The Patriot Post Chronicle 1-18-2012

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Chronicle 1-18-2012
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

The Foundation

"It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled. It must be the combined virtue of the rulers and of the people to do this, and to rescue and save their civil and religious rights from the outstretched arm of tyranny, which may appear under any mode or form of government." --Mercy Warren

Editorial Exegesis

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a novel conception of his job priorities. One recent day, the Nevada Democrat took it upon himself to lecture Republicans on how they should conduct their business. Claiming Republicans practiced 'obstructionism on steroids' in 2011, Reid said he hoped 'that they understand that everything doesn't have to be a fight. Legislation is an art of working together, building consensus, compromise. And I hope that the Tea Party doesn't have the influence in this next year that they had in the previous year.' ... In those same remarks, Reid offered this laugher about his party's purported efforts in 2011 to break the legislative deadlock between President Obama and Senate Democrats on one side and House Republicans on the other: 'I don't think ... anyone can question or they should question our having reached out to Republicans. We've done everything we could to work with them. We're going to continue to do that. In spite of the obstructionism, we have been able to accomplish a lot of good things in the last Congress.' Let it be noted, however, that the most prominent missing item among those 'good things' Reid claims to have accomplished was fulfilling one of the Senate's most basic constitutional duties -- approving an annual federal budget. ... National Journal reports that Reid told a meeting of his Democratic colleagues earlier this week that 'the party is positioned to dictate a congressional agenda designed to get most of its congressional members -- and President Obama -- re-elected. Working with the White House, Senate Democrats are plotting a 2012 floor agenda driven by Obama's re-election campaign and the fight for control of Congress. The year will see an intensified version of the course Democrats pursued this fall through votes on the president's jobs bill.' In other words, while blasting Republican 'obstructionism,' Reid is plotting systematic obstructionism throughout the coming months. This is spelled h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y." --The Washington Examiner1

Upright

"Let us now, in full public view, credit [Barack Obama's] greatest public service as president: He is sending Americans back to the Constitution. ... Mr. Obama's overreach has provoked something unique. This is the rise of a populist movement with the historically unpopulist priorities of making the federal government smaller and insisting on its constitutional limits. ... You can say Mr. Obama probably will not like where a greater public familiarity with the Constitution is likely to take us politically. But you can't say the former University of Chicago professor hasn't made it exciting." --columnist William McGurn

"President Obama, man of the people, will deliver his presidential nomination acceptance speech at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C. -- so that Democratic Party fundraisers can reward big donors with skyboxes and other lavish perks. ... The self-proclaimed Party of the 99 Percent is reportedly busy creating special-access VIP packages for the 1 percent -- under the illusion of throwing open its doors to the masses. DNC officials refuse to disclose fundraising updates until after the convention, even as they champion their own 'openness and accessibility.' And no doubt, Obama will use his stadium-size pulpit to 'stand up' to the very same 'fat cats' who'll be watching him while sipping Courvoisier in their DNC-appointed luxury seats. Such is the audacity of progressive cognitive dissonance." --columnist Michelle Malkin

"One of the weirdest things about Cornell West's recent rant on Fox News was that he is one of the highest-paid professors in the humanities in the United States ... yet he damned those who, like himself, are rich. ... With recent news that Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley professors, like the 1 Percenters at J.P. Morgan and Goldman-Sachs, were among Obama's most generous campaign contributors, I think we can discern the new three rules of fat-cattery: 1) Protestations of being liberal exempt you from the crime of being a 1 Percenter; 2) The less risk to your affluent status ... the more willing you are to put up with income-tax hikes, which renders you one of the good, blue 1 Percenters; 3) Damning Wall Street on Monday while shaking down Wall Street on Tuesday is just the way things are, whether for Barack Obama or for an Ivy League development dean." --historian Victor Davis Hanson

The Demo-gogues

Where to start with this one? "I'm not a perfect man. I'm not a perfect president, but I promise you this -- and I've kept this promise -- I will always tell you what I believe and I will always tell you where I stand. If you stick with me, we're going to finish what we started in 2008." --Barack Obama

That's the problem: "The reason I was successful was not because I was a flawless candidate or I ran a flawless campaign but it was because together we were able to give voice to this shared vision of what America should be. And I want you to know that I have kept faith with that vision all these years." -- Barack Obama

Nobody works harder than a bureaucrat: "By the way, you won't meet harder working folks than some of the folks in these federal agencies -- devote countless hours to trying to make sure that they're serving the American people, but they will tell you their efforts are constantly undermined by an outdated bureaucratic maze." --Barack Obama

Belly Laugh of the Week: "As opposed to the Tea Party, which was practically a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party, we don't really have much of a connection with the Occupy [protesters]. In fact, they probably have some sentiments that overlap between the two [groups]." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Race bait: "A white president, frankly, could be pushed a great deal more than we would push President Obama because nobody would accuse him or her of having partiality toward African-Americans. So its a tough spot -- it also means that we still have a long way to go in terms of race relations in this country and the president has, I think, moved through these troubled waters about as well as any African-American could becoming the first black president." --Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO)

Essential Liberty

"Last week, President Barack Obama, at a Capital Hilton fundraising event, told the crowd, 'We can't go back to this brand of you're-on-your-own economics.' ... President Obama's vision was shared by our Pilgrim Fathers of the Plymouth Colony in modern-day Massachusetts. They established a communist system. They all farmed together, and whatever they produced was put in a common storehouse. A certain amount of food was rationed to each person regardless of his contribution to the work. ... In 1623, after much debate, a new system was set up, in which every family was assigned a parcel of land, and whatever they produced belonged to the family. ... After Gov. Bradford's establishment of what Obama calls 'you're-on-your-own economics,' harvests were so bountiful that Bradford is credited with establishing what we now call Thanksgiving. ... Years ago, typing was done on a mechanical typewriter; milk was delivered to doorsteps via horse and wagon; slide rules were used to make calculations. Should any of these products and practices have survived, or was it OK for natural selection to consign them to the dustbin of history? Try cornering the president or his supporters, and ask them whether they believe government should ensure that the unfit survive and rather than 'you're-on-your-own economics' there should be 'you're-on-somebody-else economics.'" --economist Walter. E. Williams