The Patriot Post Brief 12-6-2010

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Brief 12-6-2010
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

The Foundation

"Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment." --George Washington

Political Futures

"It has been generations since Americans have been exposed to a more vivid depiction of the significant differences between the left's and the right's views of this country and its future. The delineation between conservative and liberal had grown hopelessly blurred to a majority of citizens. But Obama and his leftist cabal have been successful not only in demonstrating the frightening vision progressive liberals have of making America into a European-style socialist state. They have also managed to animate a vast conservative majority that has lain painfully dormant since the mid-1980s. ... While conservatives like [Rep. Eric] Cantor believe money belongs first to the citizen and is confiscated by government, leftists like Obama believe money belongs first to the government. That government then lets select citizens keep some of it ... if and only if government 'can afford' to be so generous. Further, when Americans open their newspapers, they are greeted with the wise counsel of Obamabots like Tom Friedman and Paul Krugman. Friedman's recent piece in the New York Times called the Tea Party movement 'narrow and uninspired' while touting that '[w]e need to raise gasoline and carbon taxes to discourage their use and drive the creation of a new clean energy industry.' Krugman ... laments that the waste of nearly one trillion taxpayer dollars on a government spending bill meant to stimulate a still-stagnant economy wasn't enough, and it should be followed up with an even bigger second stimulus. Everywhere they turn, Americans see that the left is offering higher taxes, less freedom, more debt and regulation. They simultaneously see the right offering lower taxes, freer markets, and fiscal sanity. Voters' first opportunity to choose between those two visions occurred in the 2010 midterms. Their preference was unmistakable -- to everyone, that is, except Barack Obama." --columnist Peter Heck1

The Gipper

"Sir Winston [Churchill] led his people to great victory in war and then lost an election just as the fruits of victory were about to be enjoyed. But he left office honorably, and as it turned out, temporarily, knowing that the liberty of his people was more important than that of any single leader. History recalls his greatness in ways no dictator will ever know. And he left us a message of hope for the future, as timely now as when he first uttered it, as opposition leader in the Commons ... when he said, 'When we look back on all the perils through which we have passed and at the mighty foes that we have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs that we have frustrated, why should we fear for our futures? We have,' he said, 'come safely through the worst.' Well, the task I've set forth will long outlive our own generation. But together, we too have come through the worst. Let us now begin a major effort to secure the best -- a crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude of the next generation. For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny." --Ronald Reagan2

Opinion in Brief

"Julian Assange (ah-SAHN-zh) is the creep behind, and the face of, Wikileaks. ... Assange is not a digital Robin Hood. He is a hacker, a thug, and an accused rapist. ... Here's the thing about what Assange is doing: He has decided that he, among the 6.7 billion humans on the Earth, is solely qualified to decide what should be held secret and what should be made public. News outlets worldwide have taken to describing Wikileaks as a 'whistleblower website.' That's like saying the Central and South American cocaine drug cartels are 'entertainment entrepreneurs.' ... Now that he is being hunted like the dog he is, Assange has made it known that he has posted a file containing more than a gigabyte (one billion characters, more or less) containing many secret documents not previously released. That file has been sent to cohorts around the world, but it is password protected. His threat is: Arrest me (and/or knock Wikileaks.com off the internet) and the password will be made public, the files will be unlocked, and massive harm will be done to the United States government and at least one major U.S. bank. Assange is blackmailing the world to allow him to continue to play his part in this international game of Russian roulette. Like every megalomaniac from Napoleon to Lex Luthor he believes only he knows the path to truth." --political analyst Rich Galen5

For the Record

"At a [recent] news conference, Attorney General Eric Holder assured the nation that his people are diligently looking into possible legal action against WikiLeaks. Where has Holder been? The WikiLeaks exposure of Afghan War documents occurred five months ago. Holder is looking now at possible indictments? This is a country where a good prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. Months after the first leak, Justice's thousands of lawyers have yet to prepare charges against Julian Assange and his confederates? ... Where is the Justice Department? And where are the intelligence agencies on which we lavish $80 billion a year? Assange has gone missing. Well, he's no cave-dwelling jihadi ascetic. Find him. Start with every five-star hotel in England and work your way down. Want to prevent this from happening again? Let the world see a man who can't sleep in the same bed on consecutive nights, who fears the long arm of American justice. I'm not advocating that we bring out of retirement the KGB proxy who, on a London street, killed a Bulgarian dissident with a poisoned umbrella tip. But it would be nice if people like Assange were made to worry every time they go out in the rain." --columnist Charles Krauthammer6

Liberty

"The fact is, we are not stuck with the TSA model. We can and should do better. We need to start shifting to a public-private model. That means, first of all, ditching the body scanners. It's not a question, as some have suggested, of whether the scans are anonymous. Either way, they show that we are not screening properly for those who pose the greatest threat to airline security. How do we do this? Sort passengers into three groups: 1) 'Low-risk' ones we know plenty about -- those with federal security clearance, for example, or a biometric ID card. 2) 'Ordinary' ones -- mostly occasional flyers and leisure travelers. 3) 'High-risk' ones we either know nothing about, or who raise red flags. Each group would receive a different level of screening. The 'low-risk' ones would get something like what was in place before 9/11. The 'ordinary' passengers would go through the system put in place right after that infamous attack. Those classified as 'high-risk' would be questioned closely and undergo a more rigorous security check. ... There's no way that such a system could be worse than what we have now, with its ludicrous restrictions on 'profiling.' We do ourselves no favors by acting as if, say, a small child from Missouri or a nun from Iowa is as likely to be a terrorist as someone from Yemen. Certain 'home-grown' terrorists are possible, yes, but they would fall into the high-risk group. Besides, we're already profiling. Pilots, flight attendants, cabinet secretaries, top congressional leaders and other senior officials are exempt from the new screening procedures. If all pose an equal threat, why the free pass for these individuals?" --Heritage Foundation president Edwin J. Feulner7