The Patriot Post Brief 9-36

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Brief 9-36
From The Federalist Patriot
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THE FOUNDATION

"Work as if you were to live 100 Years, Pray as if you were to die To-morrow." --Benjamin Franklin

THE GIPPER

"It gives me great pleasure to pay tribute to the working men and women of America on Labor Day. This occasion brings deserved attention to those who have toiled to build our nation and to shape a prosperous life out of the dreams of early immigrants. Today we recognize the honor and value of all work and the great distinction that flows from a job well done. From those who first carved a nation out of the wilderness to those who helped cross, settle and build this country, the working people have made immeasurable contributions to the advancement of our way of life. Through their spirit, minds, and muscles, America's workers have created a modern industrial giant. They have sustained the traditional values of family, work, and neighborhood while serving as the bulwark of American democracy and lending support to the fundamental tenets of our free enterprise system." --Ronald Reagan

INSIGHT

"I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can reestablish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty." --President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)

Barack Obama: Role model
FAITH AND FAMILY

"My wife Diane seldom gets upset about politics. But President Barack Obama's recent demonstration of megalomania in insisting on beginning the school year by simultaneously addressing all public school kids in the United States elicited a concise response: 'it's sick.' In addition to her Ph.D. in psychology, Diane holds an M.A. in Education, and both primary and secondary teaching credentials in California. She has raised and educated our three kids, each of whom received some combination of home schooling, parochial education, and public schools. What bothers her (and many courageous teachers across the country) is the crude attempt by the Department of Education and the White House to blur all distinctions between education and cult-of-personality propaganda. On September 8th ... the President will address them live about the importance of education. ... To prepare for this great event, the Department of Education orders teachers in Grades 7 to 12 to ask their students: Why does President Obama want to speak with us today? How will he inspire us? How will he challenge us? ... For those who consider this an appropriate use of classroom time at the very beginning of the school year, ask yourself the question: how would you respond had President Bush ordered teachers to get students to write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president? ... The idea of using government schools to force students to bond with the maximum leader might seem appropriate for Cuba or North Korea, but it's clearly out of place in a Constitutional republic." --radio talk-show host Michael Medved

CULTURE

"Obama's advisors think the answer to every problem is more cowbell, if by 'cowbell' you mean 'Obama.' It's like Obama guru David Axelrod is the Christopher Walken character from the 'Saturday Night Live' skit about Blue Oyster Cult (if you don't know the reference, Google 'cowbell'). Every time someone comes up with an alternative to throwing Obama on TV, Axelrod says, 'No, no, no. Guess what? I got a fever, and the only prescription ... is more Obama!' ... But what is lacking is not cowbell, it's substance the American people can support. Obama will reportedly be 'more specific,' but he won't commit himself to any particular piece of legislation. This suggests that the White House still thinks it has a communication problem, and if only it dispels the cloud of 'lies' belched up by the opposition, there will be nothing but blue skies ahead. Funny how the people who run the most sophisticated communication operation in the history of the presidency keep concluding that their difficulties stem from their inability to get their message out and never from what their message actually is. And so, rather than change the substance of the message, they're grabbing an even bigger megaphone: an address to a joint session of Congress. ... Just seven months into Obama's presidency, the White House is turning up the speakers on the cowbell as loud as they will go. And, heck, if you love cowbell, it's going to be a real treat. But in all the ways that matter, it may just end up being more noise." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

OPINION IN BRIEF

"Liberals never, ever drop a heinous idea; they just change the name. 'Abortion' becomes 'choice,' 'communist' becomes 'progressive,' 'communist dictatorship' becomes 'people's democratic republic' and 'Nikita Khrushchev' becomes 'Barack Obama.' It doesn't matter if liberals start calling national health care a 'chocolate chip puppy' or 'ice cream sunset' -- if the government is subsidizing it, then the government calls the shots. And the moment the government gets its hands on the controls, it will be establishing death panels, forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions and illegal aliens, rationing care and then demanding yet more government control when partial government control creates a mess. Which happens to be exactly what liberals are doing right now." --columnist Ann Coulter

