The Patriot Post Chronicle 2-24-2010

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The Patriot Post Chronicle 2-24-2010
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation

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

Editorial Exegesis
The health care summit is an "evil" trap

"A mere three days before President Obama's supposedly bipartisan health-care summit, the White House [Monday] released a new blueprint that Democrats say they will ram through Congress with or without Republican support. So after election defeats in Virginia, New Jersey and even Massachusetts, and amid overwhelming public opposition, Democrats have decided to give the voters what they don't want anyway. Ah, the glory of 'progressive' governance and democratic consent. 'The President's Proposal,' as the 11-page White House document is headlined, is in one sense a notable achievement: It manages to take the worst of both the House and Senate bills and combine them into something more destructive. It includes more taxes, more subsidies and even less cost control than the Senate bill. And it purports to fix the special-interest favors in the Senate bill not by eliminating them -- but by expanding them to everyone. ... The larger political message of this new proposal is that Mr. Obama and Democrats have no intention of compromising on an incremental reform, or of listening to Republican, or any other, ideas on health care. They want what they want, and they're going to play by Chicago Rules and try to dragoon it into law on a narrow partisan vote via Congressional rules that have never been used for such a major change in national policy. If you want to know why Democratic Washington is 'ungovernable,' this is it." --The Wall Street Journal

Insight

"The state tends to expand in proportion to its means of existence and to live beyond its means, and these are, in the last analysis, nothing but the substance of the people. Woe to the people that cannot limit the sphere of action of the state! Freedom, private enterprise, wealth, happiness, independence, personal dignity, all vanish." --French economist Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

"People unfit for freedom -- who cannot do much with it -- are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a 'have' type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a 'have not' type of self." --writer and philosopher Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)

"The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians." --British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

Upright

"Offering 'comprehensive' reform usually means years of arguing and horse-trading among pressure groups to get anything done. By the time all the special interests are appeased or bought off, the resulting elephantine legislation typically looks nothing like what was intended. In short, big-government medicine usually doesn't work on big-government sickness. If President Obama wants 'comprehensive' change, it would be better simply not to spend any more money we don't have." --historian Victor Davis Hanson

"[Barack Obama failed to sell a health care reform plan to American voters] because the utter implausibility of its central promise -- expanded coverage at lower cost -- led voters to conclude that it would lead ultimately to more government, more taxes and more debt." --columnist Charles Krauthammer

"Don't ever let anyone tell you that history doesn't repeat. For 70 years, liberals have been spinning the yarn that FDR's New Deal, despite all the evidence that it exacerbated and prolonged the Great Depression, quickened our economic recovery. Indeed, I remember scratching my head when one of my college history professors in the 1970s tried to convince us of that theory and its corollary -- an even better howler -- that FDR was actually a conservative, because if he hadn't implemented his socialist programs, the republic would have died right there." --columnist David Limbaugh

"This is a perfect snapshot of the West at twilight. On the one hand, governments of developed nations microregulate every aspect of your life in the interests of 'keeping you safe.' ... On the other hand, when it comes to 'keeping you safe' from real threats, such as a millenarian theocracy that claims universal jurisdiction, America and its allies do nothing. ... It is now certain that Tehran will get its nukes, and very soon. This is the biggest abdication of responsibility by the Western powers since the 1930s." --columnist Mark Steyn

"In the early aftermath of the suicidal pilot's attack [in Austin], there was no evidence that Stack belonged to a Tea Party organization. In any case, no law-abiding Tea Party group would ever condone what he did. But it didn't stop the haters from immediately smearing advocates of limited government. And it's just the latest in a long line of calculated attempts to paint the vast majority of peaceful Tea Party activists as terrorist threats to civil society. ... The smear merchants, of course, are simply following Rahm Emanuel's advice to exploit every crisis." --columnist Michelle Malkin

"Why should we capitalists go green? To do so is simply to exchange our technological, industrial, and energy superiority for a lie. ... Capitalism is about progressing via the ingenuity and excellence of minds unfettered by government regulations and interference. But environmentalism based on the man-made global warming theory is about regressing from the advances that unfettered minds have made. It's also about pushing the government to regulate and interfere at every step along the way." --columnist AWR Hawkins

The Demo-gogues

The definition of chutzpah: "After a decade of profligacy, the American people are tired of politicians who talk the talk but don't walk the walk when it comes to fiscal responsibility. It's easy to get up in front of the cameras and rant against exploding deficits. What's hard is actually getting deficits under control. But that's what we must do. Like families across the country, we have to take responsibility for every dollar we spend." --Barack Obama

Taxes are going up: "Everything's on the table. That's how this thing is going to work." --Barack Obama after creating a deficit commission on whether he would raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 a year

Shut up, he explained: "They should stop crying about reconciliation as if it's never been done before." --Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) (It's never been done on a bill of this magnitude before.)

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The Patriot Post Chronicle 2-24-2010
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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"So I do believe that there is more fertile soil today than when we first took this up." --House Democrat Whip James Clyburn, of South Carolina, weighing in not on all those "shovel ready" supposed job-starting projects of the "stimulus" but on the Demo plan for the government takeover of U.S. medical care.

