The Foundation
The Patriot Post: "In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any." --James Madison
Editorial Exegesis
"[T]he Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is no more popular now than when it was passed, as Americans have come to realize that it will neither protect patients nor provide for affordable care. While full repeal of the law is not within the realm of short-term political reality ... repeal should nonetheless remain the end goal, either one piece at a time for now or root and branch. The price tag for Obamacare has gone from shocking to preposterous. In March 2010, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the ten-year cost of the law at $898 billion; by February 2013, that number had climbed to $1.6 trillion, and it is likely that further revisions will be in the upward direction. ... As mind-boggling as its price tag is, expense is not the main reason to repeal Obamacare. What is not sufficiently understood is that Obamacare does not reform or regulate health insurance: It effectively abolishes health insurance. ... In short, the system created by this ill-advised law would prevent the emergence of normally functioning markets in medical services and health insurance. Instead, it establishes a top-down system of price controls and subsidies that will discourage healthy people from buying insurance in the first place, reward those who exploit the system's defects, and discourage doctors and other health-care providers from extending their care to those who most need it. ... Republicans made a critical error during the debate over Obamacare when they left the impression that they approved of the U.S. health-care system. In truth, that system was deeply defective before Obamacare was passed.... With a functioning market in place, offering assistance through tax benefits or direct subsidies becomes a much simpler set of challenges, as does enacting targeted, narrow regulation to curb the abusive practices toward which the health-insurance industry is occasionally inclined. ... Republicans can and should begin taking it apart and building something better on the ruins." --National Review
Upright
"OK, Obamacare. Up on the table. It's time for your annual physical. Three years old, eh? ... I can see one problem already. Have you seen these tax hikes? Let's see -- five, 10, 15, 18 tax hikes in all. ... It all adds up, Obamacare. It's not healthy. Hate to tell you this, but it gets worse. See this? That's the number of people who are going to lose their current health insurance because of you. Not thousands, but 7 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office. ... Wait. Obamacare, didn't you say that nobody who liked his current plan would lose it? Yes. You promised it, in fact -- repeatedly. I'd better note that in your chart. You may be getting uncomfortable, but we're not done yet. Over here, there's another serious problem: You're hurting hiring.... There's more. It's a good thing you're sitting down. It turns out you're making it more difficult to access Medicare services. ... Finally, I see that insurance premiums are going to skyrocket under you. It's those coverage mandates you put in place; they're the culprit. ... You can pay the receptionist on your way out. No, I'm afraid we don't accept that insurance plan anymore." --Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner
"We could improve America's future just by recognizing what so-called 'public choice' economists started to realize around the time of World War II: that government isn't just a 'public servant.' It's not a demon, either. But government and its employees are selfish, like anyone else. That explains most of their behavior better than occasional shifts to the political left or right. We all tend to overspend and act lazy when we can get away with it. In the private sector, though, that eventually means that you get fired or realize you're depleting your bank account. In Washington, the Fed just prints more money. As long as Washington spends other people's money, there will be little incentive for them to be prudent -- or humble." --columnist John Stossel
"Three weeks ago we gave Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood government a $250 million economic stimulus package, and this week we decided to double-down in our national support for anti-Semites by giving the Palestinian Authority its own $500 million bonus. ... It is beyond strange how a Western elite so carefully attuned to racism or even racial insensitivity allows itself to not just turn a blind eye to the avalanche of anti-Semitic hate pouring out of the Muslim world, but then denigrates its critics as 'Islamophobes' and subsidizes some of the worst offenders. ... I'm reminded of the scene from the movie adaptation of The Two Towers when King Theoden observes the approaching army of Saruman and asks, 'What can men do against such reckless hate?' Apparently the American answer is, 'Give it lots of money.'" --National Review's David French
Insight
"Nothing just happens in politics. If something happens you can be sure it was planned that way." --President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 - 1945)
"There should be a tax on every man that wanted to get a government appointment, or be elected to office. In two years that tax alone would pay our national debt.'" --humorist Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)
Demo-gogues
"[ObamaCare] helped us honor our promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to the American people. ... And just think, if you could be a photographer or writer, start your own business, be self-employed, as well as change jobs or start a business and not have to be constrained by whether you had affordable and accessible quality health care. Well that's what this legislation does." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
"[Sequestration] will cause pain. It will cause economic dislocation. And then, the wailing will begin. ... And they'll say, 'Well, okay, instead of the sequester which is causing all this pain, let's cut Social Security. Let's cut Medicare. Let's cut medicaid.' This is the first step down a slippery slope toward 'you work until you die.' And that's why this has to be fought so vigorously." --Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)
"We're talking about millions of kids dying -- being shot down by assault weapons. This is not just a political issue, it's a moral issue." --Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) (Fact is, of the 12,664 murders in 2011, the most recent year for complete FBI statistics, there were 323 homicides committed with a rifle of any type, and likely fewer than 50 children (those under age 18) killed with rifles. By comparison, there were 496 murders committed with hammers in the same year.)
