The Patriot Post® · Brief

The Foundation

“Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.” –Thomas Jefferson

Update on AOL and The Patriot Post

On Friday, we published an announcement that AOL was seeking to purchase The Patriot Post for $425 million. The outcry from our loyal readers was so great, however, that we have decided to decline the offer.

OK, it was actually April Fool’s Day, and based on the reader comments, a few of our loyal readers took the bait. All in good fun and thanks for playing along, but you know we would never sell out!

On a serious note, however, The Patriot Post‘s very successful advocacy of Essential Liberty is sustained solely by your generous support of our hard-working staff. Freedom isn’t free, and neither is publishing.

If you have recovered from the AOL prank, please take a moment and support our Patriots’ Day Campaign with a contribution of any size today!

Reader Comments

Editor’s Note: A sample of the six hundred April Fool’s Day responses, and a special thanks to those who already upped their contribution level.

“Good one! First I was stunned; next I was disappointed; then I was THAT close to getting really steamed. Finally a little light came on. Whew!”

“Uh, actually, I know Mark Alexander and his devotion to our Republic and Essential Liberty can’t be bought away at any price! Anyone who falls for this one has not been reading The Patriot for long.”

“April Fool’s Day indeed! Don’t do that to me! Spilled my coffee, yelled at my wife, swore at my cat, before my ancient brain began to work and realized what day it was.”

“You Rats! I hope I am not this gullible all day.”

“Don’t mess with me like that! April Fool’s or not don’t do that! Now if you said The Patriot Post was purchasing AOL, GOOGLE, HUFFPO, MEDIA MATTERS, noooowwwww that would be FUNNY!”

“You were robbed! The Patriot Post is easily worth ten times what HuffPost is worth!”

“I wish it were so. Then you would have real money to use to continue, and expand, this great quest.”

“Now that my heart has returned from the place to which it had sunk, I can say ‘twas an amusing thought for this day of jest. Hopefully prophetic, though, in the sense that this publication very well ought be an online juggernaut. I will re-busy myself with its promotion to those beyond the choir.”

“I was born at night – but not last night! Thanks for the chuckle. As with the best AFD jokes, this had an element of plausibility. Fox has both conservative and liberal commentators and AOL might have been wise enough to offer to you. But you gave yourself away with 'traffic dropping like a polished stone’ – too much truth to come out in a press release!”

“BRAVO ZULU! Outstanding! The tip off was that the Huffington Post was a giant! Well done!”

“Well … after the rant I just went on to my fellow co-workers about what a load of crap this is … I went to the post a comment page to tear you a new one … great AFD joke!!! Keep up the great work you do. Semper Fi!”

“Hook in mouth – good one. Keep up the great work Patriot Post staff!”

“Haha – Armstrong would never admit to a drop in traffic and Alexander cannot be bought!”

“I thought this was hilarious … at the same time I am so very proud to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mark Alexander cannot be bought at ANY price. It also makes me chuckle at the thought, however fanciful, that lefties would be willing to pay such a high price to silence this advocate of conservative and constitutional thought, given the long reach and influence of The Patriot Post.”

“I recall a really deep plunge that had me really wanting some air, without saltwater in it. Man, you ought to have some consideration for us older fellows! Mark, I bit, hook and all. You are fully aware, I am certain, of the sense of relief when I discovered the foil! Well done! A real classic, should go into the annals of all time April Fool’s Day jokes. Semper Fi. Thanks.”

“Frankly, I am concerned that people actually fell for that. Discernment is a precious commodity. But on the other hand, it is also a mark of how people trust you to tell the truth. So that’s a good thing. Carry on…”

Government

“If you buy into the energy speech President Obama delivered on Wednesday, it sure sounds like we’re headed for drill, drill, drill. … In the fact sheet that accompanied the speech, there’s a lot of talk about ‘responsible development’ for natural gas fracking chemicals, state regulators, tapping experts, the environmental community, and protecting public health and the environment. In other words, the standards for new drilling could be so high that there won’t be that much new drilling. … While the president says we’re going to reduce oil imports by one-third in 2025 – something that sounds suspiciously like a backdoor cap that will damage job creation and growth – the U.S. is expected to be a natural-gas exporter in the next few years. That’s how much of it we have. … [M]arket forces create significant incentives for oil, gas, coal, and nuclear producers to be as safe and environmentally sound as human engineering can make possible. They don’t want BP-level calamities. Nor do they want repeats of the Japanese disaster. But here’s what America wants: Less government and fewer regulatory barriers in order to unleash the great American energy industry.” –columnist Lawrence Kudlow

Opinion in Brief

“Obama ignored the murder, imprisonment and torture of peaceful Iranian protesters demonstrating against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s theft of an election in 2009. But he was hopping mad about Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak getting rough with a mob in Tahrir Square with less distinct objectives. We knew what the Iranian students wanted: a stolen election overturned. What did the Egyptians want? At the time, liberals angrily cited the high unemployment rate in Egypt as proof that Mubarak was a beast who must step down. Have they, by any chance, seen the recent employment numbers for the U.S.? The only employment sectors showing any growth are Hollywood sober-living coaches and medical marijuana dispensaries. Are we one jobs report away from liberals rioting in the streets? … However far off the mark [Moammar] Gadhafi is from being the Libyan George Washington, he poses no threat to the U.S. – whereas the rebels we are supporting might. But Democrats couldn’t care less about the interests of their own country. Indeed, if there were the slightest possibility that our intervention in Libya would somehow benefit the United States, they would hysterically oppose it.” –columnist Ann Coulter

