Political Snippets

The following excerpts come from the latest Patriot Post Digest and are posted in accordance with the terms and use policy.  The Patriot Post www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/

The BIG Lie

Where is the constitutional authority for a federal mandate that individuals must buy health insurance?

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) says that one’s easy: “The very first enumerated power gives the power to provide for the common defense and the general welfare. So it’s right on, right on the front end.”

For those who don’t follow Sen. Merkley’s brilliant explication, he refers to the Constitution’s Preamble, which, among several other things, says that the Constitution was written to “promote the general Welfare,” though the Preamble doesn’t list enumerated powers.

Furthermore, James Madison, primary author of the Constitution, vehemently disagreed, writing, “If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.”

Thomas Jefferson likewise stated that if Congress could “do anything they please to provide for the general welfare … [i]t would reduce the whole instrument [the Constitution] to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.” For the simpletons in Congress, Jefferson concluded, “Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them.” Regardless of what Senator Jeff Merkley says.

Faith and Family: Shut Up, She Explained

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), like every other Democrat, could use a constitutional education. Oddly enough, though, the part of the Constitution DeGette needs brushing up on is the Left’s favorite part: The First Amendment. Leftists have abused it for decades to hammer their agenda into our laws and culture. But they have also intentionally ignored its guarantee of the free exercise of religion. To them, the Constitution is just a scrap of paper written by dead white men. It’s old and irrelevant today except for the few phrases that can be used to promote their socialism.

Regarding the health care legislative monstrosity working its way through Congress and the input of religious groups, DeGette said that “religiously-affiliated groups … should be shut out of the process” because of their opposition to federal funding of abortions. “Last I heard, we had separation of church and state in this country,” she sulked. “I’ve got to say that I think the Catholic bishops and all of the other groups shouldn’t have input.”

As Family Research Council President Tony Perkins observed, “According to her, if a group of people who are in association with one another because of their Christian faith, they should not have a voice in the crafting of public policy. What she is asserting is that if your ideas and actions are a product of your faith, you’re a second class citizen and your voice should not be heard.”

Income Redistribution: Ponzi Motors

In the first volume increase since January 2008, sales at government-owned GM rose 6.6 percent last month. To celebrate the temporary sales bump driven by the government’s Cash for Clunkers rebate debacle — the one that paid taxpayer money to taxpayers who purchased vehicles — GM will repay $6.7 billion of the $49.9 billion in federal aid it received. GM has lost $88 billion since 2004 and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June.

Consistent with the circular reasoning so in vogue with liberal visions of funding ObamaCare by taxing ObamaCare, GM is robbing Peter to pay Peter by repaying the government with money from a government contingency fund. While a glaring departure from the usual liberal schemes of robbing Peter to pay Paul, the ridiculousness of GM’s plan is too rich. What’s the logic in repaying taxpayer loans with taxpayer dollars? The astounding size of this automotive Ponzi scheme would make even Bernie Madoff blush.

In other automotive news, Ford, the only American car manufacturer that isn’t beholden to the Obama administration, reported a third-quarter profit of $1 billion. Have you driven a Ford lately?

November 22, Resources For Sunday Mass (Both Forms of the Rite)

Ordinary Form: The Solemnity of Christ the King.

Readings.

Word On Fire.  Audio homily from Fr. Robert Barron.

Sunday Gospel Scripture Study.  Audio, 61 minutes

Daily Gospel.  A brief meditation on the Gospel reading by Origen.

Word Sunday.  Contains a number of resources.  Some links listed below

• FIRST READING: This time we will look at Daniel’s famous description for the Son of Man through the eyes of John the Elder in the book of Revelations.
• PSALM: Psalm 93 celebrates our true King, God.
• SECOND READING: After we looked at Daniel’s vision of the Son of Man, we now analyze the text from Revelations. These verses equate Jesus with the heavenly Son of Man arriving on the clouds in glory.
• GOSPEL: John 18 asked a simple question through the mouth of Pilate: “Are you a king, Jesus?” Jesus responded with the question of truth. The One who revealed the Truth was the real King.

Sunday Scripture Study.  Brief notes, review questions, catechism references.

The Sunday Homily.  Posted on a blog by Fr. James Farfaglia.

Navarre Bible Study.  The readings with commentary from the Navarre Bible.

• First reading/commentary
• Second reading/commentary
• Gospel reading/commentary

Extraordinary Form.

Jesus Christ, The King Of Our Hearts.  An online book.  Use zoom feature to increase text size.

Christ Our King.  An Explanation of the feast.  Use zoom feature to increase text size.

Christ Our Rest And King.  A sermon by Cardinal Manning.  Use zoom feature to increase text size.

