The Foundation

“The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.” –James Madison

Editorial Exegesis

“Michigan has passed a modest labor reform, and the result has been threats and violence from Democratic elected officials and their union henchmen. … To hear the Democrats tell the tale, you would think that Governor Rick Snyder and Michigan’s Republican-controlled legislature had abolished unions. In fact, the legislation merely prohibits unions from forcing workers to pay dues to them as a condition of employment, which is why such measures are called ‘right-to-work laws.’ The law imposes no limitation on unions’ ability to organize, to engage in collective bargaining, or to strike. It merely forbids them to take money out of the pockets of workers who do not wish to join them. In response, Democratic legislator Douglas Geiss declared on the floor of the state house: ‘There will be blood. There will be repercussions.’ And indeed there were: Knife-wielding partisans brought down a tent on representatives from the conservative group Americans for Prosperity – women and children among them – and roughed up bystanders. Fox News contributor Steven Crowder was beaten by the same mob, punched repeatedly in the face. Michigan is the 24th state to enact a right-to-work law, and the most heavily unionized state to do so. … Right-to-work laws do not necessarily hobble unions; rather, they force unions to compete for resources and prove their value to their workers. Some unions provide obvious value: In places in which private-sector unions already are strongly established, right-to-work laws have in fact had little effect on union membership. The critical difference is that workers have a choice. This is a principle that should be codified in law in every state, and at the federal level as well. … The shrieking in Michigan isn’t about workingmen’s wages, but campaign coffers. That is why there is blood.” –National Review

Upright

“First, this conservative success in Michigan is … largely the result of liberal overreach. If the Dems and organized labor hadn’t been so greedy in the election … this probably wouldn’t have happened, or at least not so fast. When the left goes too far it creates a counter-reaction from the right. That’s what the 2010 midterms were about (but, alas, not the 2012 election). … Second, and perhaps more important, facts will always drive public policy – eventually. The plight of certain states will naturally lead to homegrown reforms. … The fight in Washington may be bogged down, but the fights on the ground in the various states are going better than we might have hoped. Except of course in California, where you people are doomed.” –columnist Jonah Goldberg

“Not so many moons ago, President Obama urged us all to ‘make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.’ He Who Heals advocated ‘a more civil and honest public discourse’ in the wake of the January 2011 Tucson massacre. As usual, though, the White House has granted Big Labor bullies a permanent waiver from the lofty edicts it issues to everyone else. … Obama met the initial outbreak of violence with the same response he’s given to every other union outbreak of violence under his reign: dead silence. … We should ‘do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations,’ Obama lectured just over a year ago from his politeness pulpit. In the age of Obama, it’s Opposite Day 365 days a year.” –columnist Michelle Malkin

“The only reason the president insists on raising [tax] rates is because he knows it will destroy Republican unity, it will cause a complete fracture of the Republican majority in the house, it will hand him a Congress that he can then manipulate for the next two years at least because the Republicans will be neutered. … This is entirely a political action, a way to get a surrender from the Republicans.” –columnist Charles Krauthammer

“In a remarkable demonstration of political tone-deafness, a source at the naval air base in Fort Worth told Fox News that 20 F-16 fighter jets – paid for by U.S. taxpayers as part of a foreign aid deal made in 2010 when Mubarak ruled – will still be delivered to Egypt. … Such a move represents an overt slap-down of opposition leaders desperate to prevent Egypt’s steady march towards Sharia statehood. Moreover, it reveals that Obama’s call to Morsi last Thursday, expressing ‘deep concern’ about the deaths and injuries of protesters, was nothing more than the kind of empty rhetoric this president often uses to obscure his true intentions. Morsi’s dictatorial ambitions are clear. Tragically, it appears that Barack Obama has no problem whatsoever with them.” –columnist Arnold Ahlert

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Demo-gogues

Reality distortion: “What we shouldn’t be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages or working conditions. … These so-called right-to-work laws, they don’t have to do with economics; they have everything to do with politics. What they’re really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money.” –Barack Obama, who would rather people just didn’t work

The BIG Lie: “As far as the unemployment insurance is concerned, that is something that is really a safety net for our whole economy. It’s not just a safety net for individuals. It’s a safety net for our economy. … [W]hen [the economy] is down, people have paid into an unemployment insurance program and then they have those benefits, which probably are one of the most important stimuli for the economy. The economists tell us that dollar-for-dollar there’s more demand injected into the economy by unemployment insurance than almost anything you can name, food stamps being another one of those.” –House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Fake cuts: “The fact is that the president has – and Democrats agree with him – agreed to … $1.6 trillion in cuts, in the Budget Control Act and other acts of Congress. … Where are the cuts? They’re in bills that you, Mr. Speaker, have voted for.” –Nancy Pelosi

Depends on the meaning of “beauty”: “The beauty of the 39.6 – the Clinton tax rates – was the following: it produces the revenue we need to have a fair and balanced solution that also helps reduce the deficit. It stops the hostage taking of the middle income tax cut.” –Nancy Pelosi, who has no intention of reducing the deficit

Just keep spending: “The debt limit ought not to be held hostage to anything. It hurt our economy. We were downgraded for the first time in my career, and I think in history, by one of the rating agencies. The credit worthiness of America ought not to be put at risk. It ought not to be a negotiating item.” –Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