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Brief 9-36
From The Federalist Patriot
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GOVERNMENT

"President Obama and congressional supporters estimate that his health care plan will cost between $50 and $65 billion a year. Such cost estimates are lies whether they come from a Democratic president and Congress, or a Republican president and Congress. ... At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee, along with President Johnson, estimated that Medicare would cost an inflation-adjusted $12 billion by 1990. In 1990, Medicare topped $107 billion. That's nine times Congress' prediction. Today's Medicare tab comes to $420 billion with no signs of leveling off. How much confidence can we have in any cost estimates by the White House or Congress? Another part of the Medicare lie is found in Section 1801 of the 1965 Medicare Act that reads: 'Nothing in this title shall be construed to authorize any federal officer or employee to exercise any supervision or control over the practice of medicine, or the manner in which medical services are provided, or over the selection, tenure, or compensation of any officer, or employee, or any institution, agency or person providing health care services.' Ask your doctor or hospital whether this is true." --economist Walter E. Williams

POLITICAL FUTURES

"Political guru Charlie Cook is predicting Democrats will lose 20+ seats in the House of Representatives next year. Pollsters Zogby, Gallup, Rasmussen all show a striking downward trajectory of public approval for this administration, across almost every major demographic group. So why is this happening? It's true that President Obama won last November because people wanted a change from Bush policies. But for many independent voters, that meant an end to dirty politics and Washington excess -- promises Obama made at every stop along the campaign trail. Instead what they got is what most conservatives predicted -- huge deficits, higher taxes, a ballooning federal government, and a weak, appeasement-first foreign policy. ... In the end, history will likely show that when Obama started dropping in the polls, it wasn't because 'he took on too much at once' or 'because he wasted time negotiating with Chuck Grassley.' He lost ground because his ideas were rejected by the American people, just as they were after the Carter era." --radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham

RE: THE LEFT

"What does it take for some to wake up? When Obama publicly asserts that some corporations, including 'Big Oil' and medical insurance companies, make 'obscene profits' (they don't compared with many other industries) and that his 'compensation czar' will look into executive compensation, what does that tell you? When he argues that medical insurance companies need a 'public option' (before public opinion forced him to back away from it) to keep them 'honest,' what does that say? When he arrogantly claims that fighting 'global warming' and tackling the 'health care crisis' are not just moral imperatives but also necessary to keep our economy robust (?!), what does that show? Voters last year elected a left-wing former 'community organizer' with one of the Senate's most liberal voting records. He seeks to take the country -- over the growing resistance of even those who voted for him -- to an idealized world of government-guaranteed equality of outcomes. He wants a government-guaranteed 'level playing field' of wealth redistribution via taxing those deemed to have too much. Obama's goals are open, blatant and confidently asserted, backed by a filibuster-proof, supermajority, Democratic-controlled Congress. There is no Big Secret, no subterfuge, no bait-and-switch. This is who and what he is." --columnist Larry Elder

FOR THE RECORD

"The belief that the tax code is skewed to benefit the rich is one that many Americans share. When pollsters ask whether high-income people are paying too much, too little, or their fair share in federal taxes, 60 percent or more of respondents routinely answer: too little. But the data tell a different story. By any reasonable standard the rich pay far more than their fair share. According to the latest (2007) IRS data, the top 1 percent of US taxpayers earn 22.8 percent of adjusted gross income but pay 40.4 percent of all federal income taxes. By contrast, the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers, who earn 62.5 percent of the income, pay just 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. That bears repeating: The income tax burden of the top 1 percent, who comprise just 1.4 million taxpayers, now exceeds that of the bottom 134 million combined. While economic resentment makes a potent political brew, the hangover it leaves can be fierce. Democrats should resist the clamor to soak the rich, and remember instead Paul Tsongas's admonition: 'No goose, no golden eggs.'" --columnist Jeff Jacoby

