The Patriot Post Brief 4-5-2010

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Brief 4-5-2010
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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The Foundation

"It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect." --James Madison

Liberty

"Over the past 14 months, our political debate has been transformed into an argument between the heirs of two fundamental schools of political thought, the Founders and the Progressives. The Founders stood for the expansion of liberty and the Progressives for the expansion of government. It's an argument that has been going on for a century but was largely dormant over the quarter-century of low-inflation economic growth that followed the Ronald Reagan tax cuts. It's been raised again by the expand-government policies of the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders. Those policies, thoroughly in line with the Progressive tradition, have been advanced by liberal elites in government, media, think tanks and academia. The opposition, roughly in line with the Founders tradition, has been led by the non-elites who spontaneously flocked to tea parties and town halls. ... The conservative rebellions of the late 1970s and middle 1990s were focused on taxes. The tea partiers are focusing on the expansion of government -- and its threat to the independence of citizens. ... By passing the stimulus package and the health care bills, the Democrats produced expansion of government. But voters seem to prefer expansion of liberty." --political analyst Michael Barone

Re: The Left

"The political issue rumbling toward both the Supreme Court and the electorate is whether Washington's size and power has finally grown beyond the comfort zone of the American people. That is what lies beneath the chatter about federalism and the 10th Amendment. Liberals will argue that government today is doing good. But government now is also unprecedentedly large and unprecedentedly expensive. Even if every challenge to ObamaCare loses in court, these anxieties will last and keep coming back to the same question: Does the Democratic left think the national government's powers are infinite? No one in the Obama White House, asked that in public on Sunday morning, would simply say yes, no matter that the evidence of this government's actions the past year indicate they do. In his 'Today Show' interview [last] week, Mr. Obama with his characteristic empathy acknowledged there are 'folks who have legitimate concerns ... that the federal government may be taking on too much.' My reading of the American public is that they have moved past 'concerns.'" --Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger

Government

"So, what is the impact on the deficit when the Senate health care bill, the reconciliation bill to fix the Senate health care bill and the bill to fix the phantom reductions in doctors' fees are all considered together? ... 'CBO estimates that enacting all three pieces of legislation would add $59 billion to budget deficits over the 2010-2019 period.' Rather than cut the deficit by $1 trillion over two decades as Obama claims, the full health care package increases the deficit by $59 billion over one decade. ... The bill authorizes new discretionary spending that Congress will need to approve in future years to make sure the bureaucracies are in place to carry out the new plan. CBO estimates this will lead to 'at least $50 billion' in new spending over 10 years that was not included in the health care bill itself. ... Nor should Obama's socialized medicine plan be viewed in isolation from the rest of his budget. CBO says his fiscal 2011 budget proposal will increase the national debt by $9.8 trillion over the next 10 years. He is running a record $1.5 trillion deficit this year, and the smallest deficit he will ever run is $724 billion in 2014 -- the year his unconstitutional individual insurance mandate kicks in. After that, the deficit starts an unbroken climb, surpassing $1 trillion again in 2018 and heading ever higher. Just as Obama's claim that his socialized medicine plan will reduce the deficit by $1 trillion will be his defining lie, his legacy will be this: He bankrupted America." --CNSNews.com editor in chief Terence Jeffrey

The Gipper

"The fact is, we'll never build a lasting economic recovery by going deeper into debt at a faster rate than we ever have before. It took this nation 166 years until the middle of World War II to finally accumulate a debt of $95 billion. It took this [Carter] administration just the last 12 months to add $95 billion to the debt. And this administration has run up almost one-fourth of the total national debt in just these short 19 months. Inflation is the cause of recession and unemployment. And we're not going to have real prosperity or recovery until we stop fighting the symptoms and start fighting the disease." --Ronald Reagan

Faith & Family

"What's so disheartening about America's present political environment is that those in Washington are truly convinced that more and bigger government is America's primary solution for recovery, future growth and security. President Barack Obama even declared early in his presidency that 'only government' is our savior. Our Founders had a far better solution than only government. ... As proud as they were of their newfound republic, our Founders' trust and hope was not in government, but in God. For what? For most of the things that people today often look to government to provide: life, liberty, happiness, provision, salvation, decency, civility, morality, honesty, restraint, equity of power and future hope, to name a few. Tragically, in modern times, government has usurped God's role in our republic and Americans' lives. ... To our Founders, God was the source of our human rights, which put limits on government power. Even more, God was (and should be) the ultimate agent for national sustenance and renewal. That is why we are dreaming if we think we can correct the ills in ourselves, our government or our society without his aid." --columnist Chuck Norris

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Brief 4-5-2010
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Reader Comments

"Resurrection Day 2010: what a marvelous editorial piece. Absolutely the most uplifting reading I've seen in a long time. Thanks so much for your steadfast resolve to honor God and First Principles of the Founding Fathers." --Ken

"Thank you for your words of encouragement and reminders that no matter how dark the night, hope comes in the morning. Politically, that may or may not be true any more in our great nation; but eternally, we know it to be true and I deeply appreciate your commitment to absolute Truth. As the old hymnal says, 'this world is not my home, I'm just a passin' through.'" --Tim

"Thank you for your faithful witness and call to remember our Nation's Heritage, and the words of our Lord. Thank you for not compromising on either, as so many others do in their attempt to be politically correct. Your publication is a beacon of light on a hill." --Lyle

