The Foundation

“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.” –George Washington

Political Futures

“Newt Gingrich won South Carolina. Big. If you had bet me Monday morning you would own my house, my car and my cat. I thought Romney had a lock on South Carolina. But, this last week was the best political week for a major candidate I have ever seen. It was all Newt. Newt’s performance in Monday’s debate was so good that every candidate for any office, prepping for a debate, should be forced to watch it and learn from it. On Thursday, Newt knew he was going to have to answer a question about his ex-wife’s allegations. You know all about that. Newt went back to his early-debate tactic of attacking the question and the questioner – in this case CNN’s John King – and he didn’t just wipe the issue off as a negative, he turned it into a major positive. Outside of Hogwart’s that’s a piece of political magic I would not have believed possible. This last week was also the worst political week for a major candidate I have ever seen – not counting weeks that included a woman claiming sexual harassment. It was all Mitt. In Monday’s debate Romney got involved in an argument with Rick Santorum over voting rights for felons. Voting rights for felons? And Santorum did pretty well. Then Romney stumbled over another question about his taxes and his company, Bain Capital, and he more-or-less played to a draw. … Romney has the political infrastructure and the money to be able to operate in multiple states at the same time. … But … Romney has to make it happen.” –political analyst Rich Galen

Opinion in Brief

“Newt Gingrich routed Mitt Romney in South Carolina because he routed the media first. A Public Policy Polling survey of likely South Carolina primary voters completed on Friday revealed that 77 percent said they had an unfavorable opinion of the media. Among the most conservative South Carolina primary voters, fully 89 percent had an unfavorable opinion of the media. The same poll showed Gingrich beating Romney in the primary, 37 percent to 28 percent – fairly close to the actual outcome. Conservatives not only resent the liberal media for trying to pick the Republican nominee … but they also resent Republican politicians who, once elected, spend their careers appeasing the media while abandoning conservative principles. … Conservatives want a president whose attitude toward the media matches the attitude Gingrich has shown in recent debates. A president with that kind of attitude, they hope, might actually govern as a conservative.” –columnist Terence P. Jeffrey

For the Record

“[Newt Gingrich’s] propaganda film [on Mitt Romney] may not have been entirely accurate but – and this is the point – it obviously worked. It also clearly disarmed Romney and left him with his guard down when the knockout punch – his taxes – came along. It was obvious all along that his reluctance to release his taxes was based on the fact that he pays capital gains on his income, not ‘income taxes.’ That’s clearly defensible and entirely legal – but the electorate is in no mood for a lecture on the distinction, and it’s terrible in the current political environment. … Segments on the right have not entirely digested the notion that Obama and his party are running on a platform of contempt for America and ‘fundamental change’ for the future; it’s like they think the Dems don’t really mean it. And that taking the high road by confining the campaign to ‘jobs’ will appeal to the ‘real’ America somewhere out there in the heartland. And that playing rough is beneath us. Newt played rough in South Carolina and won big. That ought to tell the GOP something. … [Romney] has to learn from this stunning defeat: The base is itching for a fight with everything the Obama Democrats stand for and they don’t much care who gives it to them, just as long as somebody does.” –columnist Michael Walsh

Government

“Spending on Medicaid, a theoretically cooperative federal-state program, is approximately 40 percent of all federal funds given to states and 7 percent of all federal spending. Enacted in 1965 as a program for the poor, it has exploded. The increase in its costs by the end of this decade is expected to be $434 billion. … Obamacare requires states to cover all persons with incomes up to, effectively, 138 percent of the poverty level. The federal government will pay all increased costs (other than administrative costs) until 2016; by 2020 states will pay 10 percent of the expansion. But even with the federal government paying most of the costs, in many states their portion of Medicaid costs is the largest item in their budgets, even exceeding education. And Obamacare, which forbids states to make more restrictive the eligibility criteria it adopted before this new burden, would deny all Medicaid funds to noncompliant states. This would cost most states billions of dollars. … In theory, state participation in Medicaid is voluntary; practically, no state can leave Medicaid because … [it] leaves states this agonizing choice: Allow expanded Medicaid to devastate your budgets, or abandon the poor.” –columnist George Will

