The Patriot Post Chronicle 12-14-2009

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The Patriot Post Chronicle 12-14-2009
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation

"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." --James Madison

Editorial Exegesis

"The White House thinks it can jawbone banks into lending to people they don't want to lend to. We've been down this road before, and it led all the way to the 2007 financial meltdown. The president on Monday gave a tongue-lashing to the 'fat-cat bankers on Wall Street,' as he called them the day before. He wants them to make more loans to small businesses and consumers to give the economy a boost. But should banks be lending just because a politician tells them to? We tried this before. Indeed, it's the very source of the financial and economic calamity of the past two years. President Obama may think dressing down the top dogs at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and others is good politics. But it's demoralizing and will only lead to more bank write-offs, more bank failures and less lending. ... In this, President Obama is treading the very same ground as President Clinton and President Bush in pushing banks to make risky loans they shouldn't make. And it will have the same dire results. For those who don't remember, the federal government became more involved than ever in determining how banks make their loans -- and to what customers -- thanks to the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of the wreckage of the Great Depression. They were followed by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975, the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 and the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992. Go back to the 1970s and early 1990s you'll see that, just as today, bankers were criticized heavily for their alleged racism and lack of concern for the poor. President after president lambasted them for not lending more to support presidential social policies. By 2000, President Clinton's HUD required half of Fannie Mae's loan originations to go to poor and moderate-income borrowers -- whether they could pay on the loans or not. It marked the triumph of leftist politics over financial common sense. This is how the subprime meltdown, the source of our current financial troubles, came about. Not by 'greedy' banks or by 'deregulation.'" --Investor's Business Daily

Upright

"Every day that President Obama pushes for the government take over of health care he injures families by the thousands across America. Every day that President Obama contemplates the idea of spending trillions more of yours and my tax dollars, the less the chances of his being able to reduce the non-voluntary unemployment/under-employment rates that are now drastically impacting one out of every five families in America." --columnist Kevin McCullough

"As the Democrats inexorably slog toward the finish line, lugging and wrenching their malformed health care bill, the most passionate debate has been on contentious issues like abortion, the public option, and Medicare cuts. Yet the overriding danger of the Senate bill and its House counterpart is the massive government bureaucracies that will emerge as the legislation takes effect. The Democrats' colossal experiment threatens to unleash forces that will ultimately overwhelm the doctor-patient relationship, ration our health care, and stifle innovation and excellence in the medical field. A massive government bureaucracy soon acquires a life of its own, with dominion over its constituency that no politician dares attempt to rein in." --columnist Joseph Smith

"The more the government grabs and spends, the less chance there is that jobs will be created." --Human Events editor Jed Babbin

"From now on, when you hear Obama speak, try replacing 'let me be clear' with 'let me lie to you,' and see if it makes more sense." --columnist Jacob Sullum

"I assume we're supposed to be too dense to remember that [Obama's] stimulus spending to date hasn't created jobs and that most of it hasn't even been used for that purpose. So when this administration says its first priority is reducing debt, understand we are being played -- by consummate cynics." --columnist David Limbaugh

"It just so happens that with the exception of nuclear power -- which most greens still won't support -- global warming fuels nearly every progressive ambition. Wealth transfers from rich to poor nations: Check. The rise of 'global governance' and the decline of American sovereignty: Check. A secular fatwa not only to erode capitalism but to intrude on every aspect of our lives (Greenpeace offers a guide to carbon-neutral sex): Check. Weaning us off of oil (which, don't let the Goregonauts fool you, was a priority back when we were still worried about global cooling): Check. The checks go on for as far as the eye can see, and we will be writing them for years to come." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

"Right now, if you don't like the local grade school, you move to the next town. If you're sick of Massachusetts taxes, you move to New Hampshire. Where do you move to if you don't like 'global governance'? What polling station do you go to to vote it out?" --columnist Mark Steyn

Dezinformatsia

Bah humbug: "The truth of Christmas is tested in Washington as we move toward some sort of semi-universal health care against the near-unanimous opposition of Republicans. Given the chance to be shepherds or angels, they chose instead to be Herod. Spooked by the victory of Barack Obama, they decided to fight him on all fronts, even though Americans will die as a result." --NPR's Garrison Keillor

Poor guy: "The president says he thinks the Senate will pass his version of the bill by Christmas. Joe Lieberman says he's not voting for it in it's current form. So is the president's stocking going to be empty on Christmas Day? --NBC's Matt Lauer

More hot air: "Climate change deniers say these e-mails are proof humans aren't causing global warming. U.S. officials say the evidence proves otherwise." --ABC correspondent Bob Woodruff

"This is about life or death -- 192 countries are here in Copenhagen to cut the carbon emissions changing the climate and threatening the very existence of some nations and their people." --ABC's Anne Thompson

More taxes is always the answer: "Why not tax the [bankers'] bonuses? Britain last week announced that they're going to have a big windfall tax, a one-time tax on these big bonuses this year because the banks got so much help. Why not do that?" --ABC's George Stephanopoulos

Bush Bash of the Week: "President Barack Obama had a golden opportunity to become a peacemaker compared to his hawkish predecessor. But he has let that opening evaporate by escalating the war in Afghanistan. Now he is called a 'war president' -- a dubious title that former President George W. Bush personally embraced after starting two devastating wars, one in Afghanistan, the other in Iraq." --White House press corps reporter Helen Thomas