“Think about what happened out in -- where Gabby Giffords, my good friend, was shot and mortally [sic] wounded. Think about when that young man had to try to change the clip. Had he only had a 10-round clip when he changed the clip and fumbled and had it knocked out of his hands, how many more people would have been alive? And tell me, tell me how it violates anyone's constitutional right to be limited to a clip that holds 10 rounds instead of 30, or in Aurora, 100." --Joe Biden
Dezinformatsia
"I wonder, in Noah's ark, when God had pairs of everything, were they, were they male-female, or could they have been lesbian or homosexual couples? I betcha a few, a few lesbian or homosexual couples snuck through there." --radio host Dr. Mike Newcomb
"You do understand Dr. Carson's success is, in part, thanks to government assistance aka college loans? No one builds it alone." --MSNBC's Toure
"When the media covers something, it's important to do basic homework. You can't just repeat something over and over again until it sounds true. It's not fair." --NBC's Matt Lauer
"90% of Americans want universal background checks. ... Among those people who own guns, 85% support. Are you thwarting the will of the American people by standing in opposition to universal background checks?" --NBC's David Gregory to NRA's Wayne LaPierre
"In the months since the Newtown, Conn., school massacre, some gun rights supporters have repeatedly compared U.S. gun control efforts to Nazi restrictions on firearms, arguing that limiting weapons ownership could leave Americans defenseless against homegrown tyrants. ... But comparisons between a push by gun control advocates in the U.S. and Hitler have become so common ... they're often asserted as fact, rather than argument." --Associated Press writer Adam Geller
Newspulper Headlines:
We Blame Global Warming: "Challenge to Australian Prime Minister Evaporates" --Associated Press
That's Actually Fewer Than We'd Have Expected: "12 People Left Behind During America's Recovery" --Huffington Post
The Lonely Lives of Scientists: "Giant Squid DNA Study Produces 'Tantalizing Questions' for Scientists" --Agence France-Presse
Help Wanted: "Porta-Potty Serial Arsonist Sought" --Seattle Times
Bottom Story of the Day: "Public Opinion Stays Static on Affordable Care Act" --NationalJournal.com
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
Village Idiots
"Did you realize that over 90% of the guns in this country are owned by white people in the suburbs and in rural areas? Ninety-percent of our guns are not owned by African-Americans, hispanics, minority groups, they're owned by white people. Now what are these white people so afraid of out in the suburbs?" --filmmaker Michael Moore
"We're going to work on this ['assault weapon' ban]. We're going to find the votes. And it deserves a vote and let's see if we can get it done." --White House chief of staff Denis McDonough
"Scientific evidence affirms that children have similar developmental and emotional needs and receive similar parenting whether they are raised by parents of the same or different genders. If a child has 2 living and capable parents who choose to create a permanent bond by way of civil marriage, it is in the best interests of their child(ren) that legal and social institutions allow and support them to do so, irrespective of their sexual orientation." --American Academy of Pediatrics endorsing same-sex marriage
"'Cold Dead Hand' is about you heartless motherf-----s unwilling to bend for the safety of our kids. Sorry if you're offended by the word safety!" --actor Jim Carrey on his new "song" about the bitter people who cling to their guns.
"What the extremists do is spread fear and unrealistic theories of conspiracies and the citizenry that needs to be armed because the government is possibly tyrannical, and they need their arms to defend themselves against the tyrannical government." --NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo
"I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom. ... [I]f you want to smoke, I think you have a right to do so and I would protect that. ... You certainly have a right to have a gun if you want. If you want to eat a lot and get fat, you have a right to do it. But our job as government is to inform the public." --New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg
Essential Liberty
"New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that he thinks 'there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom.' If he really believes that, then he truly is a little tyrant. ... If the state can infringe on freedom at 'certain times,' then it can do it at any time. Once that wall has been breached, it's only a matter of how far government goes. And as we've seen, and as Thomas Jefferson foresaw, the trend has been for government to grow and liberty to yield. That wall has been breached and it only gets bigger as the invaders drive deeper into occupied territory. The Declaration of Independence rightly said that people are born with unalienable rights given them by their Creator. ... Our rights, our freedoms, our liberties are with us when we are born, and we lose them only when they are stolen from us, when lawmakers impose their views on others. There is no balance, no halfway mark or compromise that produces some ill-defined greatest good. ... Not so many years ago, H.L. Mencken thoughtfully noted that 'The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.'" --Investor's Business Daily
Short Cuts
"In case you missed it, on his first mission as Secretary of State, John Kerry boasted to a group of Germans, 'In America, you have a right to be stupid.' A right?! For years now, the Democrats have relied on it to win elections. As for horse-faced John Kerry, were it not for the terminally stupid, he would have spent the last 30 years not in the Senate, but in a stable." --columnist Burt Prelutsky
"A 28-year-old woman from Serbia has a rare brain condition where she sees everything upside down. The good news? She's now been given a job at the White House as President Obama's economic adviser." --comedian Jay Leno
"President Obama's limo wouldn't start at Ben Gurion Airport after they rolled it off the U.S. transport plane. It turns out the Israeli ground crew filled it up with the wrong type of fuel and it wouldn't start. They filled the tank with water instead of wine." --comedian Argus Hamiton
"You can't be against fascism and for government expansion. That's like being against mass shootings while arming the mentally ill. If the push for gay marriage is like the civil rights movement of the 60s, did the civil rights movement have this much self-back patting?" --humorist Frank J. Fleming
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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