The Gipper

“Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.” –Ronald Reagan

Essential Liberty

“If you were to rank the countries of the world in terms of economic freedom, where would the United States fall? … [T]here is, in fact, a resource that ranks every country by this measure – the 2012 Index of Economic Freedom, and the United States comes in at No. 10. That’s right: the nation that is supposed to lead the world in liberty finishes behind nine others, including Ireland, Chile, Switzerland and Canada. Even the small African nation of Mauritius beats us. … The U.S. now ranks 127th in the world in [government spending]. Spending by government consumes 42.2 percent of gross domestic product. Total public debt is now larger than the entire economy. Taxes are another problem. … Regulations continue to grow in number, making it harder than necessary for our economy to recover. How bad is it? More than 70 major rules have been imposed since 2009, and they cost Americans nearly $40 billion last year. … We can’t hope to create the number of jobs we need under these conditions. That’s why we have to get serious about cutting government down to size, overhauling our tax system, and transforming costly entitlement programs.” –Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner

Insight

“The man of system … is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it.” –economist Adam Smith (1723-1790)

Faith & Family

Yesterday marked the 39th anniversary of the two most tragic Supreme Court decisions in American history, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. We appropriately marked the Sanctity of Life.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, celebrated death. “As we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade,” he said, “we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman’s health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose and this fundamental constitutional right. … As we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”

Share your thoughts on the Sanctity of Life and the Left’s complete disregard of it here.

Culture

“Today, in America, many denounce the black-white gap in economic and other achievements, which they attribute to the same kinds of causes as those to which the lags of Eastern Europeans have been attributed. Moreover, the persistence of these gaps, years after the civil rights laws were expected to close them, is regarded as something strange and even sinister. Yet the economic disparities between Eastern Europeans and Western Europeans remains to this day greater than the economic disparities between blacks and whites in America – and the gap in Europe has lasted for centuries. Focusing attention and attacks on people who have greater wealth-generating capacity – whether races, classes or whatever – has had counterproductive consequences, including tragedies written in the blood of millions. Whole totalitarian governments have risen to dictatorial power on the wings of envy and resentment ideologies. Intellectuals have all too often promoted these envy and resentment ideologies. There are both psychic and material rewards for the intelligentsia in doing so, even when the supposed beneficiaries of these ideologies end up worse off. When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.” –economist Thomas Sowell

Reader Comments

“Regarding Mark Alexander’s essay, ”The Problem With Rich Republicans,“ how much money Romney has is his business. He should decline to release any information about his income or net worth.” –New Hampshire

Editor’s Reply: There are two key points in this essay. 1. However subjective, there are moral and ethical obligations associated with aggregating wealth. 2. As clearly stated, while Romney does not “owe” any of us an explanation or justification for his wealth, neither how much he has or how he made it, if Romney wants to defeat Obama’s classist rhetoric, he best get this information on the table NOW. He must frame it in the proper Liberty/free-enterprise context. The longer he hedges, the more difficult it will be for him to frame the debate. Of course, in our free society, Romney is rightly entitled to use his wealth as his conscience dictates. But as a presidential candidate he will benefit from genuine transparency. In the inimitable words of Samuel Adams in 1775, “The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.”

“The accumulation of wealth imposes no obligations. Apart from lottery winners and thieves, wealth is obtained by providing something of value to others or by putting one’s capital at risk. As God saw no need to include a commandment related to such "obligations”, neither do I.“ –New York

Editor’s Reply: "God saw no need to include a commandment related to such ‘obligations’”? Except those first two pesky old commandments, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” and “Do not make idols of any kind.” If you can’t make the leap between those commandments and moral and ethical obligations associated with wealth, then I suppose you also miss the a strong theme in the New Testament on obligations of the rich in service to the poor. Regardless of your faith, these words from Luke 12:34 are universally true: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

“With regard to Friday’s Digest ‘And Last’, Fantasyland at Disney World was the perfect venue for Obama to announce yet another ‘Mickey Mouse’ solution to America’s problems.” –Raymond

The Last Word

“Mr. Obama this week blocked Keystone pipeline, a decision that means tens of thousands of jobs lost, new energy possibilities rejected. It is a decision so bad, so political, that it amounts to a scandal. But it just sort of eased through the news, blurrily. All the cameras were focused on the Republicans, who were distracted by their own dramas. They did not, together, in one voice, protest, as they should have. Keystone happened while they were busy looking like the Keystone Kops.” –columnist Peggy Noonan

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