The Patriot Post Brief 12-7-2009

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The Patriot Post Brief 12-7-2009
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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The Foundation

"I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty." --Thomas Jefferson

Hundreds of private jets and limos bring smog to Copenhagen
Liberty

"With 20,000 delegates, advocates and journalists jetting to Copenhagen for planet Earth's last chance, the carbon footprint of the global warming summit will be the only impressive consequence of the climate change meeting. Its organizers had hoped it would produce binding caps on emissions, global taxation to redistribute trillions of dollars, and micromanagement of everyone's choices. China, nimble at the politics of pretending that is characteristic of climate change theater, promises only to reduce its 'carbon intensity' -- carbon emissions per unit of production. So China's emissions will rise. Barack Obama, understanding the histrionics required in climate change debates, promises that U.S. emissions in 2050 will be 83 percent below 2005 levels. If so, 2050 emissions will equal those in 1910, when there were 92 million Americans. But there will be 420 million in 2050, so Obama's promise means that per capita emissions then will be about what they were in 1875. That. Will. Not. Happen." --columnist George Will

Political Futures

"Whatever the final verdict on the [Climatic Research Unit's] shenanigans, two things are already firmly established by even a sympathetic reading of these documents. First, the climate-change industry is shot through with groupthink (or what climate scientist Judith Curry calls 'climate tribalism'). Activists would have us believe that the overwhelming majority of 'real' scientists agree with them while the few dissenters are all either crazed or greedy 'deniers' akin to flat-earthers and creationists. These e-mails show that what's really at work is a very large clique of scientists attempting to excommunicate perceived heretics for reasons that have more to do with psychology and sociology than physics or climatology. Second, the climate industry really is an industry. Climate scientists make their money and careers from government, academia, the United Nations, and foundations. The grantors want the grantees to confirm the global-warming 'consensus.' The tenure and peer-review processes likewise hinge on conformity. That doesn't necessarily mean climate change isn't happening, but it does mean sloppiness and bias are unavoidable." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

Remembering Pearl Harbor

"December 7, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. ... Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory. ... With confidence in our armed forces -- with the unbounded determination of our people -- we will gain the inevitable triumph -- so help us God." --Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat far removed from today's crop of defeatists

On that fateful "Day of Infamy," 353 Japanese planes attacked a military target killing 2,390 American servicemen and civilians and wounding 1,282. The attack sank or damaged eight battleships, three cruisers, three destroyers and one minelayer and destroyed 188 aircraft. It took four years and the full military-industrial capability of the United States to defeat Japan. It is with honor and respect for those who died or suffered terrible injuries that Sunday morning that we should never again fall into the slumber that allowed such a tragedy as Pearl Harbor -- or the attack on Sept. 11, 2001 -- again.

The Gipper

"The fact is that in the past few decades we have seen a dramatic shift in how we spend the taxpayer's dollar. Back in 1955, payments to individuals took up only about 20 percent of the federal budget. For nearly three decades, these payments steadily increased and, this year, will account for 49 percent of the budget. By contrast, in 1955 defense took up more than half of the federal budget. By 1980 this spending had fallen to a low of 23 percent. Even with the increase that I am requesting this year, defense will still amount to only 28 percent of the budget. The calls for cutting back the defense budget come in nice, simple arithmetic. They're the same kind of talk that led the democracies to neglect their defenses in the 1930s and invited the tragedy of World War II. We must not let that grim chapter of history repeat itself through apathy or neglect. ... Free people must voluntarily through open debate and democratic means, meet the challenge that totalitarians pose by compulsion. It's up to us, in our time, to choose and choose wisely between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day." --Ronald Reagan

Re: The Left

"There was too much 'I' in [Obama's West Point] speech. George H.W. Bush famously took the word 'I' out of his speeches -- we called them 'I-ectomies' -- because of a horror of appearing to be calling attention to himself. Mr. Obama is plagued with no such fears. 'When I took office ... I approved a long-standing request ... After consultations with our allies I then ... I set a goal.' That's all from one paragraph. Further down he used the word 'I' in three paragraphs an impressive 15 times. 'I believe I know' 'I have signed' 'I have read' 'I have visited.' I, I -- ay yi yi. This is a man badly in need of an I-ectomy. After the president announced his plan he seemed to slip in, 'After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.' Then came the reference to July 2011 as the date departure begins. It was startling to hear a compelling case for our presence followed so quickly by an abrupt announcement of our leaving. It sounded like a strategy based on the song Groucho Marx used to sing, 'Hello, I must be going.'" --columnist Peggy Noonan

Opinion in Brief

"Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America's new strategy for Afghanistan. It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric -- and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught. ... It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly. An additional 30,000 US soldiers are to march into Afghanistan -- and then they will march right back out again. America is going to war -- and from there it will continue ahead to peace. It was the speech of a Nobel War Prize laureate. For each troop movement, Obama had a number to match. US strength in Afghanistan will be tripled relative to the Bush years, a fact that is sure to impress hawks in America. But just 18 months later, just in time for Obama's re-election campaign, the horror of war is to end and the draw down will begin. The doves of peace will be let free. The speech continued in that vein. It was as though Obama had taken one of his old campaign speeches and merged it with a text from the library of ex-President George W. Bush. Extremists kill in the name of Islam, he said, before adding that it is one of the 'world's great religions.' He promised that responsibility for the country's security would soon be transferred to the government of President Hamid Karzai -- a government which he said was 'corrupt.' The Taliban is dangerous and growing stronger. But 'America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars,' he added. It was a dizzying combination of surge and withdrawal, of marching to and fro." --Der Spiegel columnist Gabor Steingart

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The Patriot Post Brief 12-7-2009
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Government