You don't say: "Health care has been knocking me around pretty good." --Barack Obama, who still hasn't learned his lesson

Speaking of being knocked around: "Men, when they're out of work, tend to become abusive." --Harry Reid ("Many observers have speculated that Reid is likely to lose his job at the end of the current term. ... Is something going to happen to Mrs. Reid if Nevadans don't re-elect this senator?")

Non sequitur: "We have countries like China, which don't have to go through the democratic processes that we do, that order factories to move to deal with their air pollution." --Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), urging his fellow senators to pass cap-n-tax

Ax not what your country can do for you... "As a condition of receiving access to Title I funds we will ax all states to put in place a plan to adopt and certify standards that are college and career ready in reading and math." --the eloquent orator Barack Obama, emphasis added, because yes, he did say "ax" -- see the video (We guess Harry Reid was right.)
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Dezinformatsia

The BIG Lie: "Democrats and Republicans agree that Republicans are picking up seats in the mid-term elections. What the White House can do -- what they're trying to do -- is to achieve a health care bill. People still want that." --ABC's George Stephanopoulos

Willing accomplices: "White House adjusts strategy on Republicans -- The Obama administration aims to put members of the GOP on the spot, forcing them to compromise on issues or be portrayed as obstructionists." --Los Angeles Times headline and sub-headline

Sympathetic stories: "Big fanfare this week. The Obama administration fanned out across the country, 'the stimulus worked.' The president made speeches, sounded a little frustrated that people don't get it, at least polls show, that they don't understand there were tax cuts and things like that. What did they do wrong? They're playing defense on what was one of their major accomplishments. What did the White House, the president do wrong in explaining, presenting and selling it?" --ABC's Terry Moran (He lied through his teeth about all of it, that's what.)

Supreme arrogance: "In trying to explain our political paralysis, analysts cite President Obama's tactical missteps, the obstinacy of congressional Republicans, rising partisanship in Washington, and the Senate filibuster, which has devolved into a super-majority threshold for important legislation. These are large factors to be sure, but that list neglects what may be the biggest culprit of all: the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large." --Newsweek's Jacob Weisberg, revealing what the elitists think of the American people

The innocent media: "When a news executive goes out there and states a crazy accusation like that ... it only ends up probably hurting what they're trying to do, but ... it only denigrates all of us.... And, I'm sorry, there are certain news organizations out here whose agenda is to undermine the 90 percent of journalists who are just simply trying to cover stories out there." --MSNBC'S Chuck Todd reacting to Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon's statement that "the mainstream media hates the Tea Party movement almost as much as it hates Sarah Palin."

Newspulper Headlines:

We Blame Global Warming: "Snowballing Problems Hurting Vancouver Games" --Agence France-Presse

Bee All That You Can Bee: "Robots and Bees to Beat the Taliban" --Sunday Times (London)

Questions Nobody Is Asking: "Is Obama Too Thoughtful?" --TheDailyBeast.com

It's Always in the Last Place You Look: "Flaws Found in Recovery Act Spending Records" --ExecutiveGov.com

Bottom Stories of the Day: "Al Gore Slams Exxon's 'Lies' as Advocates Seek to Regain Momentum" --Hill Web site

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)

Village Idiots

On health care: "My hope is that the country understands that we need to do this." --First Lady Michelle Obama (And we all know what "we" means when spoken by an Obama -- government. Government "needs" to expand its power.)

RINO lecture: "I would caution my Republican friends that [Obama has] three years to go, and in that three years the American people are going to want to see some progress and not just claims that this guy is out of office and we're going to do everything to destroy him or that somehow he is a 'socialist' taking over the country. Have we so lost our faith in this country that we think one person, one man can be can suddenly change our entire system? That's kind of absurd." --retired Gen. Colin Powell

Disdain: "The Tea Baggers, they're not a movement, they're a cult.... Cults tend to populate from within, encouraging members to have huge broods of children and to give them strange names, like Moonbeam, and Trig." --HBO's Bill Maher, who probably will support Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown for California governor and who ignores the Obama-worship cult to which he bends his knee

Short Cuts

"The president says he doesn't want to make a theatrical production of it, but since the president himself is a theatrical production, it's difficult to see how the great health care summit can be anything but. Mr. Obama is fond of saying how he wants his presidency to be 'transparent,' and he's making it easy to see through what he and the Democrats are doing. The Democratic task at hand is to animate a corpse with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and who wants to volunteer for that? But Mr. Obama is determined to prop it up for a vote." --Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

"Secretary of State Clinton dared Iran on Monday to let her hold a town hall meeting in Tehran. That's telling 'em. If the ayatollahs had a sense of humor, they'd call her bluff." --columnist Mark Steyn

"Remember that great scene from the Oscar-robbed classic 'The Blues Brothers'? Jake and Elwood (John Belushi and Dan Akroyd) are finally cornered by Jake's former fiancée (Carrie Fisher). Jake left her at the altar with 300 guests and the best Romanian caterers in the state waiting. 'You betrayed me!' she exclaims. 'No I didn't. Honest,' Jake explains. 'I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!' This is pretty much how Democrats sound these days. None of their problems are their fault. ... Coming soon: A terrible flood! Locusts! Anything and everything to avoid admitting their problems are their own fault." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

*****

(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.)