The Foundation

“The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.” –Patrick Henry

Editorial Exegesis

“Republican presidential candidates kick off the critical fall campaign season Wednesday night when they take the stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. This would be a good occasion to abandon platitudes and begin hashing out concrete ideas for addressing the nation’s most pressing long-term issue – unsustainable spending on entitlement programs. Any serious plan to get our nation’s fiscal house in order – something that all GOP contenders have promised to do – would have to involve fundamental yet politically controversial reforms of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Over the next decade, those three programs alone will cost taxpayers $21.4 trillion under the Congressional Budget Office’s rosiest scenario. … Within 10 years, the big three entitlements are projected to account for more than half of federal spending, at which point they will already be squeezing the government’s ability to deliver other needed services. … Thus far, the candidates have adopted the prevailing wisdom of the political class, which is that GOP emphasis on specific entitlement reforms will give President Obama a bludgeon with which to hammer Republicans. Yet a failure to confront the nation’s long-term fiscal situation is hurting the economy now by creating a cloud of uncertainty for businesses. Even if Obama won’t take the risk of tackling entitlements, the Republicans must for the greater good.” –The Washington Examiner

Essential Liberty

“However, with charity as with everything else, it cannot simply be assumed that more is always better. A ‘safety net’ can easily become a hammock. ‘Social justice’ can easily become class warfare that polarizes a nation, while leading those at the bottom into the blind alley of resentments, no matter how many broad avenues of achievement may be available to them.” –Thomas Sowell

Upright

“In everyday life, when you don’t have something to say, you avoid the stage. In our nation’s capital, by contrast, the world operates like the one Alice found behind the Looking Glass. That’s a world where you have to run as hard as you can just to stay still. Which helps explain why President Obama will this week be addressing a joint session of Congress that doesn’t really want to hear from him about a jobs plan that he doesn’t really have.” –columnist William McGurn

“[T]he campaign strategy Obama appears to have decided on – portray Republican leaders as prisoners of the racist, Right-wing nutters from the Tea Party. They’re to blame, the argument goes, for the gridlock in Washington because of their intransigence in the face of nice, reasonable Obama. The problem is that every smear and insult possible was thrown at the Tea Party in last year’s mid-term elections but the grassroots movement still drove an historic Republican victory. It is also an obvious attempt to change the subject, moving discussion away from the economy by fixating on alleged racism or religious fundamentalism on the Right.” –columnist Toby Harnden

“[T]o hurl the charge of racism without any evidence is slanderous. The GOP’s opposition to Obama is rooted in profound political and philosophical disagreements; Republicans believe he is championing policies injurious to our nation. They may be wrong, but that does not make them malevolent. And to accuse people of racism in such a casual, promiscuous and reckless manner ultimately has the effect of draining the charge of its potency. Genuine racism is a terrible thing, which is why it should be reserved for the real deal rather than used as a clumsy and transparently ideological club.” –Peter Wehner, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center

“Even President Obama recognizes that his administration’s environmental agenda, with all its new rules and regulations, is a massive job killer that is destroying the economy. What is shameful about the President’s decision to delay the new ozone rule is that it’s all about improving his chances of being re-elected and has nothing to do with the economic damage that the rule would do. The fact that the President still wants to go ahead after he gets re-elected with a regulation that has been estimated to cost $1 trillion a year shows that he could care less about the U. S. economy and the millions of people who have lost their jobs.” –Myron Ebell, Director of CEI’s Center for Energy and Environment

“In addressing our economic challenges, Obama wants more government because he and people like him believe (often against the raw evidence) that more government works; that experts know better than consumers, merchants and the like the ways that they should behave. Obama progressives – liberals as they called themselves before the term apparently became an embarrassment – are offended by suggestions that economic decision making can be turned over to a loose herd of consumers who don’t know a demand curve from a snowy egret’s nest. Taxation is the great tool the progressives wield to make sure consumers know their place in the economic order.” –columnist William Murchison

Insight

“Count it the greatest sin to prefer life to honor, and for the sake of living to lose what makes life worth having.” –ancient Roman poet Juvenal

“English experience indicates that when two political parties agree about something, it is generally wrong.” –English writer G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

The Demo-gogues

Undeserved self-congratulation: “In the last several years, we have pulled our country back from the brink, through a series of tough economic decisions. While we have come far, great challenges still face us.” –Barack Obama

Spread the wealth: “Now, the fact is our economy is stronger when workers are getting paid good wages and good benefits. Our economy is stronger when we have broad base growth and broad-based prosperity. That’s what unions have always been about, shared prosperity.” –Barack Obama

Freudian slip: “I think putting money back in the pockets of working families is the best way to get demand rising because that then means business is hiring. That means the government – that means that the economy is growing.” –Barack Obama

