The Foundation

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.” –John Marshall

Editorial Exegesis

“[On Friday] the previously press conference-averse president had his third news conference in two weeks to once again make his pitch for a ‘big package’ to close the federal deficit, to which he has already managed to add $4 trillion. His solution remains what it has always been – taxes. But then you knew that. Or did you? ‘You have 80 percent of the American people who support a balanced approach,’ Obama said [Friday]. ‘Eighty percent of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts. So the notion that somehow the American people aren’t sold is not the problem. The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically.’ … But if that wasn’t working for you, Obama offered Plan B – the notion that should there actually be a government default because the debt ceiling has not been raised then that would be ‘effectively a tax increase for everybody’ as interest rates rise. Well, true, but plans are proceeding apace for a real Plan B that would allow incremental increases in the debt ceiling absent a grand bargain. But wait, as they say in those infomercials, there’s more. Yes, the president would surely not call a news conference and not bring out – again – the doomsday rhetoric. He just can’t seem to help himself these days, although this was at least in the context of some faint praise for the so-called McConnell plan. ‘It is constructive to say that if Washington operates as usual and can’t get something done let’s at least avert Armageddon,’ the president said. Another day, another Armageddon reference. Perhaps it’s time the president reread that fable about the boy who cried ‘wolf’ too often.” –Boston Herald

Essential Liberty

“No one thinks the federal government is spending too little money. The problem is, most of us think the government is spending too much money on programs which benefit someone else. … I was listening to the all-news station on my way to the office and I was subjected to ad after ad from group after group telling me, in the most heart-wrenching terms, why the government must not cut funds from its program. Cut someone else. Every dollar of the $3.7 trillion dollars that the Federal government is scheduled to spend before September 30, 2011 has got a patron – someone who believes that dollar is not just a good and necessary expenditure; but better and more crucial than any other of the dollars the government is scheduled to spend. Cut someone else. They all can’t be the most important. Some of those dollars have to be less important than some of the other dollars. … Well, boys and girls, the days of pretending we can have as much we want and for it we can pay as little as we want are over.” –political analyst Rich Galen

Upright

“The same politicians who spent $1.7 trillion more than they collected, in just this year alone, say the problem is that private citizens are not paying enough. … [B]ecause the political class has made the national debt so high, it is able to insist that taking a chance on the power of liberty is an irresponsible gamble. Because the government lives so far beyond its means, it would be irresponsible to provide it with reduced means. This is how we have reached the madness of a moment when the national debt is used as an argument against spending reductions, or growth-oriented tax and regulatory policies. The insane problem becomes a weapon against rational solutions.” –columnist John Hayward

“Forget all the numbers being tossed around in Washington – the millions and billions and trillions of dollars being taxed, borrowed, printed and spent as the country approaches the Aug. 2 debt-ceiling deadline. … Forget the fact that such ‘entitlements’ as Social Security and Medicare – social-insurance programs that the public long thought to be actuarially sound – have been exposed as little more than legal Ponzi schemes, paying today’s benefits out of tomorrow’s borrowed receipts. Instead, just ask yourself this simple question: When did it become the primary function of the federal government to send millions of Americans checks? For this, in essence, is what the debt-ceiling fight is all about – the inexorable and ultimately fatal growth of the welfare state.” –columnist Michael Walsh

“Obama objects to the fact that owners of corporate jets can write off the cost of their purchases over five years instead of the seven required for commercial aircraft. … The whole point of Obama’s rants against corporate jets, of course, is to shame Republicans into going along with tax increases by portraying them as fat cats’ lapdogs, salivating at the thought of balancing the budget on the backs of uneducated, untreated food-poisoning victims who don’t even know whether the sun will come out tomorrow because the government can’t afford to pay for meteorologists anymore.” –columnist Jacob Sullum

Insight

“The history of the race, and each individual’s experience, are thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.” –American author and humorist Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“A socialist is somebody who doesn’t have anything, and is ready to divide it up equally among everybody.” –Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), who, ironically, was a socialist

The Demo-gogues

Unbelievable chutzpah: “We don’t need a constitutional amendment to do our jobs. The Constitution already tells us to do our jobs – and to make sure that the government is living within its means and making responsible choices. … We don’t need a balanced budget amendment. We simply need to make these tough choices and be willing to take on our bases. And everybody knows it. … It turns out that our problem is we cut taxes without paying for them over the last decade; we ended up instituting new programs like a prescription drug program for seniors that was not paid for; we fought two wars, we didn’t pay for them; we had a bad recession that required a Recovery Act and stimulus spending and helping states – and all that accumulated and there’s interest on top of that.” –Barack Obama, who blames Bush for even Obama’s big spending

Leadership: “You’ll probably see the House vote on a couple of things just to make political statements.” –Barack Obama

Lavish praise: “This president has extended the respect and the courtesy to bipartisan House and Senate to listen, listen, listen, and listen to them talk about what their concerns are, their priorities, what their suggestion might be. Thursday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and now Wednesday – unprecedented in terms of a president listening that much, bringing to the table complete knowledge of the subject. Nobody can out-debate him or out-statistic him on this information.” –House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

They already are doing more than their share: “A budget agreement cannot be considered bold or comprehensive unless it asks millionaires, billionaires, and wealthy corporations to contribute to deficit reduction. They don’t have to do the whole thing, but they’ve gotta do their share.” –Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