Liberty

“Islamist extremism and oppression of women go hand in hand. And while the correlation between poverty and terrorism is often overstated, the correlation between prosperity and women’s liberation is profound. Female education is tightly linked with GDP growth, lower birthrates and even higher agricultural yields. It’s also tightly linked with human freedom and decency, which is why no Islamic ‘spring’ is possible without a feminist revolution. Countless Islamist countries practice gender apartheid and countenance wife-beating, honor killings and female genital mutilation. … But there are signs of hope as well. In a widely circulating video, Veena Malik, a Pakistani model and actress, tears apart a smug Islamist mullah berating her for being ‘un-Islamic.’ Not only does she stand up for a modern humane Islam that can tolerate women and ‘fun,’ she tells the cleric, ‘I am more angry with you people than you are with me.’ Malik offers heroic moral clarity that should cheer anyone who has lamented the lack of moderate Muslims willing to condemn the extremists. And she offers a reminder for us all that the real war for women’s equality is now a battle to be fought in foreign lands.” –columnist Jonah Goldberg

The Gipper

“The Founding Fathers established a system which meant a radical break from that which preceded it. A written constitution would provide a permanent form of government, limited in scope, but effective in providing both liberty and order. Government was not to be a matter of self-appointed rulers, governing by whim or harsh ideology. It was not to be government by the strongest or for the few. Our principles were revolutionary. We began as a small, weak republic. But we survived. Our example inspired others, imperfectly at times, but it inspired them nevertheless. This constitutional republic, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, prospered and grew strong. To this day, America is still the abiding alternative to tyranny. That is our purpose in the world – nothing more and nothing less.” –Ronald Reagan

Insight

“I can say – not as a patriotic bromide, but with full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, political and esthetic roots – that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.” –author and philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

Re: The Left

“An unusual rally was held over the [last] weekend in Wisconsin, in which the AFL-CIO acted to protect government subsidies for Planned Parenthood. … Democrats must obey the union bosses, and win elections against Republicans, in order to deliver value to the unions. Planned Parenthood helps Democrats win elections, and a show of strength alongside union forces encourages Democrat politicians to obey their instructions. Do you suppose it’s easy to persuade elected politicians to humiliate themselves by fleeing the state and hiding in motel rooms? … Unions are the primary conduit for converting taxpayer money into Democrat campaign cash. Big Abortion is a smaller, but not insignificant, pipeline. Both organizations harvest political power from people who support them for idealistic reasons, and neatly package that power for delivery to their chosen political party. That is one reason why union troops are willing to stuff members who don’t necessarily support the Planned Parenthood agenda into pink T-shirts, and lead them in chants to defend compulsory taxpayer funding for Big Abortion’s biggest and most lucrative operation.” –columnist John Hayward

Faith & Family

“A new film, not about hedge fund managers, but about online predators who scour the Internet preying on children, will help many parents (and teens if they’ll listen) become more aware of the threat they face. … Directed by David Schwimmer, ‘Trust’ is the story of 14-year-old ‘Annie,’ who makes friends with a ‘boy’ named ‘Charlie.’ Charlie, supposedly 16, texts Annie and begins his seduction by addressing the insecurities many teenage girls feel about their looks and lack of self-esteem. After weeks of email and chat room exchanges, Charlie’s magnetism draws Annie into a face-to-face meeting. At first she is sickened that he is much older than he said, but by now she is hooked by his flattery and even though she knows he is a liar, she wants to believe his lies. They have sex in a cheap hotel room. … In an age where every cell phone is a computer with Internet access, there are no ‘parental controls’ that can fully protect our children and grandchildren from sexual predators. In this cyber age, the old parental warnings not to take candy from strangers or get into a stranger’s car have limited effect, especially when pedophiles can slither directly into your child’s bedroom via Internet connection. … It is a powerful and necessary lesson for parents and children.” –columnist Cal Thomas

Culture

“The latest published data from the 2010 census show how people are moving from place to place within the United States. In general, people are voting with their feet against places where the liberal, welfare-state policies favored by the intelligentsia are most deeply entrenched. … The movement of the black population – especially educated young blacks – is the most striking of all. … In short, with blacks, as with other racial or ethnic groups, those with better prospects are leaving the states that are repelling their most productive citizens in general with liberal policies. … Treating businesses and affluent people as prey, rather than assets, often pays off politically in the short run – and elections are held in the short run. Killing the goose that lays the golden egg is a viable political strategy. As whites were the first to start leaving Detroit, its then mayor Coleman Young saw this only as an exodus of people who were likely to vote against him, enhancing his re-election prospects. But what was good for Mayor Young was disastrous for Detroit. There is a lesson here somewhere, but it is very doubtful if either the intelligentsia or the politicians will learn it.” –economist Thomas Sowell

The Last Word

“Say what you like about Barack Obama, but it’s rare to find a leader so impeccably multilateralist that he’s willing to participate in both sides of a war. It doesn’t exactly do much for holding it under budget, but it does ensure that for once we’ve got a sporting chance of coming out on the winning side. If a coalition plane bombing Gadhafi’s forces runs into a coalition plane bombing the rebel forces, are they allowed to open fire on each other? Or would that exceed the U.N. resolution? Who are these rebels we’re simultaneously arming and bombing? Don’t worry, the CIA is ‘gathering intelligence’ on them. They should have a clear idea of who our allies are round about the time Mohammed bin Jihad is firing his Kalashnikov and shouting ‘Death to the Great Satan!’ from the balcony of the presidential palace. But America’s commander-in-chief thinks they’re pretty sound chaps. ‘The people that we’ve met with have been fully vetted,’ says President Obama. ‘So we have a clear sense of who they are. And so far they’re saying the right things. And most of them are professionals, lawyers, doctors – people who appear to be credible.’ Credible people with credentials – just like the president! … In the old days, simpletons like President George W. Bush used to say, ‘You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists.’ This time round, we’re with us and we’re with the terrorists, and you can’t say fairer than that.” –columnist Mark Steyn