired of hearing about Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain took the lead in YouTube hits. Small stuff, and there will be a lot of twists and turns before this is over, but there’s movement down there beneath the crust of the Earth.”  - Peggy Noonan

SELECT READER COMMENTS

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“Jonah Goldberg’s editorial was great. Finally someone on the scene who thoroughly understands Alaska! Jonah’s editorial is absolutely on the money and also can be applied to drilling off of the coasts. California has a huge budget problem and the politicians have as yet to figure out that the answer lies on their coastline.”  - Santa Rosa, California

“Senator Obama has me convinced. I have freed all my slaves, and will pay each one of them $1,000,000 in reparations. I will use the rest of my money to inflate my tires at the local convenience store and to buy a tank of gas. Thank heavens for the astute senator. Why didn’t I think of this earlier?”  - Dillon, South Carolina

“Wouldn’t it be nice to see the environmentalists put humanity ahead of animals? It seems they think human beings are the lowest form of life and heaven forbid, if that need gets in the way of their crazy, outmoded agenda!”  - Elizabethtown, Louisiana
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THE LAST WORD

“Call our politicians and tell them to stay on vacation. Call the caribou roaming in Alaska and tell them they’re safe. Call the Saudi king and tell him what you really think of his oil. I, Glenn Beck, a recovering alcoholic rodeo clown, have come up with a solution to America’s energy crisis... and you’re wearing it. Look at yourself right now. You’ve probably got on a shirt, socks, shoes, jewelry, maybe even some pants. Do you have any idea how much all of that weighs? If people really loved America, they would strip down, leave their clothes at home, and drive around buck naked. That would decrease the weight of our cars, which would increase our gas mileage so dramatically that we probably wouldn’t have to drill for any new oil! Genius, right? Of course, my idea has about as much of a chance to make a real difference in our energy crisis as the suggestion that Barack Obama recently made. ‘Making sure your tires are properly inflated, simple thing,’ Obama said. ‘But we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling, if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tune-ups. You could actually save just as much.’... Michael Grunwald recently wrote an article [in Time magazine] titled, ‘The Tire-Gauge Solution: No Joke,’ that probably would’ve been harsher on Obama if it was written by Barack himself. It’s more love-sonnet than journalism. ‘Meanwhile,’ he wrote, ‘efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3 percent and regular maintenance can add another 4 percent. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.’ Of course he’s right; he’s Barack Obama, savior of the universe! But one phrase that he used deserves a little more attention: ‘but if everyone did.’ ‘But if everyone’ donated their organs then people wouldn’t die waiting for them. ‘But if everyone’ ate only lettuce then our health care system would be fixed. ‘But if everyone’ just sent me one dollar then I’d retire with $300 million in the bank. Of course, the reality is that people still die waiting for organs, obesity is an epidemic, and I’m still writing these columns.”  - Glenn Beck

Veritas vos Liberabit - Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot 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.)