 

 

Latest Addition To The Index Of Forbidden Kooks

“It’s an interesting twist of fate here in our own backyard that former Vice President Al Gore has taken on a new platform and is now a catalyst for world change. So, in essence, he’s president of the people. He’s president of the planet. And the work that he’s doing is more important than any other work that could possibly be done.” –”eco-entrepreneur” Marci Zaroff (source)

More Gore:

Did you know the temperature of the Earth’s interior is “million” of degrees?  Who knew my Earth Science teacher was a “junk scientist?”

Al Gore’s eco-prophecies profits.

If only Moses had been able to photoshop.  Imagine what the burning bush would look like in your picture Bible.

The Chicago Politics of Harry Reid and the Demcare Bill

Did anyone really think that “Hope And Change” meant anything other than “business as usual?“

Upstate NY Jokes From Jeff Foxworthy (Allegedly)

My sister sent me these by email.  I’ve added a couple of comments to some (in red) and a few quips of my own (in blue).

If the first words out of your mouth in a defensive driving situation are “here, hold my beer for a sec” you might be an Upstate New Yorker.

“Vacation” means going South past Syracuse for the weekend.
You measure distance in hours.
You know several people who have hit a deer more than once.  I know a woman in her early 30’s who has hit a deer 4 times.  Most auto/deer accidents seem to involve beat up old pickup trucks being driven by avid hunters, which raises the question: “how accidental are these “‘accidents’”?
You often switch from “heat” to “A/C” in the same day and back again. No joke, but a sure sign April or October has arrived.
You can drive 65 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard, without flinching.  That is until you see  a car with Jersey license plates coming at you doing the same damned thing.
You carry jumper cables in your car and your girlfriend/wife knows how to use them.
You have a 20 gauge “for the old lady” hanging beneath your 12 gauge on the window rack of your pickup.
You design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.  Or you dye a blanket sleeper white and send your kid out as the Abominable Snowman.
Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.  I didn’t find this terribly funny.  The fact is that by early summer those same potholes are filled with roadkill.  May is “hell on the undercarriage month.”
You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction.
You can identify a southern or eastern accent.
Down South to you means Corning”
You refer to a trip to New York City as “paying a visit to the giant blood sucking tax burden.”

You go out for a fish fry every Friday .  Every American Legion, VFW and rod and gun club seems to offer them.
Your 4th of July picnic was moved indoors due to frost.  The average low temperature on July 4th in Upsate NY is 44 degrees, and sometimes it just doesn’t warm up.  I’ve celebrated a couple of 4th of July’s wearing a hoodie.  This may explain the next entry.
You find 10 degrees “a little chilly.” and 55 is shorts weather.
You have more miles on your snow blower than your car.
You actually understand these jokes, and you forward them to all your
Upstate New York friends and to those who used to live here and left. — (chickens).

Not What I Was Looking For

I heard some people talking about a mock underwear commercial where, instead of superhero underwear, the product being advertised was liberal hero underwear.  I couldn’t hear everything the people were saying and since they were unknown to me I didn’t want to ask, so I don’t know the title or even if it’s on youtube.  I did find this Star Wars spoof which, I think, may have been produced by Michelle Obama and Cass Sunstien.

 

The Obamacide Of Our Economy

The Following is Alexander’s Essay for November 19th, 2009.  It appears courtesy of THE PATRIOT POST and is subject to the following: REPRINTING, FORWARDING AND POSTING: Subscribers may reprint, forward or post original content from The Patriot Post, in whole or part, in accordance with our Terms of Use, with the following citation: “The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/ )”

The BIGGEST LIE Yet

“It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth — and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. … For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.” –Patrick Henry

Sometimes the biggest lies come under cover of a truth.

Such was the case this week, when Barack Hussein Obama proffered this observation about deficits: “I think it is important, though, to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession.”

“Keep on adding to the debt”? From this, one might conclude that Obama has never suggested such a thing, and is truly concerned about deficits.

His revelation came amid discussion of tax reductions engineered to increase employment, as if our Constitution has a provision for that, anymore than for Obama’s other proposals.

Obama is feigning concern about deficits now that there is discussion of tax cuts, which he concludes would increase deficits.

“At some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy”? Like the Red Chinese, who hold more U.S. government debt than any other nation ($800 billion), and upon whom we are depending to fund more of our debt. No coincidence that Obama’s remarks were made while on his most recent appeasement tour in Beijing.

“Even in the midst of this recovery”? What recovery?

Oh, the one that his $787 billion “hope-n-change” big-government payout package was supposed to ensure?

At the time of that proposal, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office offered this summary: “In the longer run, the [Obama] legislation would result in a slight decrease in gross domestic product compared with CBO’s baseline economic forecast.” Put another way, the CBO static scoring projected that Obama’s big government pork giveaway would hinder economic recovery. Dynamic scoring by economists shows a much worse destiny.

But Obama warned, “If nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.”

Now, after a quick assessment of the Obama Recovery through October, one is stuck with the conclusion that his spending spree has resulted in 10.2 percent unemployment — except, of course, in such places as Washington, DC, where government jobs are immune to recession.