"Here is a math problem for you: Assume that the legislation establishing government control of medical care is passed and that it 'brings down the cost of medical care.' You pay $500 a year less for your medical care, but the new costs put on employers is passed on to consumers, so that you pay $300 a year more for groceries and $200 a year more for gasoline, while the new mandates put on insurance companies raise your premiums by $300 a year, how much money have you saved?" --economist Thomas Sowell

For the Record

"There is no other rational explanation for Obama's obsession to enact Obamacare than his desire to increase government control over every aspect of our lives. As others have noted, Obama and company have employed multiple gimmicks to conceal and misrepresent the true costs of Obamacare. Like other groups wanting to destroy America from the outside, liberals are patient. By backloading their spending, they hope to deceive Americans into thinking their plan is budget-neutral. Thus, their bills disguise their true net costs by deferring most new spending for five years (while increasing taxes and cutting Medicare almost immediately). This trick is so transparently deceitful that if attempted by a Republican administration, we'd have already heard rumblings for impeachment. Specifically, Democrats have said their proposal would cost $848 billion over 10 years, but the true cost would be some multiple of that. Using Congressional Budget Office figures, Investor's Business Daily reports that only 1 percent of the spending would come in the first four years of the 10 years the Democrats are counting (2010-13). If you begin the 10-year calculation in the year appreciable spending would begin -- 2014 -- the cost would be $1.8 trillion. (Sen. Judd Gregg, it should be noted, estimates the costs for that 10-year period -- 2014-23 -- would be much greater, at $2.5 trillion.) Over the next five years (2024-28 ), the costs would escalate even faster, totaling $1.7 trillion. In addition, the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon reveals another gimmick Democrats are using to understate the actual costs for the first true 10-year period. Obama, despite his campaign promises to the contrary, would force the voluntarily uninsured to purchase health insurance. Those mandated costs should be counted as a tax just as surely as if they were first paid to the government for distribution to the insurance companies. In fact, the CBO did score similar mandates as taxes under Hillary Clinton's reform plan in the '90s. But by treating these mandated costs as 'off-budget,' Obama hides 60 percent of the bill's total costs, according to Cannon. When all these gimmicks are correctly accounted for, says Cannon, 'the total cost of ObamaCare reaches ... $6.25 trillion.'" --columnist David Limbaugh

Faith & Family

"Michael Oher's story has already received much attention. How a homeless black 15-year-old winds up in a Christian private school and how a white Christian couple adopted him and helped him develop to get the grades to stay in school, become a star athlete, an All-American football player and a multimillion-dollar NFL draft pick. Our wake-up call should be that the factors that saved and transformed Michael Oher's life stand in stark contrast to the government solutions we hear from Washington about dealing with our problems relating to poverty and education. Oher's story is about private individuals, about personal choices and responsibility, and about Christians. ... Michael Oher ... couldn't have done it without a Christian school and his caring Christian adopted parents who loved him and respected his uniqueness. President Barack Obama's $4.5 billion in new education spending will not fix our education crisis. Government and moral relativism never has been the answer and will not be. School choice and traditional values are the answers. It's freedom, not bureaucrats, that produces miracles. Michael Oher may be an exceptional individual, but his story need not be an exceptional story." --columnist Star Parker

Reader Comments

"To use Psalm 109:8 as a prayer is wrong, and beneath the dignity of The Patriot Post. Should we extend that prayer one verse further to 109:9? 'May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.' Please not. His days should be around 1,460 and not one day more. I hope that in 2013 another will take his place! Paul, in Romans, teaches us that those in authority are placed there by God. Praying to our God to remove someone prematurely (wishing for the President's early demise) is wrong." --Don

Editor's Reply: Notably, we stopped with verse 8, though we're certain that David meant every word of the whole Psalm.

"Amen, preach it brother! Would to God the other 33 million Obama voters would wake up in time for the 2010 and 2012 elections. If Obama were familiar with sacred Scripture, he would know that 'The sins of some men are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later.'" (1 Timothy 5:24)." --Roger

"I've been a reader for many years now, and have given donations to you in the past. However, in the last few years I have to subsist on SS Disability, so I am limited as to how much I can donate. Today I took some of my 'Christmas Money' and have sent you a 'Family Donation.' I know it's not much, but I'm sure you will put it to good use. I have been forwarding a number of your posts to friends and family with the Barney Frank quote of 'Be afwaid, be vewy afwaid'! Keep up the good work." --Roger, Wilson, NC

The Last Word

"As we now know (and by 'we' I mean 'everyone with access to the Internet'), the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has just been caught ferociously manipulating the data about the Earth's temperature. Recently leaked e-mails from the 'scientists' at CRU show that, when talking among themselves, they forthrightly admit to using a 'trick' to 'hide the decline' in the Earth's temperature since 1960 -- as one e-mail says. Still another describes their manipulation of the data thus: 'We can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!' Am I just crazy from the heat or were they trying to deceive us? Global warming cheerleaders in the media were quick to defend the scandalous e-mails, explaining that, among scientists, the words 'trick,' 'hide the decline' and 'garbage' do not mean 'trick,' 'hide the decline' and 'garbage.' These words actually mean 'onion soup,' 'sexual submissive' and 'Gary, Ind.' (Boy, it must be great to be able to redefine words right in the middle of a debate.) Also, of course, the defenders said that the words needed to be placed 'in context' -- the words' check was in the mail, and they'd like to spend more time with their families. I have placed the words in context and it turns out what they mean is: gigantic academic fraud. ... The way this episode is unfolding, the environmentalists may be forced to drop their phantom threat of global warming and go back to the phantom threat of global cooling." --columnist Ann Coulter

*****

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.)