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The Patriot Post Brief 9-36
From The Federalist Patriot
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LIBERTY

"Adam Smith [once] said, 'Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.' That lesson seems to have been forgotten in America ... where so many people seem to have been far more concerned about whether we have been nice enough to the mass-murdering terrorists in our custody than those critics have ever been about the innocent people beheaded or blown up by the terrorists themselves. ... Those who are pushing for legal action against CIA agents may talk about 'upholding the law' but they are doing no such thing. Neither the Constitution of the United States nor the Geneva Convention gives rights to terrorists who operate outside the law. ... So many 'rights' have been conjured up out of thin air that many people seem unaware that rights and obligations derive from explicit laws, not from politically correct pieties. If you don't meet the terms of the Geneva Convention, then the Geneva Convention doesn't protect you. If you are not an American citizen, then the rights guaranteed to American citizens do not apply to you. That should be especially obvious if you are part of an international network bent on killing Americans. But bending over backward to be nice to our enemies is one of the many self-indulgences of those who engage in moral preening. But getting other people killed so that you can feel puffed up about yourself is profoundly immoral. So is betraying the country you took an oath to protect." --economist Thomas Sowell

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

(To submit reader comments visit our Letters to the Editor page.)

"Alexander's essay, 'Rule of Law' is the most cogent analysis of the constitutional crisis we face that I have read in my 33 years of practicing law. I am of the opinion that the Rule of Law has given way to the Tyranny of Lawyers. I fear for my Country and for our freedoms when the lawyers that are charged with 'protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States' are so poorly educated in the true meaning of liberty, and are indoctrinated with the errant and poisonous notion of a 'Living Constitution.'" --Denver, Colorado

"I graduated from Columbia Law School when 'judicial activism' was called 'sociological jurisprudence.' Clearly we were better off with the Constitution's framework of limited federal power and state sovereignty envisioned by our Founders before the Left adulterated our Constitution. What we have now is a remote, arrogant, dictatorial, condescending and dishonest regime -- all to much like that of the English at the time of the Revolution." --Bellevue, Washington

"I am 16 years old and an avid reader of The Patriot Post. My only problem with it is that it's too short and I get done reading it! I would read The Patriot all the time if I could. God bless you, and keep up the good work!" --Starkville, Mississippi

THE LAST WORD

"We get angry with politicians a lot. They seem to behave erratically and often work against our interests. At times, it's like they don't even hear us. It's frustrating. They just seem like bad politicians, running around trying to pass laws they haven't even read. We get angry and want to yell at them, but that only makes things worse. I think we need a new model for approaching politicians. My suggestion: Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer. ... As Cesar will tell you, dogs and politicians often act out because they don't know what's expected of them. To help with that, they need rules, boundaries, and limitations. For instance, our dog isn't allowed in the kitchen. We make that clear to her by calmly making her leave any time she tries to enter. She constantly tests this since we just moved into a new house, but as long as we're consistent, she will understand what her boundaries are. Politicians are the same way. Their rules, boundaries, and limitations are clearly defined in the Constitution, but the key is to be consistent in enforcing them so politicians will know what we expect of them. For example, socialism is clearly not allowed, but politicians are constantly testing this boundary and often ignoring it entirely. Why? We're not always consistent about it. When the economy got so bad, we got tired of telling the politicians no and let them take over the auto industry. You can see why they're now confused as to why we're angry at them for trying to take over health care; it's because we weren't consistent. These mixed messages confuse and frustrate dogs and politicians and maybe even cause them to lash out. ... Finally, Cesar constantly reminds everyone that dogs and politicians are not people, and you have to treat them like what they are: dogs and politicians. It can be frustrating when you've told the dog to stop barking for the fortieth time and told the politician to keep his hands off your wallet for the sixtieth time, but if you're consistent, calm and assertive, give clear rules, boundaries, and limitations, and only give affection after exercise and discipline, you can have well-behaved canines and legislators." --columnist Frank J. Fleming

*****

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.)