home > archive > 2012 > this article

Lingua publica

The good and the bad...presented with permission from The Patriot E-Journal

web posted April 23, 2012

"The Tax Foundation reports that because of higher federal income and corporate tax collections, Tax Freedom Day came four days later this year than last. And the bad news is that unless Washington takes action, it will take working Americans 11 more days to meet next year's tax burden. That's all due to Taxmageddon -- a slew of expiring tax cuts and new tax increases that will hit Americans on January 1, 2013, amounting to a $494 billion tax hike. Heritage's Curtis Dubay reports that American households can expect to face an average tax increase of $3,800 and that 70 percent of Taxmageddon's impact will fall directly on low-income and middle-income families, leaving them with $346 billion less to spend. ... Instead of dealing with Taxmageddon, President Obama wants to change the subject with a gimmicky policy like the 'Buffett Tax.' ... Stopping a $494 billion tax increase shouldn't be a contentious partisan issue." --Heritage Foundation's Mike Brownfield

"When he's not talking up his buddy Warren [Buffet], [Obama] has been staggering around demonizing Paul Ryan's plan, which would lead, he says, to the end of the weather service, air traffic control, national parks, law enforcement, and drinkable water. Given what's at stake, you might think then that the president would have an alternative plan. But he has none, save for his proposal to pay off the 2011 federal deficit by the year 2526. The Obama No-Plan plan means the end of everything. That really ought to be the only slogan the Republicans need this fall: What's your plan?" --columnist Mark Steyn

"There is nothing the president is saying now that he has not said many times over. ... The Obama campaign brain trust may have concluded that the only path to victory is by pandering to a collection of ethnic groups and interests. Hence, the class warfare theme to activate the left-wing base, the offhand comments about the Trayvon Martin case to show blacks he is with them, the lawsuits against Arizona to please Hispanic voters, and the delay in the Keystone pipeline to keep the environmental lobby and contributors happy." --columnist Richard A. Baehr

"[T]he simple fact is that Obama is the stay-the-course candidate stuck with a team, a record and an economy ill-suited for a stay-the-course strategy. That's what gives poignancy to Obama's recently renewed love affair with Ronald Reagan, whom Obama invokes these days as a model of reasonableness and bipartisanship. ... Even before he got the nomination in 2008, Obama said he wanted to be a 'transformative' president like Reagan had been. ... There were two key elements to Obama's man-crush. The first was the simple hope that history -- or at least the business cycle -- would repeat itself. ... The other reason the White House admired the Reagan White House? According to Time: 'Both relied heavily on the power of oratory.' Then-Press Secretary Robert Gibbs added, 'Our hope is the story ends the same way.' And there's the problem for Obama. He's sticking to his rhetorical guns on the assumption that he's the great orator his fans have always claimed." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

"The Republican House of Representatives may soon follow the Democratic Senate and give the IRS the power to confiscate your passport on mere suspicion of owing taxes. ... Contained within the suspiciously titled 'Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act,' or 'MAP 21,' is a provision that gives the Internal Revenue Service the power to keep U.S. citizens from leaving the country if it finds that they owe $50,000 or more in unpaid taxes -- no court ruling necessary. It is hard to imagine any law more reminiscent of the Soviet Union that America toppled, or its Eastern Bloc slave satellites. ... As Reuters reported Monday, overtaxation has led to close to 1,800 Americans living abroad renouncing their U.S. citizenship last year or turning in their green cards -- many of them with broken hearts because of their love for this nation. The record number of former U.S. citizens is nearly eight times more than those who renounced U.S. citizenship in 2008, and it exceeded 2007, 2008 and 2009 combined. They did it because of the nightmare the U.S. government puts them -- and non-American spouses -- through, sniffing over any and all of their finances. ... If House Republicans pass this assault on our Constitution, their credibility will be in tatters. And if it is passed and then signed into law, look for constitutional challenges in federal courts throughout the land. They should begin the next day." --Investor's Business Daily

"Some years ago, one of my predecessors traveled across the country pushing for the same concept. He gave a speech where he talked about a letter he had received from a wealthy executive who paid lower tax rates than his secretary, and wanted to come to Washington and tell Congress why that was wrong. So this president gave another speech where he said it was 'crazy' ... that certain tax loopholes make it possible for multimillionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary. That wild-eyed, socialist, tax-hiking class warrior was Ronald Reagan." --Barack Obama

"There are politicians who say that if we just drilled more, then gas prices would just come down right away. What they don't say is that we have been drilling more. Under my administration America is producing more oil than at any time in the last eight years." --Barack Obama, trying to take credit for drilling on private land

