The Patriot Post® · Chronicle

The Foundation

“A Constitution is not the act of a Government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution is a power without right.” –Thomas Paine

Editorial Exegesis

“On a campaign fundraising trip to Chicago, Mr. Obama quipped that under the proposed Republican budget plan, ‘we would be a nation of potholes, and our airports would be worse than places that we thought – that we used to call the Third World, but who are now investing in infrastructure.’ He failed to elaborate on which developing countries he thinks should be models for the United States, but his policies have secured America’s status as part of the declining world. … During the president’s trip to India in November 2010, he said that for most of his lifetime, ‘the U.S. was such an enormously dominant economic power … that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms.’ In his view, however, Mr. Obama is overseeing the end times for U.S. economic dominance. Rising economies in China, India, Russia, Brazil and elsewhere will, he says, ‘keep America on its toes.’ Meanwhile, these same countries just finished a conference in China exploring new ways to put America flat on its back. … The debt accrued on Mr. Obama’s watch is the centerpiece of the forces that are driving the United States to global pauperhood. In 2008, gross public debt was 69 percent of the gross domestic product. This year it will pass 100 percent. Mr. Obama’s debt has stifled economic productivity and has driven the country to the point where only 66 percent of men had jobs last year, the lowest figure on record. Were it not for Mr. Obama’s drunken-sailor-style spending, facilitated by Democratic supermajorities in both houses of Congress during his first two years, the United States wouldn’t be in this fix. Still, the president’s answer to economic crisis is to heap on more debt. It’s this crippling tax-and-spend Obama creed that’s bringing America to the brink of Third World inferiority.” –The Washington Times

Upright

“[E]ven confiscating all the income of the rich cannot sufficiently fund the reduction in deficits. Nor can slight-of-hand waste, fraud and abuse savings in the entitlements cover the gap. Ultimately, the Democrats either will not in fact deal with the deficit or they will have to do so by very highly taxing the middle class (either way, they want to keep spending, but they will try to hide those alternative realities). … Politics is about to get much uglier – but possibly more productive.” –columnist Tony Blankley

“Barack Obama is a politician who likes to follow through on long-term strategies and avoid making course corrections. That’s how he believes he won in 2008 and since then he’s shown that he’s not much into details. So he was happy to let congressional appropriators fill in the blanks in the 2009 stimulus package, and to let congressional leaders know he would be happy whether there was or wasn’t a public option in the 2010 health insurance legislation. Whatever. In the long run the big things would work out his way. Except right now they aren’t. And his partisan and petulant speech last Wednesday is unlikely to move things in the direction he wants.” –political analyst Michael Barone

“It doesn’t matter whether Mr. Obama and his wise men, so called, agree with S&P[‘s lowered credit outlook for the U.S.]. Like it or not, the highly regarded S&P credit assessment is out there, and when Wall Street talks a lot of money can walk. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Republican majority leader in the House, calls the S&P assessment 'a wake-up call’ for those who want to raise the U.S. debt limit without ‘meaningful fiscal reforms that immediately reduce federal spending and stop our nation from digging itself further into debt.’ … [T]he public is fully awake now, with neither appetite nor tolerance for drowsy addicts of the Big Sleep.” –Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

“When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence ‘all men are created equal,’ he knew this wasn’t literally true. He knew we are tall and short, fat and thin, smart and stupid, industrious and lazy, rich and poor, male and female, black and white, brown, yellow and red. What Mr. Jefferson meant is that we are entitled to equal justice under law. Equality before the law has been the cornerstone of our democracy. But maybe not for much longer. The Department of Health and Human Services has so far granted hundreds of waivers to Obamacare. … The law Congress passed contains no language authorizing anyone in the executive branch to grant waivers. The Obama administration claims the authority is implied by the broad powers the legislation grants to the HHS secretary. The Founding Fathers beg to differ.” –columnist Jack Kelly

“It’s peculiar how the left embraces choice when it comes to aborting children, but opposes it for children languishing in failing public schools. These substandard schools virtually guarantee their students a life of poverty, teen pregnancy, near illiteracy and welfare dependence. … By what moral standard do people embrace ‘choice’ when it comes to destroying a life, but oppose choice when it comes to saving one by way of a quality education? Liberal Democrats who favor ‘choice’ on abortion and oppose it on education are wrong on both counts.” –columnist Cal Thomas

Patriots’ Day Campaign Final Update

Thanks to all of the readers who graciously supported our Patriots’ Day campaign. We have nearly met our goal of raising $75,000 to keep The Patriot Post coming with its critical analysis each and every week!