"Your comments about Jesus' prescription for caring for others being individual responsibility and not governmental is right on. There was nothing in the passage of the 'widow's mite' that put the government in between her and the poor box. Nor did the Good Samaritan deem it necessary to notify the authorities to take care of the man beset by thugs -- the example was of his own neighborliness. We won't get to heaven by giving government our personal responsibilities." --Tom

"Even though 'separation of Church and State' is not in the Constitution, that great document was carefully set up to make a secular government. Religion is a matter of private conscience, and government is a grim necessity for all. As an Agnostic I was willing to sign The Patriot Declaration because you used the non-believer-friendly 'Creator' and 'Nature's God' language from the founding documents. Please do keep in mind that there are a lot of us out here, and that solid allegiance to the Constitution does not require any kind of religious faith at all." --Craig

For the Record

"More than a year into his presidency and after imposing numerous delays on American energy production, President Obama announced ... that he would open up portions of the Outer Continental Shelf to offshore drilling. But the plan is defined more by what it restricts than what it opens up. The Obama administration chose to take off the table large portions of the OCS in an announcement that was supposed to be about expanding American energy. The new plan includes: No drilling in the Pacific Ocean. No drilling in a large portion of the Atlantic Ocean. No drilling in some of the most promising areas of the Gulf of Mexico. No drilling in much of Alaska. While opening up any portion of the OCS for responsible energy development appears to be a great step forward, the truth is that none of this has been finalized, and most new drilling will not occur until after 2012 at the earliest. The offering also comes with a hefty price: President Obama wants to force Americans to swallow a massive new energy tax before any state will reap the benefits from this new offshore drilling. The bill Mr. Obama urged Congress to pass last summer, the Waxman-Markey energy tax, would eviscerate the economy, killing more than one million jobs per year while raising the cost of energy for all Americans. If an energy tax passes Congress this year, the negative impact on the economy will happen long before the first oil comes from these new offshore leases." --Manager of Policy Research at American Solutions Steve Everley

Opinion in Brief

"Too little, too late, too clever and for the wrong reasons. That's a good way to describe President Obama's decision to allow a little offshore drilling. ... Obama justified his decision to allow drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the southern Atlantic and some coastal regions of northern Alaska on the grounds that it would create jobs and serve as a 'bridge' to the carbon-free Brigadoon we've long been promised. The reality is that his decision was entirely political. Aiming to win vital Republican support in the Senate for some kind of bipartisan cap-and-trade legislation, he lifted the ban where the polling was in favor of doing so. Sound science, energy policy and economics were the last things on his mind. On that, there's widespread consensus. Back when oil cost $140 per barrel, President George W. Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore oil drilling. Once elected, Obama quietly reinstated it. Since then, Obama's Interior Department has been doing just about everything it can to slow, hamper and prevent oil and gas exploration in the U.S. and offshore. There's no reason to believe the administration won't keep doing that." --National Review editor Jonah Goldberg

Political Futures

"A top story on March 30 [was] that Arizona rancher Robert Krentz was apparently gunned down by an illegal immigrant. Krentz's family has maintained a ranch in southern Arizona since 1907, and he was known as a compassionate man who gave water and medical care to illegal immigrants crossing his land from Mexico. Krentz was found shot to death, slumped over his vehicle on his ranch. Police dogs tracked the shooter to the Mexican border 15 miles away, indicating that the shooter was almost certainly someone in this country illegally from Mexico. The murder of this good man casts in stark relief the outrageous failure of President Barack Obama and Secretary Janet 'the system worked' Napolitano to deal with the enormous problem America faces as a result of illegal immigrants. Perhaps if they weren't so busy taking over the economy (which the Constitution forbids them from doing), they'd actually secure the border (which the Constitution requires them to do). This outrage occurred just as the Obama administration plans on pivoting to the immigration issue, at the perfect time to try to create a wedge issue to scare Hispanics into voting Democrat in 2010 in order to mitigate the massive losses in Congress that Democrats are sure to suffer after more than a year of ramming through a far-left agenda with extreme partisanship." --columnist Ken Blackwell

The Last Word

"A few weeks ago, The New York Times ran an editorial noting the amazing fact that, by the middle of this year, there will be an estimated 6.8 billion people on Earth -- and 5 billion will have cell phones! ... How did that happen without a Democrat president and Congress using bribes, parliamentary tricks and arcane non-voting maneuvers to pass a massive, hugely expensive National Cell Phone Reform Act? How did that happen without Barney Frank and Henry Waxman personally designing the 3-foot-long, 26-pound, ugly green $4,000 cell phone we all have to use? How did that happen without Obama signing the National Cell Phone Reform bill, as a poor 10-year-old black kid who couldn't afford to text-message his friends looked on? The reason nearly everyone in the universe has a cell phone is that President Reagan did to telephones the exact opposite of what the Democrats have just done with health care. Before Reagan came into office, we had one phone company, ridiculously expensive rates and one phone model. Reagan split up AT&T, deregulated phone service and gave America a competitive market in phones. The rest is history. If you can grasp how inexpensive cell phones in a rainbow of colors and wonders like the iPhone could never have been created under a National Cell Phone Reform Act, you can understand what a disaster ObamaCare is going to be for health care in America." --columnist Ann Coulter

(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.)