The Foundation

“[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually.” –George Mason

Editorial Exegesis

“New documents reveal the Department of Justice lied to Congress and show how U.S. officials bought guns with tax dollars and then made sure no one stopped their transfer to Mexican drug cartels. The funneling of thousands of American guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels in the operation known as Fast and Furious was not a botched sting operation or the result of bureaucratic incompetence. It was not designed to interdict gun trafficking, but to facilitate it. We now know that it involved not just the use of straw buyers, but also agents of the federal government purchasing weapons with taxpayer money, ordering the licensed dealers to conduct the sales off the books, then calling off surveillance of the gun traffickers and refusing to interdict the transfer of the weapon or arrest the people involved. … A two-year-old C-SPAN video shows Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, who would resign nine months later after less than a year’s service, telling reporters at a Justice Department briefing of major policy initiatives to fight the Mexican drug cartels. ‘The president has directed us to take action to fight these cartels,’ Ogden began, ‘and Attorney General Holder and I are taking several new and aggressive steps as part of the administration’s comprehensive plan.’ Ogden said the administration’s plan, at the president’s direction, included the ATF’s ‘increasing its efforts by adding 37 new employees in three new offices, using $10 million in Recovery Act funds and redeploying 100 personnel to the Southwest border in the next 45 days to fortify its Project Gunrunner,’ of which Operation Fast and Furious would be a part. … Fast and Furious should spark our pursuit of the truth, even if the trail leads to the Oval Office.” –Investor’s Business Daily

Upright

“The entire [Fast & Furious] operation ended with only 20 indictments of straw purchasers – indictments that could have happened immediately upon transfer of the weapons, stopping the flow. In fact, the straw purchasers, at issue, were known to be straw purchasers from the get-go. The indictments only took place at all because U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered using the weapons authorized for free flow by ATF and DOJ. … So what was the real goal of the DOJ and ATF? It certainly wasn’t to shut down access to arms for the cartels – the ATF was agreeing to such access. It wasn’t to stop straw purchasers – the ATF was signing off on the straw purchasers. It wasn’t to track the movements of the cartel – there was no way to do that. It was, very simply, to establish for political reasons that American guns were being used in crimes by foreign cartels.” –columnist Ben Shapiro

“Last week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was telling everyone who would listen that they needed billions to replenish their disaster relief fund right now, or else they would run out of money today. … Then, suddenly, FEMA told Senate Democrats that all of their previous warnings were overblown. The agency was able to recover $40 billion from ongoing long-term projects, and instead of being broke, they actually had $114 million in the bank, just enough to get them into the next fiscal year. Which is convenient, because that allows them access to all of next year’s budgeted disaster relief spending. Since there is now no need for unbudgeted disaster relief spending this year, there is now no need for spending offsets. … If anybody ever wants to know why conservatives never believed Secretary Tim Geithner when he said the government was going to run out of money this August, this $114 million FEMA find is a great example why.” –Washington Examiner columnist Conn Carroll

“The night before the Florida straw poll, Morgan Freeman appeared on CNN. He is maybe the country’s most beloved actor. He declared the Tea Party racist, and the Republicans at large racist. He said our attitude is, ‘Screw the country. We’re going to do whatever we [can] to get this black man out of here.’ Apparently, Tea Party activists want to replace ‘this black man’ with Herman Cain. But does the Left regard Cain as black? He was raised by his janitor father and housemaid mother in Georgia. President Obama was raised by his white grandparents in Hawaii. But he’s a left-winger, you see. So he wins – he’s blacker than thou, or blacker than Cain.” –National Review’s Jay Nordlinger

Essential Liberty

“If European governments and the U.S. Congress ceased the practice of giving people what they have not earned, budgets would be more than balanced. For government to guarantee a person a right to goods and services he has not earned, it must diminish someone else’s right to what he has earned, simply because governments have no resources of their very own. … It turns out that if Congress taxed away our entire $14 trillion 2011 GDP and put it in the bank, it would just barely cover Social Security and Medicare liabilities. That observation suggests that we can’t tax our way out of our fiscal mess. In order to avoid permanent stagnation or total economic collapse, governments must start the process of reducing welfare spending. I wouldn’t recommend cold turkey for a heroin addict, neither would I recommend cold turkey for all those people who have been addicted and made dependent upon government handouts. We must find a compassionate way to wean people off government.” –economist Walter E. Williams

Insight

“Freedom is not a luxury that we can indulge in when at last we have security and prosperity and enlightenment; it is, rather, antecedent to all of these, for without it we can have neither security nor prosperity nor enlightenment.” –historian and author Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998)

The Demo-gogues

Leftist ideology is common sense? “From the moment I took office what we’ve seen is a constant ideological pushback against any kind of sensible reforms that would make our economy work better and give people more opportunity.” –Barack Obama

Droppin’ the g’s: “Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to do.” –Barack Obama to the Congressional Black Caucus

So get in line: “Here’s the thing, I never promised you easy. If you wanted easy you would not have campaigned for Barrack Hussein Obama. But what I said was if you are willing to stick with me, hang in there, I was positive we could achieve our dreams. America has been through tougher times.” –Barack Obama

On second thought: “I don’t know who he was talking to, because we’re certainly not complaining.” –Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) finding Obama’s comment “curious”

Mockery: “Has anybody been watching the debates lately? You’ve got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change. It’s true. You’ve got audiences cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don’t have health care and booing a service member in Iraq because they’re gay.” –Barack Obama

Gaffe, Part I: “We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad.” –Barack Obama

Gaffe, Part II: “If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew – as a janitor – makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that as a badge of honor. I have no problem with that.” – Barack Obama

Dezinformatsia

How dare they: “The rage of the rich has been building ever since Mr. Obama took office. And among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: It’s their money, and they have the right to keep it.” –New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (The nerve of those productive small business owners and merchants to think they are entitled to keep their income.)