Insight

“One must bear in mind that the expansion of federal activity is a form of eating for politicians.” –American author and commentator William F. Buckley (1925-2008)

“Your attitude about who you are and what you have is a very little thing that makes a very big difference.” –president Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

The Demo-gogues

Chutzpah: “Now, you know we just had Tax Day so nobody wants to pay taxes. Let me tell ya, I looked at my Tax Reform and I thought, ‘hmm…’ Ya know there was a moment there where you look at the figure you’re paying and you say, ‘Wow, let me think about my position on taxing the wealthy here.’ I understand that. Nobody volunteers and says ‘Boy, I’m just wild to pay more taxes.’ But it’s a matter of values and what we prioritize. And I certainly don’t think my taxes should be even lower!” –Barack Obama

You can’t make it up: “You know, if you’ve got to drive to work every day and you don’t have an option, in terms of the car that you’re driving, and it’s taking more and more out of your budget, that’s a problem. Now, one good thing that we did was in December, an example of compromise that a lot of people didn’t think was going to be possible, with Republicans – we were able to pass a package of tax cuts that has helped to buffer some of that strain on families. So the total amount of tax cuts that we passed to boost the economy this year will probably be higher than the additional gas costs.” –Barack Obama claiming that the Bush-era tax rate extension will offset the cost of rising fuel prices

Wishful thinking: “I think I can make that case, and I think that, in the debates that take place over the next 18 months, the American people will feel that I deserve a second term.” –Barack Obama

Technology is terrible: “A few short weeks ago I came to the House floor after having purchased an iPad and said that I happened to believe, Mr. Speaker, that at some point in time this new device, which is now probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs. Now Borders is closing stores because, why do you need to go to Borders anymore? Why do you need to go to Barnes & Noble? Buy an iPad and download your newspaper, download your book, download your magazine.” –Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL)

“America pays its bills. I hope Majority Leader Cantor and those in Congress seizing upon debt ceiling pressure as a ‘leverage opportunity’ are listening to the markets today and thinking twice about their risky strategy.” –Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) recklessly demanding a new infusion of cash for government overspending by boosting the debt limit

Dezinformatsia

Class warfare: “I believe that budgets are moral documents. … And I’m not so sure that this is not anything more than an immoral document where the poor are concerned. [The budget negotiations] effectively locked out the American people, namely, the poor. … I don’t understand why it is in this town that every debate about money always begins and ends with how we can further reward the rich and more punish the poor. I don’t get that.” –PBS’s Tavis Smiley

“Why do these rich people need another tax cut? I mean, they’re already rich. They seem to be doing pretty well as it is now. Why cut their taxes some more? … I guess the part that I don’t quite understand – and I take your proposal to be a serious one – but the part I don’t understand is if the country is going bankrupt, if the country needs to borrow 40 cents of every dollar that it spends, how do you help that by reducing the amount of taxes that the richest people in the country pay? It would be seem to me that’s where you get revenue.” –CBS anchorhead Bob Schieffer

Hammering the Tea Party: “In playing to the Tea Party, the potential candidates also will have a challenge. Recent polls show 47% of Americans have an unfavorable view of the movement. So candidates looking for Tea Party votes have to be careful not to alienate moderates.” –CBS legal reporter Jan Crawford

Newspulper Headlines:

Wow, What a Scoop!: “Obama Exclusive: I Was Born in Hawaii and I Don’t ‘Have Horns’” –ABCNews.com

News of the Tautological: “Obama’s Speech Was a Waste of Breath” –TheAtlantic.com

Too Much Information: “Sen. Tom Coburn on Budget Battle: ‘We Need Senators With Gonads’” –ABCNews.com

Questions Nobody Is Asking: “Is Trump Hype Over Obama Birth Newsworthy?” –USA Today

Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking: “The Problem With Giving Condoms to 11-Year-Olds” –FoxNews.com

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Village Idiots

Debt is great: “I don’t think we should make too much out of that [credit rating hit]. What Standard and Poor’s is doing is making a political judgment and it is one that we don’t agree with.” –Austan Goolsbee, Barack Obama’s “top” economist

“We shouldn’t be playing chicken with our economy by linking the raising of the debt ceiling to anything.” –White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

From the government and here to help: “We’re not going to let money compromise safety. If safety is our number one priority and it takes additional controllers to get to the kind of zero tolerance that we want, that’s what we will do. We will always find the money to make sure that safety is the number one priority for the flying public.” –Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood

Woman of the people: “What we have to do in this country is remember who we are and that’s the reason why I like to travel and to get out because, look, no matter what people say, when they see you they’re excited and they’re proud and you know, everybody, everybody has their detractors and that’s part of what the political process is all about. I want to embrace the country that I love. The country that I know is positive and fair and there’s so much of that out there, that it’s very easy to kind of push the other stuff aside and not take it in. It’s easier than you’d imagine.” –First Lady Michelle Obama

Short Cuts

“It’s a pretty good rule of thumb that, in Washington, whatever the Establishment is focusing on is a distraction from the real issue.” –columnist Mike Needham

“Virtually every action taken by business to avoid taxation has a negative economic impact, since the greatest economic value is obtained when money goes where it wants to go, and transactions are conducted for the maximum mutual benefit of all parties involved. Dollars sheltered from taxation become pale and sickly, when they desperately want to go outside and play in the sun.” –columnist John Hayward

“Joe Biden fell asleep in the audience while listening to President Obama’s speech on the budget deficit. The cameras caught him snoozing away. The vice president’s office said he wasn’t being disrespectful, he was shooting a training film for air traffic controllers.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“Obama called on Americans to have more grandchildren. Probably so there’s more of them to pay off our debt.” –comedian Jay Leno