The Patriot Post® · Chronicle

The Foundation

“Our conflict is not likely to cease so soon as every good man would wish. The measure of iniquity is not yet filled; and unless we can return a little more to first principles, and act a little more upon patriotic ground, I do not know when it will.” –George Washington

Editorial Exegesis

“During the summer of 2009, in the early stages of the health care debate, a frustrated Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., lamented that he wasn’t getting any cooperation from Republicans. … This ‘Party of No’ rhetoric was parroted by nearly every liberal writer. It is less common today, now that the tables have turned. The new Republican House majority has passed a serious proposal to reform the broken entitlement system and avert national insolvency. Not only has Reid refused to work with the GOP on a budget, but he said it would be ‘foolish’ for Democrats to release one of their own. And last Wednesday, Senate Democrats gave new meaning to the label the ‘Party of No’ when they held a series of four budget votes. Not a single Democrat voted for any budget proposal, including Obama’s own plan, which was rejected by a unanimous 97-to-0 vote. Democrats have settled on a political strategy of isolating and attacking the Ryan plan instead of offering constructive solutions that could leave them open to attack. If history is any guide, this is a winning election strategy. But it is not necessarily responsible governance. The nation faces an unprecedented debt crisis that makes the problems in the health care system pale in comparison. … As tempting as it is for Republicans to blast Democrats’ inaction, they would do much better to go on offense and attack the bad ideas Democrats have already embraced.” –The Washington Examiner

Upright

“Senate Democrats haven’t passed their own budget plan in more than two years, despite having strong control of that body. Meanwhile, the nation is teetering on bankruptcy. I don’t make that statement lightly. Our national debt is $14.3 trillion, and our federal deficit is $1.65 trillion. … Republicans will make a mistake if they continue to be in counterattack mode, waiting for the latest Democratic broadside to respond. They should be on the airwaves every morning and every night presenting the nightmarish facts and their proposal to end the nightmare and exposing the Democrats for the reckless rogues they are. Time’s running out.” –columnist David Limbaugh

“Obama and his policymakers told the country that we would recover from the deep recession by vastly increasing government spending and borrowing. … Employers aren’t creating any more new jobs than they were during the darkest days of the recession; unemployment has dropped slowly because they just aren’t laying off as many employees as they did then. In the meantime many potential job seekers have left the labor market. If they re-enter and look for jobs, the unemployment rate will stay steady or ebb only slowly. We tend to hire presidents who we think can foresee the future effect of their policies. No one does so perfectly. But if the best sympathetic observers can say about the results is that they are ‘unexpected,’ voters may decide someone else can do better.” –political analyst Michael Barone

“The U.S. intervention in Libya’s civil war … is now taking a toll on the rule of law. In a bipartisan cascade of hypocrisies, a liberal president, with the collaborative silence of most congressional conservatives, is traducing the War Powers Resolution. Enacted in 1973 over President Nixon’s veto, the WPR may or may not be wise. It is, however, unquestionably a law, and Barack Obama certainly is violating it. … ‘No president,’ says Sen. John McCain, ‘has ever recognized the constitutionality of the War Powers Act, and neither do I. So I don’t feel bound by any deadline.’ Oh? No law is actually a law if presidents and senators do not ‘recognize’ it? Now, there is an interesting alternative to judicial review, and an indicator of how executive aggrandizement and legislative dereliction of duty degrade the rule of law.” –columnist George Will

“Congressman Barney Frank, former Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, helped his then-lover Herb Moses land a nice, lucrative ‘government job’ working at Fannie Mae back in the 1990’s. Even though it happened several years ago, this ‘news’ raises some very legitimate questions about a ‘conflict of interest,’ because in his position as an elected member of Congress, Mr. Frank had direct governmental oversight of Fannie Mae. … This type of ‘political favoritism’ has become flagrant, and is out in the open in many parts of the country. What is not so out in the open is the way taxpayer dollars get spent by government agencies and bureaucracies ‘behind the scenes.’” –columnist Austin Hill

Insight

“The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.” –American statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

“Unionism seldom, if ever, uses such power as it has to insure better work; almost always it devotes a large part of that power to safeguarding bad work.” –American writer H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

The Demo-gogues

On the legality of illegal immigration: “I think the president was clearly articulating that his position – the Democrats’ position – is that we need comprehensive immigration reform. We have 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country that are part of the backbone of our economy. And that is not only a reality but a necessity. And that it would be harmful if – the Republican solution that I’ve seen in the last three years is that we should just pack them all up and ship them back to their own countries, and that in fact it should be a crime and we should arrest them all.” –Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), who is also DNC chairwoman

Bad solution: “All I know is, whenever you have any type of a problem and the problem is one that you spend more than you are actually bringing in then you have to bring in more and spend less. It just makes so much sense … it’s all we have to do.” –Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) on raising taxes

