The Patriot Post Chronicle 9-28-2011

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The Patriot Post Chronicle 9-28-2011
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation

"When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually." --George Mason

Editorial Exegesis

"New documents reveal the Department of Justice lied to Congress and show how U.S. officials bought guns with tax dollars and then made sure no one stopped their transfer to Mexican drug cartels. The funneling of thousands of American guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels in the operation known as Fast and Furious was not a botched sting operation or the result of bureaucratic incompetence. It was not designed to interdict gun trafficking, but to facilitate it. We now know that it involved not just the use of straw buyers, but also agents of the federal government purchasing weapons with taxpayer money, ordering the licensed dealers to conduct the sales off the books, then calling off surveillance of the gun traffickers and refusing to interdict the transfer of the weapon or arrest the people involved. ... A two-year-old C-SPAN video shows Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, who would resign nine months later after less than a year's service, telling reporters at a Justice Department briefing of major policy initiatives to fight the Mexican drug cartels. 'The president has directed us to take action to fight these cartels,' Ogden began, 'and Attorney General Holder and I are taking several new and aggressive steps as part of the administration's comprehensive plan.' Ogden said the administration's plan, at the president's direction, included the ATF's 'increasing its efforts by adding 37 new employees in three new offices, using $10 million in Recovery Act funds and redeploying 100 personnel to the Southwest border in the next 45 days to fortify its Project Gunrunner,' of which Operation Fast and Furious would be a part. ... Fast and Furious should spark our pursuit of the truth, even if the trail leads to the Oval Office." --Investor's Business Daily1

Upright

"The entire [Fast & Furious] operation ended with only 20 indictments of straw purchasers -- indictments that could have happened immediately upon transfer of the weapons, stopping the flow. In fact, the straw purchasers, at issue, were known to be straw purchasers from the get-go. The indictments only took place at all because U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered using the weapons authorized for free flow by ATF and DOJ. ... So what was the real goal of the DOJ and ATF? It certainly wasn't to shut down access to arms for the cartels -- the ATF was agreeing to such access. It wasn't to stop straw purchasers -- the ATF was signing off on the straw purchasers. It wasn't to track the movements of the cartel -- there was no way to do that. It was, very simply, to establish for political reasons that American guns were being used in crimes by foreign cartels." --columnist Ben Shapiro

"Last week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was telling everyone who would listen that they needed billions to replenish their disaster relief fund right now, or else they would run out of money today. ... Then, suddenly, FEMA told Senate Democrats that all of their previous warnings were overblown. The agency was able to recover $40 billion from ongoing long-term projects, and instead of being broke, they actually had $114 million in the bank, just enough to get them into the next fiscal year. Which is convenient, because that allows them access to all of next year's budgeted disaster relief spending. Since there is now no need for unbudgeted disaster relief spending this year, there is now no need for spending offsets. ... If anybody ever wants to know why conservatives never believed Secretary Tim Geithner when he said the government was going to run out of money this August, this $114 million FEMA find is a great example why." --Washington Examiner columnist Conn Carroll

"The night before the Florida straw poll, Morgan Freeman appeared on CNN. He is maybe the country's most beloved actor. He declared the Tea Party racist, and the Republicans at large racist. He said our attitude is, 'Screw the country. We're going to do whatever we [can] to get this black man out of here.' Apparently, Tea Party activists want to replace 'this black man' with Herman Cain. But does the Left regard Cain as black? He was raised by his janitor father and housemaid mother in Georgia. President Obama was raised by his white grandparents in Hawaii. But he's a left-winger, you see. So he wins -- he's blacker than thou, or blacker than Cain." --National Review's Jay Nordlinger

Essential Liberty

"If European governments and the U.S. Congress ceased the practice of giving people what they have not earned, budgets would be more than balanced. For government to guarantee a person a right to goods and services he has not earned, it must diminish someone else's right to what he has earned, simply because governments have no resources of their very own. ... It turns out that if Congress taxed away our entire $14 trillion 2011 GDP and put it in the bank, it would just barely cover Social Security and Medicare liabilities. That observation suggests that we can't tax our way out of our fiscal mess. In order to avoid permanent stagnation or total economic collapse, governments must start the process of reducing welfare spending. I wouldn't recommend cold turkey for a heroin addict, neither would I recommend cold turkey for all those people who have been addicted and made dependent upon government handouts. We must find a compassionate way to wean people off government." --economist Walter E. Williams

Insight

"Freedom is not a luxury that we can indulge in when at last we have security and prosperity and enlightenment; it is, rather, antecedent to all of these, for without it we can have neither security nor prosperity nor enlightenment." --historian and author Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998 )

The Demo-gogues

Leftist ideology is common sense? "From the moment I took office what we've seen is a constant ideological pushback against any kind of sensible reforms that would make our economy work better and give people more opportunity." --Barack Obama

Droppin' the g's: "Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complainin'. Stop grumblin'. Stop cryin'. We are going to press on. We have work to do." --Barack Obama to the Congressional Black Caucus

So get in line: "Here's the thing, I never promised you easy. If you wanted easy you would not have campaigned for Barrack Hussein Obama. But what I said was if you are willing to stick with me, hang in there, I was positive we could achieve our dreams. America has been through tougher times." --Barack Obama

On second thought: "I don't know who he was talking to, because we're certainly not complaining." --Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) finding Obama's comment "curious"

Mockery: "Has anybody been watching the debates lately? You've got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change. It's true. You've got audiences cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don't have health care and booing a service member in Iraq because they're gay." --Barack Obama

Gaffe, Part I: "We're the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad." --Barack Obama

Gaffe, Part II: "If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew -- as a janitor -- makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that as a badge of honor. I have no problem with that." -- Barack Obama