The Patriot Post Chronicle 11-14-2012

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The Patriot Post Chronicle 11-14-2012
From The Federalist Patriot
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Good News and Bad News on Energy

November 14, 2012

The Foundation

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse." --James Madison

Editorial Exegesis

"Sometimes the revolution politicians seek isn't the one they get. Consider the irony -- and the opportunity -- in Monday's report that the U.S. is likely to surpass Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer as early as 2020. In its annual world energy outlook, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) says the global energy map 'is being redrawn by the resurgence in oil and gas production in the United States.' The U.S. will increase its production to about 23 million barrels a day in 10 years from about 18 million barrels a day now, the IEA predicts. ... The biggest potential threat may come from federal regulation in Mr. Obama's second term. Though he tried to take credit for the fracking revolution in his second debate with Mitt Romney, his EPA has long wanted to supplant state regulators and will grab any opportunity to do so. Perhaps the election of pro-fracking Democrats like soon-to-be Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota (home to the monster Bakken Shale field) can give the new energy revolution some needed bipartisan buy-in. Historians will one day marvel that so much political and financial capital was invested in a green-energy revolution at the very moment a fossil fuel revolution was aborning. But politicians failing to spot the trend until they start taking credit for it is an old story. Let's hope they don't ruin it now that they've noticed." --The Wall Street Journal1

Upright

"The key point about Barack Obama is not that he's a secret Muslim Kenyan Commie or whatever. Whether he was born in Honolulu or Mombasa or Stockholm or up on Planet Zongo, what matters ... is that in his general worldview he is entirely typical and perfectly representative of tens upon tens of millions of Americans. Tuesday's majority confirmed that. They don't need a 'conspiracy': They agree with him. That's the problem." --columnist Mark Steyn

"Men and women, whites and Hispanics, the young and the middle-aged: All of them want politicians to offer a practical agenda to create jobs, raise wages, and make health care and higher education more affordable. Most of them aren't wedded to liberal answers on those issues. They will take them over nothing, and that's what Republicans have been giving them." --columnist Ramesh Ponnuru

"We conservatives may never reach a consensus among ourselves as to the main factors that caused our election defeat, but surely we can agree that we must do a better job of selling our ideas." --columnist David Limbaugh

"So the administration would have us believe that only after the election was the president told by the FBI that an investigation with possible national-security implications -- involving no less than the director of the Central Intelligence Agency -- has been going on since the summer. We're also to believe that the director's resignation after the election and before congressional hearings on Benghazi is purely coincidental. Not only that, but when the most powerful man in the world learned of the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, he immediately ordered that everything be done to secure all personnel at the site -- but apparently, everyone ignored him. So he did what any commander in chief would do under such circumstances -- he went to bed. Yes, they really do think we're that stupid." --attorney Peter Kirsanow

"A cover-up in the Obama administration? I know what you are thinking: No way; not the most transparent, patriotic administration ever. It must be an act of the gods or perhaps the Mayan calendar. But really, the recent resignation of General Petraeus from the position of director of the C.I.A. has to be related to Benghazi. Either that or to the Bermuda Triangle. Because here is another remarkable coincidence: Neither the FBI, nor United States Marines are responsible for the security of consulates and embassies. The C.I.A. is tasked with that job. ... Notice how quickly the deputy director who is replacing Petraeus is ready to stand before Congress next week and truthfully testify by saying, 'I don't know, Senator'?" --columnist John Ransom

Essential Liberty

"Quite aside from the immediate effects of particular policies, Barack Obama has repeatedly circumvented the laws, including the Constitution of the United States, in ways and on a scale that pushes this nation in the direction of arbitrary one-man rule. Now that Obama will be in a position to appoint Supreme Court justices who can rubber stamp his evasions of the law and usurpations of power, this country may be unrecognizable in a few years as the America that once led the world in freedom, as well as in many other things. Barack Obama's boast, on the eve of the election of 2008 -- 'We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America' -- can now be carried out, without fear of ever having to face the voters again. This 'transforming' project extends far beyond fundamental internal institutions, or even the polarization and corruption of the people themselves, with goodies handed out in exchange for their surrendering their birthright of freedom." --economist Thomas Sowell

Insight

"The more people chant about their freedom and how free they are, the more loudly I hear their chains rattling." --English novelist George Orwell (1903-1950)

"One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary." --philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

"Every nation has the government it deserves." --Savoyard philosopher Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821)

Demo-gogues

Says the guy who spent all the money: "I'm committed to solving our fiscal challenges. But I refuse to accept any approach that isn't balanced. I am not going to ask students and seniors and middle-class families to pay down the entire deficit while people like me, making over $250,000, aren't asked to pay a dime more in taxes. I'm not going to do that." --Barack Obama

"We can't accept an unfair deal that piles on the middle class and tell them they have to support it. We have to make sure that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share." --Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) promising to pile on the middle class if Republicans won't ascent to raise taxes on the top brackets

Says the guy who doesn't cooperate: "What the American people are looking for is cooperation. They're looking for consensus. They're looking for common sense. Most of all, they want action. I intend to deliver for them in my second term, and I expect to find willing partners in both parties to make that happen." --Barack Obama

Says the guy who left the Americans in Benghazi to die: "We take care of our own. We take care of our veterans. We take care of your families, not just by saluting you on one day, once a year, but by fighting for you and your families every day of every year. That's our obligation, a sacred obligation to all of you." --Barack Obama

Framing the debate exactly backwards: "Republicans face a choice, and the choice is theirs. If they want to drive off the fiscal cliff, that means they want to go into January demanding that people like Mitt Romney get a bonus tax break or nobody gets any tax relief." --Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)