THE FOUNDATION: TAXATION

“Excessive taxation will carry reason and reflection to every man’s door, and particularly in the hour of election.” —Thomas Jefferson

THE DEMO-GOGUES

I vant to take your bucks, ah, ah, ah: “We’re going to make it clear there are no invisible people [for tax purposes] in America.” —Hillary Clinton (D-Transylvania), editorial comment inserted for clarity

“I think if we want to fund the things that I think are important to share in prosperity, then people who have done well in this country, including me, have more of a responsibility to give back… There are no free meals.” —Man of the People John Edwards

Now that’s it’s your idea: “I don’t want to just put my finger out to the wind and see what the polls say. I want to bring the country together to solve a problem… If we have failed to have a real, honest conversation about Social Security, it will not get fixed.” —Obama on Social Security *Funny—when George Bush wanted to fix Social Security, Democrats were screaming that it didn’t need fixing.

On qualifications: “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a president who will actually say the words ‘global warming?”’ —Hillary Clinton

Different week, same tune: “The President would rather spend another $200 billion in Iraq and leave our children to pick up the tab than make fiscally sound investments in veterans’ healthcare, cancer research and healthcare for ten million children.” —House Speaker “San Fran Nanny” Pelosi

This week’s “Demo Busters” Award: “If you think American politics have gotten nastier, crueler and more symbolic over the last 20 years, blame Ted Kennedy. This month marks the 20th anniversary of the borking of Judge Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan’s failed Supreme Court nominee. And it was Ted Kennedy’s bilious bugle blast that brought the man down… In Ted Kennedy’s America, it’s blow for blow and eye for eye now, and everyone is blind to how we got here.” —Jonah Goldberg

EDITORIAL EXEGESIS

“You can’t say [Rep. Charlie Rangel [D-NY] lacks for ambition. The House Ways and Means Chairman has been saying he wants to pass ‘the mother of all tax reforms,’ and even that doesn’t do justice to the trillion-dollar tax baby he delivered unto Washington [last week]. No one thinks his plan has a chance of becoming law this year, but its beauty is as a signal of Democratic intentions for 2009. In proposing what would be the largest tax increase in history, Mr. Rangel is showing the world what he wants the tax code to look like if Democrats run the entire government. None of the Presidential candidates will admit this before November 2008, but give Mr. Rangel credit for having the courage of Hillary Clinton’s convictions. The New Yorker is wily enough to realize he has to wrap this homely child in the ribbon of ‘tax reform,’ and yesterday he even invoked the memory of Ronald Reagan’s 1986 reform success. If only the Gipper were still here to have fun with that one. Readers of a certain age might recall that the 1986 reform traded lower tax rates (a top rate of 28%) for fewer loopholes and deductions. Mr. Rangel’s idea of reform is to raise tax rates in order to offer more deductions. With one very revealing exception. Mr. Rangel does propose to cut the corporate tax rate, of all things, to 30.5% from 35% today. He’d ‘pay’ for this by reducing business credits and deductions. This is revealing because it is a tacit admission that tax rates really do matter to investment choices… Amid slow growth and a housing recession, this couldn’t be a worse time to raise taxes on capital gains, dividends and small business. Democrats would be smarter to drop the tax increases and ‘paygo,’ and simply patch the AMT for another year. And if Mr. Rangel really wants to reform the tax code in 2009, he’s going to have read up on what the Gipper accomplished. All he’s proposed so far is a trillion-dollar bomb.” —The Wall Street Journal

INSIGHT

“A truth that’s told with bad intent, beats all the lies you can invent.” —William Blake

“It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” —Voltaire

“I am easily satisfied with the very best.” —Winston Churchill

“There should be a tax on every man that wanted to get a government appointment, or be elected to office. In two years that tax alone would pay our national debt.” —Will Rogers

DEZINFORMATSIA

No argument here: “Once again, Hillary Rodham Clinton leads in a poll. This time, she was top choice when people were asked which major 2008 presidential candidate would make the scariest Halloween costume.” —Associated Press *You go, Ghoul!

World Ends, report at 9: “At the top of the next hour, as I said, the big picture. These [California] fires are really a piece of it. Fire, drought, global warming, climate change, deforestation, it is all connected. Tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern—’Planet in Peril’ starts in just 30 minutes.” —CNN’s Anderson Cooper ++ Just Blame Bush: “For many [San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium] was a sharp contrast with another football stadium two years ago: The Superdome in New Orleans during Katrina—overcrowded, miserable conditions, all under a leaking roof, while thousands of feet above the evacuees, President Bush flew home from vacation in Air Force One and never stopped. Contrast this past week when the President came to a burned-out area [in California] to press the flesh.” —CBS’s Seth Doane *Was the President supposed to stop Air Force One and pick people up?

This week’s “Clintonista Media Sycophant” Award: “The Clintons have always been masters at turning bad news into good, if you will. And all week they’ve been capitalizing on a milestone that makes a lot of women cringe. We’re talking about the big six-o. But, instead of facing gray hair and retirement, for Hillary Clinton, being a member of AARP is fund-raising gold.” —ABC’s Kate Snow

Theo-phobic: “No matter how you slice it, the [Rudy] Giuliani positions on abortion, gay rights and gun control remain indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton’s… Whichever candidate or party lands in the White House, this much is certain: Inauguration Day 2009 is at the very least Armageddon for the reigning ayatollahs of the American Right.” —New York Times columnist Frank Rich

Newspulper Headlines: Clinton Campaign Now Hiring: “Mob Wanted to Whack Rudy” —The New York Post

And if You Believe This, We’ve Got a Bridge to Sell You: “Hillary Clinton: Dental Surgery Evokes Romance in Bill” —FoxNews.com

