The Patriot Post Brief 08-42

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Brief 08-42
From The Federalist Patriot
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THE FOUNDATION: ADVICE

“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.”  - George Washington

RE: THE LEFT

“’You’ve got only a couple thousand bucks in the bank. Your job pays you dog-food wages. Your credit history has been bent, stapled, and mutilated. You declared bankruptcy in 1989. Don’t despair: You can still buy a house.’ So began an April 1995 article in the Chicago Sun-Times that went on to direct prospective home-buyers fitting this profile to a group of far-left ‘community organizers’ called ACORN, for assistance. In retrospect, of course, encouraging customers like this to buy homes seems little short of madness. At the time, however, that 1995 Chicago newspaper article represented something of a triumph for Barack Obama. That same year, as a director at Chicago’s Woods Fund, Obama was successfully pushing for a major expansion of assistance to ACORN, and sending still more money ACORN’s way from his post as board chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Through both funding and personal-leadership training, Obama supported ACORN. And ACORN, far more than we’ve recognized up to now, had a major role in precipitating the subprime crisis... In June of 1995, President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and Secretary Cisneros announced the administration’s comprehensive new strategy for raising home-ownership in America to an all-time high. Representatives from ACORN were guests of honor at the ceremony. In his remarks, Clinton emphasized that: ‘Our homeownership strategy will not cost the taxpayers one extra cent. It will not require legislation.’ Clinton meant that informal partnerships between Fannie and Freddie and groups like ACORN would make mortgages available to customers ‘who have historically been excluded from homeownership.’ In the end of course, Clinton’s plan cost taxpayers an almost unimaginable amount of money. And it was just around the time of his 1995 announcement that the Chicago papers started encouraging bad-credit customers with ‘dog-food’ wages, little money in the bank, and even histories of bankruptcy to apply for home loans with the help of ACORN...ACORN is at the base of the whole mess... And Barack Obama cut his teeth as an organizer and politician backing up ACORN’s economic madness every step of the way.”  - Stanley Kurtz

POLITICAL FUTURES

“The Dow’s nose-diving, stocks are looking at their worst year since 1937. At the debate we were offered the curious spectacle of two candidates both of whom essentially take the same line on this stuff - Wall Street greed, special interests, lobbyists, the usual populist boilerplate. And yet for a pair of guys who both believe in big government solutions, everything they said seemed small and tinny. Epic events swirled all around, but the two men fighting to lead the global superpower could only joust with cardboard swords: Why, Obama was such a bold leader on this issue that only two years ago he ‘sent a letter’ to somebody or other. Why, long before Obama sent his letter, McCain ‘issued a statement.’... The Republican candidate’s tragedy in this election is that he’s chosen to fight on Obama turf, to share so many of his assumptions. At a McCain rally in Wisconsin, a fellow in the crowd announced he was mad as hell and got a standing ovation. What was he mad about’? Obama, Pelosi and ‘the socialists taking over our country.’ McCain listened politely and then pledged to get back to Washington to reach across the aisle to work on some gargantuan bipartisan cure-all. Not the answer that chap wanted to hear, I’ll wager. If the more frightening polls are correct, America is about to elect the most left-wing government in history: an Obama Oval Office, a Pelosi House of Representatives, a filibuster-proof Senate... and a year or two down the road maybe three new Supreme Court justices. It would be a transformational administration that would start building (in Michelle Obama’s words) ‘the world as it should be’.”  - Mark Steyn
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[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Brief 08-42
From The Federalist Patriot
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GOVERNMENT

“Now, the U.S. Treasury is considering buying banks. Buying banks. That is to say that if Bob’s Bank in Godknowswhere, West Wiscarolina is going under, the U.S. Department of the Treasury is considering bailing out Bob’s Bank by buying it. Here’s the Washington Post’s take on this excellent new obligation you and I are about to take on: ‘The Bush administration is hammering out the final details of a plan that would allow the government to inject cash into banks in exchange for ownership stakes in an effort to shore up confidence in the faltering financial system, according to officials and sources who have been in contact with the Treasury Department.’ I do not want to own Bob’s Bank. Or any other bank. Especially if the geniuses who have been running the bank have run the bank into the ground. What am I missing here? If you read the WashPost’s report on what the Administration is now proposing, you and I are going to be on the hook for the banks’ bad loans. But, because our money is not THEIR money, the Post reports ‘What is less clear is what strings would be attached, particularly regarding the compensation of top executives at participating banks.’ Here’s my plan for compensation of top execs at participating banks: Nothing. Nada. Zero. Bubkis. Not a farthing. If those executives don’t like my compensation plan? They can quit. They can leave in a huff. If they don’t like that, they can leave - in the words of the Marx Brothers - they can leave in a minute an a huff. We’ll get someone else. How about the guy who slices the bagels at the breakfast place on Pennsylvania Avenue? He cannot possibly do any worse than the slug with an MBA from Harvard. Am I wrong? I want the people who got us into this mess drawn and quartered. I do not want them to go to the Spa at some five star hotel in California on my dime. Or yours.”  - Rich Galen