Dezinformatsia

She forgot racist: “Here’s the thing about Obama. He ran as a transformational president. He sees himself as transformational. He always has. What occurred between 2008 and 2010 is the Tea Party. And the Tea Party has stopped that kind of transformation from occurring because it has hijacked the Republican Party and the John Boehners of the world who would have cut a deal with the president of the United States. It has hijacked the Republican Party and it has now become substantially just a no-tax party as opposed to a party that cares about the deficit. I think no tax trumps their caring and concern about the deficit.” –CNN’s Gloria Borger

Republicans are crazy: “[T]here has been, I have to admit, an element of comic relief – of the black-humor variety – in the spectacle of so many people who have been in denial suddenly waking up and smelling the crazy. A number of commentators seem shocked at how unreasonable Republicans are being. ‘Has the G.O.P. gone insane?’ they ask. Why, yes, it has. But this isn’t something that just happened, it’s the culmination of a process that has been going on for decades. Anyone surprised by the extremism and irresponsibility now on display either hasn’t been paying attention, or has been deliberately turning a blind eye.” –New York Times columnist Paul Krugman

Tin foil hat securely in place: “And to say there’s no issue with climate? You know, a friend of mine … lives up in Alaska, [and] she says we’re going to be able to – maybe this is good for shipping – we’re going to start having trade routes across the Arctic Circle! We’re going to start having – you know what I mean? People are going to be going to Norway in boats and we’re going to have shipping lanes doing it. Don’t tell me we don’t have a climate thing going on. There’s something strange going on.” –MSNBC’s Chris Matthews

Newspulper Headlines:

So That’s Where the Jobs Are: “Pelosi: Obama Has More Patience Than Biblical Job” –CNSNews.com

Questions Nobody Is Asking: “Is Obama Playing Politics With His Debt-Limit Veto Threat?” –Time.com

A Novel Strategy: “Rudy Giuliani: If I Run Again, ‘I’ll Try to Win’” –Los Angeles Times

TSA Agent Who Groped Woman’s Breast Put in Jail – Now That Would Be News: “Woman Who Groped TSA Agent’s Breast Let Out of Jail” –WNYW-TV website (New York)

Bottom Story of the Day: “Obama, US Viewed Less Favorably in Arab World, Poll Shows” –Boston Globe website

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

Patriot News Review

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Village Idiots

Belly laugh of the week: “The president doesn’t have a vote in this. It’s Congress that has to act. The president didn’t stand up here yesterday and say, hey, show you a lot of charts and graphs about how previous Congresses under a Republican president accumulated enormous amounts of deficits and debt and that this is what they needed to vote to deal with and it wasn’t his problem. He didn’t say that because he doesn’t believe that. He believes it’s his responsibility as the president of the United States to lead, to work with Congress, to resolve these issues together for the American people.” –White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

Where to start? “Isn’t the Tea Party – I’m not trying to call them names or anything. I just want to ask a very serious question: Aren’t they exactly what the Founding Fathers feared most? Which is people who are ignorant about the way the world works come to power. That is what the Founding Fathers hated the most. They were not for direct democracy” –HBO’s Bill Maher (Sam Adams, a Founding Father, participated in the first Tea Party, objecting to high taxes. Furthermore, the current Tea Party certainly isn’t “direct democracy.”)

World’s Smallest Violin and the BIG Lie all in one: “Bottom line, this has gone on far too long, this spreading of lies about me! None of it is true. NONE OF IT! I love my country. I have never done anything to hurt my country or the men and women who have fought and continue to fight for us. I do not understand what the far right stands to gain by continuing with these myths. In this case, they denied a lot of people the chance to hear about a book that can help make life better, easier and more fulfilling.” –Hanoi Jane Fonda on QVC’s decision to cancel an interview promoting her newest book

Short Cuts

“Jane Fonda, who was set to appear on the QVC home shopping channel to promote her new book, got axed instead. She blamed it on ‘well funded and organized political extremist groups.’ I guess that’s what aging leftists call Vietnam Vets. Yet with her foot only half-way in her mouth, Fonda decided to finish the job with a little historical revisionism. ‘I have never done anything to hurt my country or the men and women who have fought and continue to fight for us,’ said Hanoi Jane. The title of her book is ‘Prime Time.’ In a better world, it would be ‘What I Learned in Prison Serving Time for Treason.’” –columnist Arnold Ahlert

“Meanwhile, the World’s Greatest Orator bemoans the ‘intransigence’ of Republicans. OK, what’s your plan? Give us one actual program you’re willing to cut, right now. Oh, don’t worry, says Barack Obluffer. To demonstrate how serious he is, he’s offered to put on the table for fiscal year 2012 spending cuts of (stand well back now) $2 billion. That would be a lot in, say, Iceland or even Australia. Once upon a time it would have been a lot even in Washington. But today $2 billion is what the Brokest Nation in History borrows every 10 hours. In other words, in less time than he spends sitting across the table negotiating his $2 billion cut, he’s already borrowed it all back. A negotiation with Obama is literally not worth the time.” –columnist Mark Steyn

“Starting next year, all U.S. savings bonds will be electronic rather than printed. So they’ll be paperless, as well as valueless, useless, and worthless.” –comedian Jay Leno

“President Obama scheduled a big fundraising party in Chicago on his fiftieth birthday on August third. It’s the day after the U.S. runs out of money. Lots of men have a midlife crisis on their fiftieth birthdays, but they don’t usually bring the whole country along on the Apocalypse.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

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