That would be double-digit unemployment — so now you know why Obama cleverly framed his recovery program in terms of jobs “created or saved.” His administration announced that through October, the American Recovery Act had “created” or “saved” 640,329 jobs. However, a growing number of skeptics, even among his once-adoring media, found some very questionable accounting methods used to come up with that figure.

Asked about some of the discrepancies, Obama’s Recovery Czar, Ed Pound, responded, “Who knows, man, who really knows?”

Recovery reality check: Remember when Obama claimed, “This is our moment, this is our time to turn the page on the policies of the past, to offer a new direction”?

That is a reference to Obama’s v Reagan’s policies, big government solutions v. free enterprise solutions.

Ronald Reagan’s economic policies unleashed an unprecedented period of growth, which continued right up until the financial sector collapse in ‘08, a calamity resulting from policies implemented during the Clinton years, which undermined the values of derivatives used as collateral due. Those policies, as we now know, gave license for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to back high-risk loans to unqualified buyers, thereby setting the stage for the subprime mortgage meltdown and the crash of 2008.

Recall that in 2005, Sen. John McCain sponsored the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act, saying, “For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac … and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. … If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.”

McCain noted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac regulators concluded that profits were “illusions deliberately and systematically created by the company’s senior management.”

McCain was right, but Democrats, including Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, ensured that nothing would be done to alter current practices at Fannie and Freddie. “These two entities … are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” Frank said at the time.

The net result of the derivative dilution was a crisis of confidence in the U.S. economy, second only to that which led to the Great Depression.

Remember when Obama claimed, “We are fundamentally transforming the United States of America”? Well, we’re in mid-transformation, and how are things looking now?

Obama also said, “Generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was our time.”

Indeed, his time to saddle them and their children with unprecedented debt, not only from his “stimulus” folly, but next up, ObamaCare, and then his job-killing cap-and-tax scheme.

If you think you can count on the administration’s estimates of the true cost of ObamaCare, think again. The Washington Times recently reminded us of the estimated cost of Medicare shortly after Democrats implemented it in 1965. Then, it was predicted to cost $12 billion by 1990. In actuality, it cost $98 billion, which is to say the original estimate was short by more than a factor of seven.

In my home state of Tennessee, we’ve already been there and done that. Our state’s version of ObamaCare, known as TennCare, implemented by Democrats in 1994 ostensibly to contain healthcare expenses, has quickly grown to consume more than a third of state revenues.

The CBO now says that the $1 trillion estimated cost of ObamaCare is “subject to substantial uncertainty.” How’s that for qualifying understatement?

As for the big picture, U.S. National Debt topped the $12 trillion mark this week, or approximately $39,000 for every man, woman and child in America, and the federal deficit that Obama now pretends to be concerned about hit a record high $1.42 trillion for fiscal year 2009.

Obama’s administration projects that the national debt will top $14 trillion by this time next year, and my sense is that they’re being modest. At the current pace, within 10 years our national debt will exceed our Gross Domestic Product.

Of these staggering debt figures, Obama now claims, “I intend to take serious steps to reduce America’s long-term deficit because debt-driven growth cannot fuel America’s long-term prosperity.”

But, what’s his real endgame?

We can be certain that Obama’s solution to deficits will not be less government. Instead, it will be unprecedented tax increases, a.k.a., socialist redistribution of wealth, a.k.a., “the fundamental transformation of America.”

The Tax Foundation now estimates that to offset deficits, “Federal income tax rates would have to be nearly tripled across the income spectrum,” with the lowest bracket at 27 percent and the highest at 95. Even the CBO estimates that rates would have to exceed 80 percent, and that’s before state and local taxes.

Do you get the picture, folks?

Obama will succeed in his effort to socialize the U.S. economy, using the tax code as his hammer and sickle, unless growing ranks of Americans object to the fact that he has no constitutional authority to do so.

In the meantime, Patriots, keep your powder dry.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander
Publisher, PatriotPost.US

One Of Those Days

I’m pretty sure today is going to go a little like this:

And this will probably be the sound track:

Educate Yourself! (Before The Government Does It For You)

My Monday Brief from THE PATRIOT POST came the other day via email and, as usual, it contains excerpts from some fine articles and opinion pieces.  Also, check out today’s Patriot Post Chronicle.  Finally, check out The Heritage Foundation’s blog, The Foundry.

Latest Addition To The Index Of Forbidden Kooks

You’re going to get two for the price of one today.  First, there is Al Gore, he recently claimed that the earth’s interior was “Several Million Degrees.”  Apparently, the former VP played hookie from science class during his entire year in the 7th grade.  Second, there is Newsweek which, if I’m not mistaken, used to be some kind of news publication.  It recently referred to Gore as “A thinking man’s thinking man.”