Dezinformatsia

Talk about the fiscal bluff: “[W]hat [Republicans have] actually put on the table is almost nothing. All of the rest is just big talk. So how is the president supposed to negotiate with people who say, 'Here’s my demands. By the way, I can’t give you any specifics. Just make me happy’?” –New York Times columnist Paul Krugman

Civility: “The Mayans were right, as it turns out, when they predicted the world would end in 2012. It was just a select world: the G.O.P. universe of arrogant, uptight, entitled, bossy, retrogressive white guys. … Instead of smallpox, plagues, drought and Conquistadors, the Republican decline will be traced to a stubborn refusal to adapt to a world where poor people and sick people and black people and brown people and female people and gay people count.” –New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd

Remedial economics: “[W]hy don’t these companies making big profits just pay people better than $14 an hour? It’s kind of simple. When you’re making record profits, why not? I don’t get it.” –MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski

Blaming guns: “Guns escalate anger and escalate situations. They are the most efficient killing machines we have. Yes, there are other things that we use to kill, but Bob Costas and for once Jason Whitlock was absolutely right to say that allowing this gun culture is problematic for all of us. When you have a gun, you are more likely to get shot. You’re not more likely to shoot an intruder.” –MSNBC’s Touré

Newspulper Headlines:

Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking: “What to Expect When Kate Middleton and Prince William Are Expecting a Royal Baby” –Washington Post website

Longest Books Ever Written: “Why Liberalism Doesn’t Work” –Bill Murchison syndicated column

We Blame George W. Bush: “UN Chief Blames Rich for Global Warming Problem” –Associated Press

Breaking News From 1876: “Telegraph Phone System Operating” –Telegraph website (Alton, IL)

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Clause: “Obama Takes Tax Fight With GOP to Virginia” –TheHill.com

Bottom Story of the Day: “Ex-Fla. Gov. Crist Tweets He’s Joining Democrats” –Associated Press

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

Insight

“A newspaper has three things to do. One is to amuse, another is to entertain and the rest is to mislead.” –former British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin (1881-1951)

“Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with.” –American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

Essential Liberty

“‘It is an outrage.’ The source of Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s anger? The fact that the United States has yet to approve a treaty known as the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which often goes by the acronym LOST. … His ire about LOST’s status suggests that the Obama administration may well make this a second-term priority. … According to its supporters, we need LOST for a variety of reasons. The main one concerns the oil and gas resources in the outer limits of our extended continental shelf. The treaty’s proponents say we can obtain legal title to it only by signing on to the treaty. … It sounds dire and, at a time of fluctuating prices for gasoline and other forms of energy, alarming. Fortunately, these predictions aren’t true. Under international law and long-standing U.S. policy, we already have access to these areas. … No one has challenged them. Perhaps LOST’s proponents would like this to change. They tend to be fans of superfluous international agreements, and they frequently back policies that would tie the hands of the United States and prevent us from acting in our own interests. … President Reagan was right to reject LOST 30 years ago. The U.S. Senate should do the same thing today.” –Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner

Village Idiots

Cherry-picking facts to avoid blame: “When this president was sworn into office, he was handed a deficit of over a trillion dollars. Republicans were in control of Congress for much of the time that President George W. Bush was in office, and they didn’t do a great job of controlling spending.” –White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

Model government? “Really, the one thing that actually works – you know, state-run communism may not be your cup of tea, but [China’s] government works.” –Obama’s Jobs Council head and GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt

Handouts: “I hope and understand that people are getting a better recognition that [food stamps] is a program that really helps America, helps families in need. It’s not a government handout. If anything, it’s a safety net that helps people through difficult times and bridges them towards stability.” –Newark Mayor Cory Booker

That’s racist: “I got a movie coming out, ‘Django,’ check it out. … And in the movie I had to wear chains. How whack is that? But don’t be worried about it because I get out the chains, I get free, I save my wife, and I kill all the white people in the movie. How great is that?” –actor Jamie Foxx

Sexism: “I so admire the president for standing up for Ambassador Rice. … I’m happy with where the president has gone; I’m positive that he’s going to have a lot of women in his cabinet. Clearly, it should be 50 percent.” –NOW president Terry O'Neill

Short Cuts

“President Obama met with leaders of the American Indian tribes and they honored the president by giving him his own Indian name: Running Deficits.” –comedian Jay Leno

“When did Republicans start insisting on approving only competent, honest people, especially with regard to the Obama administration? Is it just me, or did that come completely out of left field? … Really, looking at the administration as a whole, Obama did better than we could have expected by appointing only one czar who was a Communist truther. So, to be fair to [Susan] Rice, Republicans should at least grade her on a curve. Is she really that awful … for an Obama appointee? … [A]s long as Rice is reasonably loyal to the United States (i.e., identifies it as one of her five favorite countries) and probably won’t accidentally start any wars (or, given recent history, not more than one), we can declare her as ‘good enough.’ And what more can we expect from government?” –humorist Frank J. Fleming

“U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz accused Republicans of trying to make it a crime to be an illegal alien. Democrats see a conspiracy plot. First Republicans want to say that illegal aliens are illegal, next they’re going to want to take away their voting rights.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“It’s so cold outside I just saw a Democrat with his hands in his own pockets.” –blogger Casey Kelley

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