The Patriot Post Chronicle 10-12-2011

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The Patriot Post Chronicle 10-12-2011
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation

"No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability." --James Madison

Editorial Exegesis

"The green jobs subsidy story gets more embarrassing by the day. Three years ago President Obama promised that by the end of the decade America would have five million green jobs, but so far some $90 billion in government spending has delivered very few. A new report by the Labor Department's Office of Inspector General examined a $500 million grant under the stimulus program to the Employment and Training Administration to 'train and prepare individuals for careers in "green jobs."' So far about $162.8 million has been spent. The program was supposed to train 125,000 workers, but only 53,000 have been 'trained' so far, only 8,035 have found jobs, and only 1,033 were still in the job after six months. Overall, 'only 10% of participants entered employment.' In the understatement of the year, the IG says the program failed to 'assist those most impacted by the recession.' The jobs record is even more dismal when you consider that many of the jobs classified as green aren't even new jobs, much less green, according to a report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. They include positions that have been 'relabeled as green jobs by the [Bureau of Labor Statistics].' This means that bus drivers, Environmental Protection Agency regulators, university professors teaching ecology, and even the Washington lobbyists who secure energy loan guarantees count as green employees for the purposes of government counting. The Oversight Committee finds that even a charitable assessment of the Labor program puts the cost of each green job at $157,000. The silver lining is that the IG found that as of 'June 30, 2011, $327.3 million remained unexpended' from the Labor program's appropriation. The IG urges that all funds 'determined not to be needed should be recouped as soon as practicable and to the extent permitted by law.' That ought to be the deficit supercommittee's first $327 million in savings." --The Wall Street Journal1

Upright

"The fun part of ['Occupy Wall Street'] is the sudden urge on the part of Democrats and liberals to hide behind the occupation forces, touting their cause for at least as long as it takes to beat out the Republicans' brains in 2012. Sure will be a sight when the campaigns start in earnest and the president has to decide for himself how to walk a fine line between hanging bankers and soliciting their campaign contributions." --columnist William Murchison

"In an amusing inversion of the Russian model, Van Jones became a czar after he'd been a Communist. ... Needless to say, a man who never saw a cobwebbed collectivist nostrum he didn't like no matter how long past its sell-by date is hot for 'Occupy Wall Street.' Indeed, Van Jones thinks that the protests are the start of an 'American Autumn.' In case you don't get it, that's the American version of the 'Arab Spring.' Steve Jobs might have advised Van Jones he has a branding problem. ... Even in my great state of New Hampshire, where autumn is pretty darn impressive, we understand what that blaze of red and orange leaves means: They burn brightest before they fall and die, and the world turns chill and bare and hard." --columnist Mark Steyn

"Here's a thought: Maybe Obama is just a big fan of public policy the way I'm a big fan of movies? ... But you know what? I don't have a frickn' clue how to make a Hollywood movie (and I've actually made some documentaries). ... The White House spent the first two years of this administration working from a slew of false assumptions not just about the economy, but about the political skills of the president. As Noemie Emery recently laid out, this president isn't nearly as good at politics as he and his advisors thought he was. Now they're explanation is that while he may not be great at politics, it's only because his true gift is for 'getting the policies right.' Good luck with that." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

Essential Liberty

"The transcontinental railroad lost tons of money. The government never covered its costs, and most rail lines that used the tracks went bankrupt or continued to be subsidized by taxpayers. The Union Pacific and Northern Pacific -- all those rail lines we learned about in history class -- milked the taxpayer and then went broke. One line worked. The Great Northern never went bankrupt. It was the railroad that got no subsidies. We need infrastructure, but the beauty of leaving most of these things to the private sector -- without subsidies, bailouts and other privileges -- is that they would have to be justified by the profit-and-loss test. In a truly free market, when private companies make bad choices, investors lose their own money. This tends to make them careful. By contrast, when government loses money, it just spends more and raises your taxes, or borrows more, or inflates. Building giant government projects is no way to create jobs. When government spends on infrastructure, it takes money away from projects that consumers might think are more important. When government isn't killing jobs by sucking money out of the private sector, it kills jobs by smothering the private sector with regulation." --columnist John Stossel

United States Navy Birthday

On Oct. 13, 1775, the U.S. Navy was born when the Continental Congress authorized the arming of two sailing vessels with 80 men and 10 carriage guns in order to intercept British supply and munitions transports. The Declaration of Independence came nine months later, followed by the creation of the Department of the Navy in 1798. Today, our Navy is the most powerful in the world. We at The Patriot Post offer our thanks to all our sailors for a job well done and wish you a Happy 236th Birthday! God bless you and your families.

Please visit The Patriot Post Shop2 for a great selection of items bearing the Navy's insignia.

The Demo-gogues

Stubborn like a jackass: "[Tuesday's] vote [to kill my 'jobs' bill] is by no means the end of this fight. Independent economists have said that the American Jobs Act would grow the economy and lead to nearly two million jobs, which is why the majority of the American people support these bipartisan, common-sense proposals." --Barack Obama Tuesday night on the defeat of his American Jobs Act by the Senate (The president failed to mention that two democrat Senators united with Republicans in voting against the proposal.)

You need government: "The Republicans talk about class warfare. Our goal is to make success available for everybody. ... Somebody -- an outstanding entrepreneur like a Steve Jobs -- somewhere along the line he had a teacher who helped inspire him. All those great Internet businesses wouldn't have succeeded unless somebody had invested in the government research that helped to create the Internet. We don't succeed on our own." --Barack Obama arguing that government is what makes a person successful

The BIG Lie: "Twenty-six years ago, another president said that some of these tax loopholes, and I quote, 'made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary, and that's crazy. It's time we stopped it.' That was 26 years ago. You know the name of that president? Ronald Reagan. So was that class warfare? By the way, taxes are much lower now than they ever were when Ronald Reagan was president." --Barack Obama

Just making it up: "The message of the protesters is a message for the establishment everyplace. No longer will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street. ... God bless them for their spontaneity. It's independent ... it's young, it's spontaneous, it's focused. And it's going to be effective." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)3