“Republicans who think the Recovery Act [stimulus] didn’t work are simply wrong.” –DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Just keep spending: “The president must be bold. I agree that he must have a jobs program, he must create jobs. I’m talking about a jobs program of a trillion dollars or more. We’ve got to put Americans to work. That’s the only way to revitalize this economy.” –Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)

Tea Party = barbarians? “You are the only folks keeping the barbarians from the gates. … The other side has declared war on labor’s house and it’s about time we stand up!” –Joe Biden at the AFL-CIO Labor Day rally

Tea Party = racists? “Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see us as second-class citizens. Some of them in Congress right now of this Tea Party movement would love to see you and me … hanging on a tree.” –Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN)

Village Idiots

Whatever happened to civility? “We gotta keep an eye on the battle that we face: A war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They got a war, they got a war with us and there’s only going to be one winner. It’s going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We’re gonna win that war. … President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let’s take these son of a b—–s out and give America back to an America where we belong.” –Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa Jr. (Barack Obama followed up these comments by saying he was “proud” of Hoffa and other union leaders.)

No apologies: “I would [say it again] because I believe it. They’ve declared war on us. We didn’t declare war on them, they declared war on us. We’re fighting back. The question is, who started the war?” –Jimmy Hoffa, who stood by his remarks on three occasions

Declaring war: “This is a civil war struggle.” –Jesse Jackson

“Tea Party activists have denied accusations that their movement is racist, and there is nothing intrinsically racist about opposing ‘big government’ or clean-energy legislation or health care reform. But it is clear that the movement is more appealing to people who are unsympathetic to blacks and who prefer a harder line on illegal immigration than it is to other Americans.” –University of California San Diego professor Gary C. Jacobson

Excuses: “[Obama] wants to speak before Congress because he recognizes that while there are things he can do without Congress, and he will do them, there are actions that need to be taken with Congress that require legislation to grow the economy and create jobs. And he wants to go to Congress, speak directly to members of Congress, and layout his proposals.” –White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

Dezinformatsia

That’s racist! “[W]hat is it about this president that has stripped away the veneer of respect that normally accompanies the office of the president? Why do Republicans think this president is unpresidential and should dare to request this kind of thing? It strikes me that it could be the economic times, it could be that he won so big in 2008 or it could be, let’s face it, the color of his skin.” –MSNBC’s Richard Wolffe on Obama being asked to move his jobs speech to a night other than tonight’s scheduled GOP presidential debate

Bemoaning Obama’s weakness: “Do you think that’s true that [Obama] hasn’t shown flexibility since he’s, he’s sort of come completely to the Republican tenor of the debate?” –ABC’s Christiane Amanpour

Non compos mentis, Part I: “[T]he experience of the past two years has overwhelmingly confirmed what some of us tried to argue from the beginning: The deficits we’re running right now – deficits we should be running, because deficit spending helps support a depressed economy – are no threat at all. … [W]e should have a lot of job-creating spending on the part of the federal government… But what will Republicans agree to? That’s easy: nothing. They will oppose anything Mr. Obama proposes, even if it would clearly help the economy – or maybe I should say, especially if it would help the economy, since high unemployment helps them politically.” –New York Times columnist Paul Krugman

Newspulper Headlines:

We Blame Global Warming: “Black Leaders Turn Up the Heat on President Obama” –Politico.com

Questions Nobody Is Asking: “Are Members of Congress Paid Enough?” –Yahoo! News

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “Swedes Warned Over Looming Butter Shortage” –TheLocal.se

Breaking News From Genesis 3:8-13: “Police Search for Missing Apple Prototype” –The Wall Street Journal

Out on a Limb: “Obama Plan May Not Be Enough to Fix Jobs Market” –MSNBC.com

Bottom Story of the Day: “Yet Another (Failed) Obama ‘Jobs Plan’” –Forbes.com

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

Short Cuts

“Adolescence, like retirement, is an invention of the modern age. If the extension of retirement into a multi-decade government-funded vacation is largely a function of increased life expectancy, the prolongation of adolescence seems to derive from the bleak fact that, without an efficient societal conveyor belt to move you on, it appears to be the default setting of huge swathes of humanity. It was striking, during the Hurricane Irene frenzy, to hear the Federal Emergency Management Agency refer to itself repeatedly as ‘the federal family.’ If Big Government is a ‘family,’ with the bureaucracy as its parents, why be surprised that the citizens are content to live as eternal adolescents?” –columnist Mark Steyn

“New statistics show the U.S. economy added zero jobs in August. The White House cautioned Americans not to read too much into those numbers. What numbers?” –comedian Jay Leno

“President Obama’s uncle Omar vowed to call the White House after he was arrested for drunken driving last Sunday near Boston. You have to feel for the poor guy. He’s sitting in jail and the only guy he can call for bail money is fourteen trillion dollars in debt.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“Maybe Obama was not even the person he was waiting for.” –New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd

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