Opposing the very debt increase they wanted: “Well, when [Democrats] were in charge, when the president of the United States wouldn’t let you do some of the things you wanted to do, Bill Clinton was there to veto things, we had a surplus for four years in a row and we didn’t increase the debt [limit] once. Under George [W.] Bush we increased it seven times. I yield back the balance of my time and urge a no vote on this irresponsible piece of legislation that should have been handled in bipartisan way.” –House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

Race bait: “You know, I’m 70 years old. And I can tell you; people don’t like to deal with it, but the fact of the matter is, the president’s problems are in large measure because of the color of his skin.” –Assistant Minority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), who later insisted that his comments weren’t about racism

Um, what? “We have a leader with the backbone of a ramrod.” –Joe Biden

Dezinformatsia

The BIG Delusional Lie: “I’d say the relationship is pretty good, very – better than it was with Bush because the military hated the fact that he wasn’t really doing the job in Iraq.” –Time Magazine’s Joe Klein on the military’s supposed love for Obama

Always with the tax hikes: “What about raising taxes? … At some point, do you have to look at raising taxes, and do people have to pay more for what’s needed in this country?” –NBC’s Erica Hill to GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty

More tax hikes: “Paul Ryan has shown considerable guts, but [Democrat Congressman Chris Van Hollen is] correct that nobody on the Republican side is showing any courage on the tax front. And unless taxes are part of the mix, every grown-up knows it can’t reach a solution.” –NBC’s Andrea Mitchell

Schadenfreude: “My favorite detail though of the whole Gingrich-Paul Ryan kerfluffle was not even two days had gone by before a White House aide sat up and said, ‘Well this just proves that destroying Medicare is the new litmus test for the Republican Party primary.’ So they see an opportunity here to just drive that whole debate further and further to the right toward the Tea Party, away from the center, and that’s why they were happy about what happened.” –Time Washington Bureau Chief Michael Duffy

Newspulper Headlines:

Shortest Books Ever Written: “The Case for Higher Taxes” –New York Times website

Too Much Information: “Barney Frank Admits Getting His Former-Lover a Fannie Position” –EconomicPolicyJournal.com

What Do You Call Shrimp on a Treadmill? Pork!: “Tax Dollars Fund Shrimp on Treadmills, Jell-O Wrestling in Antarctica” –The Washington Times

According to the Flat Earth Society: “JFK Had Doubts About Moon Landing” –Boston Globe

We Blame Global Warming: “Bulls Collapse to the Undeterred Heat, Lose Series 4-1” –BlogaBull.com

Breaking News From May 1: “U.S. Gains Entry to bin Laden’s Pakistan House” –The Wall Street Journal

Questions Nobody Is Asking: “After He Ordered the Killing of Osama bin Laden, Can Barack Obama Be a Role Model for Black Kids?” –Daily Telegraph website

News You Can Use: “How to Make American Tornadoes” –Commentary website

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

Village Idiots

And if that fails… “Our plan is for Congress to pass the debt limit [increase]. Our fallback plan is for Congress to pass the debt limit, and our fallback to the fallback plan is for Congress to pass the debt limit.” –Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner

Weighing in: “You shouldn’t draw the conclusion that the New York race means that nobody can do anything to slow the rate of Medicare costs. I just don’t agree with that. … You should draw the conclusion that the people made a judgment that the proposal in the Republican budget is not the right one. I agree with that.” –Bill Clinton

“Last month, of the 242 counties in Texas, 202 of them were on fire simultaneously. Last August, in Russia, the largest drought, followed by the largest fires in their history, resulted in the removal of all the grain from Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan from world markets, leading to the historic all-time spike in food prices. These events have been just within the last 12 months. And the scientists are now in a shift; theoretic saying that, if you ask the question, would these events have occurred in the absence of manmade global warming, the answer is almost certainly no.” –Anthropogenic Al Gore

Short Cuts

“Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is launching a $500 million program to teach kids how to ‘sit still’ in Kindergarten. Maybe they should take the money from Michelle Obama’s ‘Let’s Move’ initiative.” –former Senator Fred Thompson

“Oh, yeah, federal regulation. So this EPA directive requiring milk to be treated the same as petroleum for the purposes of storage and transportation has been around since the Seventies, and it’s only taken the best part of four decades to get it partially suspended even though it’s udderly insane? Hallelujah!” –columnist Mark Steyn

“President Obama spoke to a combined House of Commons and Lords at Westminster Hall after Tuesday’s banquet. The president got along especially well with Queen Elizabeth. They enjoyed comparing notes on ways the Tea Parties are always trying to end their rule in America.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“President Obama arrived in France for the G8 summit, a meeting of the world’s top economic powers. To give you an idea of how bad our economy is doing, when the president arrived, the other countries were like, ‘What are you doing here?’” –comedian Jay Leno

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