Yes, there are stupid questions: “George H.W. Bush had the courage, knowing it might cost him re-election, knowing for sure it would cost him support with his conservative base, to violate the central domestic policy pledge of his campaign, ‘read my lips, no new taxes.’ And he called everybody out to Camp David at Andrews Air Force Base and he agreed to a package that caused him to violate that promise. … Should the Republicans learn from George H.W. Bush and sit down with the president and cut a deal?” –CNN’s John King to Dick Cheney

Clueless: “I can describe the legal arguments and the judicial conclusions, but on a fundamental level, I just don’t get the attack on [ObamaCare]. I don’t understand people who voluntarily, without claiming poverty, let their children go uninsured. I don’t understand the moral compass of the owner of the fancy car I saw the other day that sported the bumper sticker: ‘Repeal Obamacare.’” –New York Times columnist Linda Greenhouse

Lean forward: “Do you have a sense as you’ve looked at politics in America that there are some white voters who will vote for an African-American say once? And they will hold that person to a very rigorous standard. Perhaps a much higher standard than they would a white politician.

And they’ll give them one shot and then they’ll dump them the next time.” –MSNBC’s Chris Matthews

Victimitis: “[Obama] wanted to work with the opposition. But when he’s tried, the Republicans have stamped on his head. … Having been trashed all summer, he’s finally come out and went, OK, if this is the way you’re going to play it, I’m going to get dirty too. I mean, you can’t blame him.” –CNN’s Piers Morgan

Newspulper Headlines:

We Reject This False Choice: “Obama: Clark Kent or Superman?” –CNN.com

So When Is He Going to Get Some?: “Obama Says ‘Better Ideas’ Will Win Him Re-Election” –VosIzNeias.com

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “‘Just Go Be Joe’: Obama Lets Biden Loose on the Campaign Trail” –TheHill.com

Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking: “Morgan Freeman: Yes, the Tea Party Is Racist” –video title, RealClearPolitics.com

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss, Literally: “Putin Once More Moves to Assume Top Job in Russia” –The New York Times

First, Get a Million Dollars: “What It Takes to Become a Millionaire” –CNBC.com

So Much for the War on Drugs: “Stoned Police Chief Draws Gun” –Times of Swaziland

Bottom Stories of the Day: “Journalists Ignore Obama Scandals” –RushLimbaugh.com

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

Village Idiots

Class warfare: “I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.’ No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.” –Massachusetts senate candidate Elizabeth Warren

Clueless II: “It seems like the Republicans are doing everything they can to protect the wealthiest people in this country, through policy and through rhetoric. And I guess I’m just not understanding why. And I’m having a problem. This decade has not been a bad decade for the wealthiest of Americans, and if they are the job creators, why are they not creating?” –The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart

Share and share alike: “[A]s you prospered [in the old days], the wealth was shared with your employees, with the government. Everybody had a piece of the pie. You, who started the business or invented the light bulb or whatever, you got a bigger piece of the pie. And you know what, nobody cared because you invented the light bulb. That was a pretty cool thing. … None of the major religions, in fact they all, say it’s one of the worst sins you could commit, is to take such a large piece of the pie while others suffer.” –filmmaker Michael Moore

Socialist medicine: “The reason why you have to wait sometimes in those countries [like Canada and Britain] is they let everybody in the line. We take 50 million people out of the line so the line is shorter, so sometimes you don’t have to wait as long. If you are a patriotic American, you want every American to be covered the same as you.” –Michael Moore

Short Cuts

“During the Johnson administration, Lyndon B. Johnson was at an airport and about to get into the wrong helicopter. An army staff sergeant ran up and redirected him: ‘Mr. President, that is your helicopter over there.’ To which the president replied, ‘Son they are all my helicopters.’ Obama suffers the same delusion. He believes all the money the citizenry earns is his money.” –columnist R. Emmett Tyrrell

“It sounds like the new [Obama] slogan is no longer ‘hope and change.’ It’s, ‘Hey, it could’ve been worse’. Great bumper sticker, Debbie. I hope it works for you.” –RNC Chairman Reince Priebus to DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz

“President Obama addressed the U.N. General Assembly in New York Thursday where he assured the world that the U.S. remains strong. He began the speech by declaring that the U.S. dollar is sound. It always helps to get the crowd on your side by opening with a joke.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“Obama says he will be reforming No Child Left Behind. That’s not to be confused with Michelle Obama’s childhood obesity campaign, ‘No Child Left With a Big Behind.’” –comedian Jay Leno

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