THE GIPPER

“Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.”  - Ronald Reagan

OPINION IN BRIEF

“What’s the difference between the right to free speech - which is enshrined in the Constitution - versus the ‘right’ to health care, which is not? Well, back in the day, we would simply say that a right has legal authority - it’s in the Constitution and therefore it’s a not just a right, it’s a birthright. So why shouldn’t we amend the Constitution to include the rights to health care, food, housing, education - all the rest? What’s the difference between the rights we have and the ‘rights’ Obama wants to give us? Simply this: Constitutional rights protect us from things: intimidation, illegal search and seizure, self-incrimination, and so on. The revolutionary idea of our Founding Fathers was that people had a God-given right to live as they saw fit. Our constitutional rights protect us from the power of government. But these new so-called ‘rights’ are about the government - who the Founders saw as the enemy - giving us things: food, health care, education... And when we have a right to be given stuff that previously we had to work for, then there is no reason - none - to go and work for them. The goody bag has no bottom, except bankruptcy and ruin.”  - Bill Whittle

FAMILY

“Does it matter if Barack Obama is for sex education in kindergarten? It matters more than most things that are called ‘the real issues.’... Because one of the biggest and realest of all issues is the outlook and character of the President of the United States... What does being in favor of sex education in kindergarten tell us about the outlook and character of this largely unknown man who has suddenly appeared on the national scene to claim the highest office in the land? It gives us an insight into the huge gulf between Senator Obama’s election-year image and what he has actually been for and against over the preceding decades. It also shows the huge gulf between his values and those of most other Americans. Many Americans would consider sex education for kindergartners to be absurd but there is more to it than that. What is called ‘sex education,’ whether for kindergartners or older children, is not education about biology but indoctrination in values that go against the traditional values that children learn in their families and in their communities. Obviously, the earlier this indoctrination begins, the better its chances of overriding traditional values... Sex education for kindergartners is just one of many issues on which Barack Obama has lined up consistently on the side of arrogant elitists of the Far Left.”  - Thomas Sowell
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[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Brief 08-42
From The Federalist Patriot
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CULTURE

“Obama... sneers at the culture of middle America. Obama is the one who said that working-class Americans ‘get bitter, they cling to guns or religion as a way to explain their frustrations.’ It was Obama whose own autobiography portrays himself not as somebody who transcends race but somebody who wallows in it, somebody not integrationist but separationist, somebody who sees white people not as able to be redeemed of racism but as people to whom racism was endemic. ‘The other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart,’ he wrote... What’s worse is that Obama would impose his culture on the rest of us, through judges that go beyond the text of the Constitution to give legal status to their own expressions of ‘empathy’.”  - Quin Hillyer

LIBERTY

“I would appeal to... all Americans to acknowledge that the preservation of our liberties ultimately depends on the enormous dedication and self-sacrifice of our military men and women. I am very concerned about whether our professional class, buffed all shiny and bright by the elite universities, will ever have the will or stamina to defend this nation in a major crisis. As I’ve predicted for years, we’re heading down a path similar to that of the Roman empire - with a sophisticated, self-absorbed upper class enjoying a comfortable lifestyle whose security is maintained by a career military (increasingly foreign or mercenary as Rome declined). Soldiers must do or die by the good judgment or shallow caprice of a nation’s leaders, who are the ones who bear all moral responsibility in this matter.”  - Camille Paglia

U.S. NAVY BIRTHDAY

On 13 October 1775, the U.S. Navy was born when the Continental Congress authorized the arming of two sailing vessels with 80 men and 10 carriage guns in order to intercept British supply and munitions transports. The Declaration of Independence came nine months later, followed by the creation of the Department of the Navy in 1798. Today, our Navy is the most powerful in the world. We at The Patriot offer our thanks to all our sailors for a job well done and wish you a Happy 233rd Birthday! God bless you and your families.

SELECT READER COMMENTS

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“Mark Alexander’s article on Presidential Character is absolutely spot on. Regarding the character of the Founding Fathers, it is no wonder they were able to lead (serve) as successfully as they did. It is sad that a mere 232 years has morphed our republic such that empty suits are even considered to be eligible to lead this great nation.”  - Kingwood, Texas

“I am no fan of Obama, but this case will not be made with weak and ineffective arguments. This essay was weak and ineffective. Quoting dead people does not constitute an effective argument. At no point in this essay did the author cite any evidence with regard to Obama’s character. The case that he does not have the character to be president was thus not made.”  - Northridge, California

Editor’s Reply: These were not just any dead people, but the Founders of our country. It was left to the reader to judge where and how Obama’s character fell short. Some obviously lack the discernment to do so.

“Alexander’s essay on Presidential Character says what so many of us would like to scream out to all our citizens. We are so close to losing what our Founding Fathers fought so hard to give us. Our God-given liberty is slipping away and half of our citizens of this great country just don’t get it. I am frustrated and angry; I just pray there are enough of us to give the McCain/Palin ticket the edge on November 4th.”  - Edmonds, Washington

THE LAST WORD

“One had the sense this week that our entire political class is playing Frisbee on the edge of a precipice, that no one is being serious enough, honest enough, that it’s all too revved, too intense, and yet too shallow. I have grown impatient with the strategists from the campaigns, the little blond monsters who go on cable TV to give us their bouncy, aggressive, tendentious talking points. They are like the men on the plane, the gargoyles with BlackBerrys who think the race is about them and their personal win/loss ratio, who think history is their plaything, who stay up with the press in the bar sipping Perrier and calling it seltzer, and who advise their candidates, in essence, to talk down to the voters, to the American people. They treat every crisis as if it is a political fact to be used for gain or loss, and not as a real crisis, something that deserves a response of gravity and seriousness. It is asking a lot to ask a political animal to be thoughtful, because they find meaning in action. They are propelled through life by the force of their hunger. But now and then you want to see them think. You want to see them speak the truth. This is one of those times.”  - Peggy Noonan

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.)