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« on: October 20, 2010, 01:33:42 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Chronicle 10-20-2010
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation
"If the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them." --Candidus
Editorial Exegesis
"Legal arguments for Obamacare's individual mandate fail the 'Alice in Wonderland' test and the duck test. In two court challenges to the law in the past 11 days and a court hearing today on a third, the Obama administration's legal position is fading faster than the Cheshire Cat. Democrats took some solace from the first case, a challenge in Michigan, because Judge George C. Steeh ultimately ruled in favor of Obamacare. Yet even though that Clinton-appointed judge refused to declare the mandate unconstitutional, he undercut the administration's key argument that the penalty for failing to buy insurance is a 'tax,' and that the mandate it enforces is allowable within the broad taxing power provided by the Constitution. 'The provisions of the Health Care Reform Act at issue here, for the most part, have nothing to do with the assessment or collection of taxes,' Judge Steeh ruled. This is so important that the federal district judge in Florida, in Thursday's preliminary ruling in the second case, spent 22 pages analyzing it. If the fine is a penalty rather than a tax, Congress' power is far less extensive. Judge Roger Vinson noted Congress repeatedly called the fine a 'penalty,' explicitly changing its description from a 'tax' that earlier versions of the bill assessed by name. Citing Alice's admonition to Humpty Dumpty that words can't 'mean so many different things' as Humpty intended, Judge Vinson concluded, 'Congress should not be permitted to secure and cast politically difficult votes on controversial legislation by deliberately calling something one thing ... [only to] argue in court that Congress really meant something else entirely.' Judge Vinson explained that no matter what Congress called it, the assessment was designed to act as a punishment, not a revenue measure. Hence, it's not a tax. His 22-page analysis is an exposition of the logic that if something is called a duck, acts like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck -- and the same goes for a penalty. The tax issue is vital because it's the Obama administration's fallback position if it loses on the first and biggest dispute, which is whether Congress has the power under the Commerce Clause not only to regulate commerce, but to force individuals to engage in specific commerce." --The Washington Times1
Upright
"ObamaCare is an unmitigated disaster-in-the-making. If people can be forced to buy health insurance and states can be forced to blow gigantic, federally-mandated holes in their budgets, this country will never recover. Our wannabe socialists in Congress and the White House are already, as Margaret Thatcher put it, 'out of other people's money.' The election in November may do much to blunt their odious ambitions, but they will never give up trying to turn America into a socialist nation." --columnist Arnold Ahlert
"The question here is in one crucial sense about health care, but it is in fact about much more than that. It concerns the federal government's claimed entitlement to instruct us concerning the decisions we make about caring for our health. It is possible, no doubt, to claim that ObamaCare, as enacted last spring by Congress, is so wonderful a thing no one should miss out on it. It is another matter entirely to suggest that the end here justifies the means. That's to say because ObamaCare is wonderful/marvelous/you name it, you and you and you should be made to buy into it. That kind of assertion gives off the odor of tyranny -- a prospect worse, I hope we can agree, than gaps in health insurance coverage." --columnist William Murchison
"A nirvana 'Star Trek' world without money, without sickness, and without envy ignores reality. Yet not only do the Left pretend this is possible, but they sell the idea by using envy and government checks like candy from their pocket. They sell this idea to those in need, taking power in exchange for promises they cannot possibly keep. They have merely shifted the burden, first to 'the rich,' and then always expanding according to ever-increasing needs to the entire producing half of the country. This is not fairness. This is lust for power. This is the face of tyranny in disguise. This, then, is the liberal Democrat message of Hope and Change." --columnist Richard Pecore
"The problem is, and always has been, that once government programs and agencies are created, they quickly become sacrosanct and virtually impossible to destroy. As Ronald Reagan said, 'Government programs, once launched, never disappear ... a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!' So it doesn't matter that the Department of Education doesn't educate, or that the Department of Energy doesn't produce energy. It's government and, thus, by definition good in the minds of the Washington establishment." --columnist Cal Thomas
"All indications coming out of the White House suggest that if Democrats suffer major losses, the president and his top aides will resolutely refuse to reconsider the policies -- national health care, stimulus, runaway spending -- that led to their defeat. Instead, they will point fingers in virtually every direction other than their own. Come November, it's likely the D-for-Democrat that the president refers to so often will actually stand for denial.'" --Washington Examiner political correspondent Byron York
At Stake This Election
This powerful ad, perhaps better than any other ad we've seen, reminds conservatives of what's at stake, and why we need to get out and vote. See it and comment here2.
Dezinformatsia
Belly Laugh of the Week: "One of [Barack] Obama's greatest political weaknesses has been his stubborn -- and unrequited -- love for bipartisanship. ... The expected Republican gains in the coming mid-term elections may solve one of Obama's problems: his misplaced faith in logic, persuasion and cooperation in the national interest." --Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker
Belly Laugh II: "Unlike Ronald Reagan, whose poll ratings were slightly lower than Obama's just before the 1982 mid-term elections, Obama didn't take every possible opportunity to pin the economic mess on his predecessor." --Cynthia Tucker, missing the fact that Obama takes every opportunity -- and then some -- to blame Bush
Sympathy for the devil: "Nancy Pelosi is considered one of the most effective speakers in congressional history. But now she's faced with the fact that Democrats could lose the House in November. You get indignant when you hear that." --CBS's Rita Braver to Pelosi, who responded, "I don't get indignant. I just don't believe it."
"Where is the celebration over what has been done and accomplished [by Barack Obama] in the face of all this anger and vitriol in Washington?" --MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski |
