The Foundation

“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation.” –James Madison

Editorial Exegesis

“If nothing else, last week made it abundantly clear where Democrats stand on today’s most pressing issues, and the picture isn’t pretty. In case you missed it, the Democrats floated a plan for a millionaire surtax in an attempt to, as the Hill put it, ‘force Republicans to accept other tax increases.’ They tried to hike taxes on oil companies by more than $2 billion a year, because the industry is currently making big profits; and mounted a nationwide campaign to scare seniors away from Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform – including a new ad that depicts Ryan tossing a senior citizen off a cliff. Detect a theme there? On issue after issue, Republicans are putting forward serious, sober and often politically risky solutions to the nation’s most pressing problems, while Democrats play class-warfare games and stoke the public’s fear. To cope with the nation’s gargantuan debt, for example, the GOP issued a budget plan that focuses – correctly – on reining in the government’s runaway spending. The only thing Democrats want to talk about is how all our problems can be solved if we just raise taxes on the ‘the rich.’” –Investor’s Business Daily

Editor’s Note: House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) released a second video titled, “Path to Prosperity (Episode 2)” in which he lays out the case for Medicare’s problems and how to fix it.

See the video and comment here.

Upright

“The poor have been used as human shields behind which the expanding welfare state can advance. The goal is not to keep the poor from starving but to create dependency, because dependency translates into votes for politicians who play Santa Claus. We have all heard the old saying about how giving a man a fish feeds him for a day, while teaching him to fish feeds him for a lifetime. Independence makes for a healthier society, but dependency is what gets votes for politicians. For politicians, giving a man a fish every day of his life is the way to keep getting his vote. ‘Entitlement’ is just a fancy word for dependency.” –economist Thomas Sowell

“Unemployment remains near double-digits. Obama economic advisers Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein infamously vowed the stimulus would stay below 8 percent. Highway jobs have not materialized. Investor’s Business Daily notes that a new study by economists Timothy Conley of the University of Western Ontario and Bill Dupor of Ohio State ‘found that despite the influx of all that federal money, highway construction jobs actually plunged by nearly 70,000 between 2008 and 2010.’ Indeed, the researchers found that the stimulus actually ‘destroyed or forestalled’ a whopping one million private sector jobs by crowding them out with make-work public jobs and programs. Recovery.gov? More like Wreckovery.gov.” –columnist Michelle Malkin

“For those who do not have a map in front of them, Obama’s insistence that ‘the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps’ means at its narrowest point the country would be only 8 miles wide – and utterly indefensible. It means Israel, the only state in the region that meets the president’s criteria for ‘self determination’ – an honest judiciary; an independent media; credible political parties; free and fair elections – must now negotiate its fate with those who want none of those things. Barack Obama has become Yasser Arafat’s dream come true.” –columnist Oliver North

“As fallout continues over President Obama’s calls for Israel to go back to its 1967 borders last week, Obama, as usual, is claiming his speech was ‘misrepresented.’ … It seems that the President of the United States shouldn’t have to ‘clarify’ remarks given in a major foreign policy speech, yet over and over again we see this Administration clarifying controversial remarks when issues get heated. Taking into account Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to the calls for 1967 borders, it was quite clear what message President Obama sent to the Jewish State last week.” –columnist Katie Pavlich

Insight

“It is one of the maladies of our age to profess a frenzied allegiance to truth in unimportant matters, and to refuse consistently to face her where graver issues are at stake.” –British writer Norman Douglas (1868-1952)

“America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine Providence in behalf of the human race.” –American essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

“I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him ‘father.’” –American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

The Demo-gogues

Profiles in courage: “There’s no need to have a Democratic budget in my opinion. It would be foolish for us to do a budget at this stage.” –Senate Majority “Leader” Harry Reid (D-NV)

Again with no adult discussion: “You can’t do $2 trillion just in cuts. There has to be a mix of spending cuts, including defense. There has to be a more fair apportionment of tax policy in this country.” –Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) (By “fair apportionment” of course, he means taxing the “rich” even more than they already are.)

“We’ve had no proposal from the Republicans except in their budget they wanted to take Medicare away from future seniors by making it a block grant, and they wanted to cut the Medicaid program which cuts a big hole in the safety net for the poor to get their health care needs which means people in nursing homes would be dumped out of those nursing homes.” –Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA)

Throwing Israel under the bus: “The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.” –Barack Obama

Let’s all get along: “We face a historic opportunity. We have a chance to show that America values the dignity of a street vendor in Tunisia more than the raw power of the dictator. As Americans have been seared by hostage taking, violent rhetoric, and terrorist attacks that have killed thousands of our citizens – a failure to change our approach [in the Middle East] threatens a deepening spiral of division between the United States and Muslim communities.” –Barack Obama

Trouble keeping the story straight: “The first time I had Guinness is when I came to the Shannon [Ireland] airport. We were flying into Afghanistan and so stopped in Shannon. It was the middle of the night. And I tried one of these and I realized it tastes so much better here than it does in the States.” –Barack Obama (If it was the first time, how did you know it tasted better than in the States?)

Meanwhile in Ireland, Obama’s limo had trouble getting around.

Dezinformatsia

Class warfare: “This may be the summer that we see more clearly that the working class has developed a lingering sense of disillusionment, that right-wing politicians have developed an unshakeable immunity to empathy and that corporations have developed a taste for blood squeezed from turnips. And it may be the summer for seeing through the right-wing squawk machine that hopes to distract us from the damage the rich and the right are doing by manically hurling torches at the Obama administration to see if something catches fire. This week, Representative Paul Ryan, a Republican of Wisconsin, suggested to the Economic Club of Chicago that the president’s attempt to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans amounted to ‘class warfare’ and promoted ‘class envy.’ Ha! The war is already being waged against the poor and vulnerable, and the envious have-nots didn’t start it. The right and its cabal of economic cannibals did.” –New York Times columnist Charles Blow

This just in: “[Benjamin Netanyahu] got a standing ovation [in Congress], but the Palestinians were not impressed. … The Palestinians are not buying his peace plan.” –CBS’s Russ Mitchell (The Palestinians won’t buy any peace plan that includes the nation of Israel.)

Anything but natural-cause: “What about climate change? You have many people who see these severe storms, and not just the tornados, but the strength of hurricanes and even severe storms, we’re getting hail and high winds right now from Texas, I believe, all the way through the Midwest. Is this a result of climate change or an effect of climate change?” –MSNBC’s Tamron Hall

Blame global warming: “Is this it, this is the evidence of a kind of preview of life under global warming?” –ABC’s Diane Sawyer opining on the tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri

Newspulper Headlines:

Out on a Limb: “Obama Jolt Unlikely to Spark Mideast Peace Talks” –MSNBC.com

Breaking News From Genesis 1:20: “Animal Kingdom Is Just Getting Started” –NBCSports website

Questions Nobody Is Asking: “Could Climate Disruptions Lead to an Increase in GIANT SNAKES?” –Grist.org

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “World Watches as Kim Jong-il Returns to Health” –Scotsman

Bottom Story of the Day: “Toronto Barely Blinks as Rapture Comes and Goes” –Toronto Star

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

Village Idiots

The most humble man: “I feel that my role as a former president is probably superior to that of other presidents. Primarily because of the activism and the injection of working at the Carter Center and in international affairs, and to some degree, domestic affairs, on energy conservation, on environment, and things of that kind. … And the Carter Center has decided, under my leadership, to fill the vacuums in the world.” –Jimmy Carter

Hate speech: “The far-right is what I call the ‘Hate Wing’ of the Republican Party. They’re over-represented in primaries, and of course when elections come along, they generally don’t win. But they can cause enormous trouble in the primaries. They hate Muslims, they hate gays, they hate immigrants, and the rhetoric in the primaries shows that.” –former DNC chief Howard Dean

Big Labor’s complaint: “If you want to look at the [campaign finance] system, the system is broken. The Supreme Court helped break it even more with Citizens United. The system needs to be changed so that average, ordinary Americans can have as strong a voice as ExxonMobil does in the Congress. … The campaign finance laws need to be changed, so I for one would be for an overhaul. I’d start at the Supreme Court probably because they believe that money equals free speech. That’s what their decision said.” –AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka

The “Refined Agitator”: “I’ve learned to pick my fights, and also, to be more strategic about my fight plan. It doesn’t mean it’s not the same fight, but it means I’m a different and I’m a more seasoned fighter. … [a] ‘refined agitator.’” –the “Rev.” Al Sharpton

Short Cuts

“So, Barack Obama thinks Israel should give up the land it acquired in the Six-Day War, rolling back to its 1967 borders. … I was talking to a friend last night who had this alternative suggestion. Leave Israel alone and roll back the U.S. Government to its 1967 size. I wish he had said 1965.” –columnist Roger Kimball

“The best way to hear this President denounce those [crony capitalist] things, instead of imposing them on us, is to become the citizens of a foreign country. If we just pull America back to its pre-1776 borders, we’ll immediately gain Barack Obama’s energetic support for entrepreneurial risk, economic growth, resource development, and limited, accountable government.” –columnist John Hayward

“The death of Osama bin Laden … has apparently damaged our relationship with al-Qa'ida. Al-Qa'ida has released a statement vowing to make America pay for bin Laden’s death. I’m pretty sure we did pay for his death. We paid for the whole thing and even took care of the funeral arrangements. Maybe a thank you would be nice.” –comedian Jimmy Kimmel

“President Obama addressed a party fundraiser in New York Tuesday where he promised Democrats he’ll get immigration reform passed. He spoke at length about how immigration is good for the United States. Maria Shriver has been granted equal time to deliver the rebuttal.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“Just because politicians take their own clichés seriously and deliver them with great solemnity doesn’t mean that any of us are under any obligation to feign interest. It’s time that Republicans running for office realized that it’s not illegal to occasionally break the law of gravitas.” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
The Patriot Post Editorial Team