That Explains Maureen Dowd: “Neanderthals Described as Red-Haired” —ABCNews.com

Once They’re 7, They’re on Their Own: “Learn to Raise Happy Children Up to Age 6” —Idaho Statesman

‘What Is a Pipe Dream?’: “Mideast Solution Plan in Jeopardy” —Time.com

We Blame Global Warming: “Palestinian Soccer Team Misses World Cup Qualifier, Blames Israel” —Ha’aretz

Bottom Stories of the Day: “Sean Penn Loses Trailer in Malibu Fire” —TMZ.com (Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

UPRIGHT

“More than unworkable, liberal ideas are preposterous, impossible—refuted by logic and human experience. That liberals continue to believe the impossible is due to their peculiar mental makeup. Liberals believe what they want to believe, the overwhelming weight of evidence notwithstanding. Once a liberal stops clinging to certain illusions central to his worldview, he stops being a liberal.” —Don Feder ++ “The liberal interpretation of history holds that the United States is not merely a flawed country—all countries are flawed—but a deeply flawed one. It was founded by statesmen who subscribed to a deeply flawed philosophy; statesmen who believed that all men are created equal, and that all men are entitled to life, liberty, and the fruits of their industry… The shapers of America’s philosophy of freedom were corrupt; therefore the philosophy they espoused was also corrupt.” —Michael Knox Beran

“Notice that neither Mr. Gore nor his environmentalist friends who are so worried about saving the trees have arrived on the fire lines with even a thimbleful of water to douse the flames. Instead they stand far off, tut-tutting about the horror of it all, blaming global warming, President Bush and the Iraq war for a tragedy to which they so abundantly contributed.” —Michael Reagan

“Many elected to office are agenda and ideologically driven, simply engaged in the pursuit of power. To these people, the truth is a ‘good thing’ when it aids their cause and something to be spun or ignored when it stands to detract from their agendas.” —Frank Salvato

“Republicans have 4 ½ good presidential candidates. All five would make fine Cabinet members: Romney at Treasury, Thompson at Justice, McCain at Defense, Giuliani at Homeland Security, Huckabee at Interior. All the team needs now is to pick a captain who can beat Hillary.” —Charles Krauthammer

VILLAGE IDIOTS

That’s great advice: “You don’t like the fact that you can’t have a gun on your college campus? Drop out of school.” —Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun [Ownership], responding to students nationwide wearing empty holsters to class in protest of “Gun Free Zones” that only disarm the innocent

Non Compos Mentis: “The taxation system has tilted toward the rich and away from the middle class in the last ten years.” —Warren Buffett

From the truth squad: “You shouldn’t be able to lie on the air. You can’t utter obscenities in a broadcast, so why should you be able to lie? You should be fined for lying.” —lying liar Senate candidate Al Franken in contention for captain of the Speech Police *Apply that rule to Congress, and the national debt would be paid in two weeks.

This week’s “Quid Pro Homo” Award: “There is no gospel in Donnie McClurkin’s message for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. That’s a message that certainly doesn’t belong on any presidential candidate’s stage.” —“Human” (truth in labeling: Homosexual) Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese on Grammy Award-winning singer and pastor Donnie McClurkin, who offers stirring testimony as a former homosexual saved and restored through Christian faith, and who appeared in a campaign rally for Barack Obama

SHORT CUTS

“Just in time for Halloween comes House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel—henceforth known as Count Rangula—with a bill that would suck more blood from the American taxpayers. Like Dracula the vampire, Count Rangula is cagey about his intentions, luring his victims (us) with promises of ‘reforming’ the tax code.” —Cal Thomas

“College campuses across the nation are installing foot baths to accommodate Muslims’ daily bathing ritual, while surgically removing the Ten Commandments from every public space in America. Maybe the Ten Commandments could be printed on towels and kept next to the foot baths.” —Ann Coulter

“Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich says that he once had an encounter with a UFO. Apparently, several weird looking, little men got off the ship, saw Kucinich, and said, ‘It’s alright. He’s one of us’.” —Conan O’Brien

“You might think nobody could make politics of a tragic fire, but if you think that you would be wrong. Not only is the personal political, so is the fiery impersonal…It’s not quite clear how fire can be credibly blamed on George W. Bush, but some people are working on it.” —Wesley Pruden

“Comedians all support Hillary. The idea of Bill Clinton being in the White House for eight years with nothing to do in the afternoon is the closest thing there is to the chemical formula for comedy.” —Argus Hamilton

David Letterman: From “Top Ten Things Overheard During Dick Cheney’s Hunting Trip”: Has everyone updated their will? The crisp air is giving me goose bumps—no, wait, it’s another heart attack; This can’t end well; My pacemaker also makes bird calls; You shoot one guy in the face, avoid talking to authorities, delay taking a blood-alcohol test, and you’re labeled a bad guy; Duck!

Jay Leno: Lot of candidates getting into the Halloween spirit. Today, John Edwards said he was going to get a $15 haircut and go as someone from the other America. … Even FEMA employees are celebrating Halloween. They’re all getting dressed up as reporters this year. … FEMA is handling another disaster—its own Public Relations department. This is unbelievable to me! FEMA has apologized for staging a fake news conference on the California wildfires. They had a fake news conference in which FEMA employees pretended to be reporters and asked softball questions to their idiot boss. It was obvious the reporters were FEMA workers because the questions were about the 2003 fire. … New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has announced that New York will give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. So, for the first time ever, a lot of New York City cab drivers will actually have a license. … Democrats in Congress have announced they will now be taking Fridays off. Apparently, they were getting worried their approval rating was too high. … The president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his wife have gotten a divorce. Apparently, there were rumors of infidelity and lack of trust. To which Bill and Hillary said, ‘Well, that’s no reason to get divorced’.

Veritas vos Liberabit—Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families—especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)