"I believe in investing in basic research and science because I understand that all these extraordinary companies that are these enormous wealth-generators -- many of them would have never been there. Google [and] Facebook would not exist had it not been for investments that we made as a country in basic science and research. I understand that makes us all better off." --Barack Obama

"I think most folks understand how hard I work and how hard this administration's working on behalf of the American people." --Barack Obama when pressed on his disturbing number of vacations

"I want to thank President Santos and the people of Colombia for the extraordinary hospitality in the beautiful city of Cartagena. We're having a wonderful time. And usually when I take these summit trips, part of my job is to scout out where I may want to bring Michelle back later for vacation." --Barack Obama during his trip to the Summit of the Americas

"[F]or the middle class, the Ryan/Romney Republican budget for the rich is not the path to prosperity. For the 99 percent, the Ryan budget is really the road to hell and we're here to say 'hell no, we won't go!'" --Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL)

"[T]he president inherited ... the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, a crisis caused by a shock larger than what caused the Great Depression. And he did the necessary, deeply damaging -- deeply politically hard things to get growth started again. ... This president's policies were remarkably successful." --Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner

"The choice in this election is between an economy that produces a growing middle class and that gives people a chance to get ahead and their kids a chance to get ahead and an economy that continues down the road we're on." --Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod

"The laws [like Florida's Stand Your Ground] are not the kind of laws a civilized society should have and the [National Rifle Association] should be ashamed of themselves. This has nothing to do with gun-owners' rights. This has nothing to do with the Second Amendment. Plain and simple, this is just trying to give people a license to murder." --New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg

"Talking is good. Conversations have to be forever. You know, they can't come in spits and starts when there's an incident [such as that between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin]. I think we all need, as a country, to continue to talk about these issues, to understand our communities and the challenges that we face, which are different and unique depending upon where you live. ... [T]here isn't, you know, a one-shot solution to this." --Michelle Obama

"We have to continue tweeting, we have to continue marching, we have to continue fighting for Trayvon Martin. ... It's a disgrace that [George Zimmerman] hasn't been dragged out of his house and tied to a car and taken away. That's the only kind of retribution that people like that understand. It's a disgrace that man hasn't been shot yet. Forget about him being arrested -- the fact that he hasn't been shot yet is a disgrace." --former heavyweight champion and convicted rapist Mike Tyson

"[O]ur politics are failing to deal with the massive deep-seeded problems this country has, whether it's, how do you send your kid to college or how do you not get evicted from your home? Or why do we have inequality akin to Egypt's?" --The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel

"Remember: if a black cat crosses your path it is bad luck -- except in Florida where you're allowed to shoot it." --HBO's Bill Maher

"[Trayvon Martin] had no weapon and he had every legal right to be where he was. The rush to judgment was those that moved against him, said he was suspicious, and took his life. So to lecture us about rushing to judgment, we're a victim of a rush to judgment in this case. Let's be real clear on that." --MSNBC's Al Sharpton

"Let's move on to the Trayvon Martin story. Bill Cosby weighed in with some comments in an interview over the weekend. It was interesting to hear Mr. Cosby talk. One of the things he said is perhaps we need to start this discussion on guns as opposed to race. Has the media focused too much on race ... in this issue, because it's explosive, when guns are the real problem?" --NBC's Matt Lauer

"Democratic advisor Hilary Rosen is under fire for saying Ann Romney, quote, 'Never worked a day in her life.' Hey, if she really never worked a day in her life, Ann Romney would be endorsing Obama." --NewsBusted's Jodi Miller

"If I had a daughter, she would look like Ann Romney." --radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh

"The thing I hate most about taxes is that the more money they take, the more government we get. It's the worst possible trade off imaginable." --humorist Frank J. Fleming

"President Obama released his tax returns. It turns out he made $900,000 less in 2011 then he did in 2010. You know what that means? Even Obama is doing worse under President Obama." --Jay Leno

"The Justice Department handed in its homework on time to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The administration had to write a three-page paper admitting that the Supreme Court can overturn laws passed by Congress. That was the only statement in the paper, but it ran three pages because they were required to write it three hundred times." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"In this country, prosperity doesn't trickle down, prosperity grows from the bottom up, and it grows from a strong middle class out. That's why I'm always confused when we keep having the same argument with folks who don't seem to remember how America was built. ... Right now, we have two competing visions of our future, and the choice could not be clearer. And let me say, those folks on the other side, I am sure they are patriots, I'm sure they're sincere in terms of what they say, but their theory, I believe, is wrong." --Barack Obama, explaining why the government needs even more money from the wealthy than it already takes

web posted April 16, 2012

"Santorum's withdrawal from the campaign was a paradox: He had done too well to stay in any longer. ... It is possible that no serious candidate for President ever did more with less -- less personality, less money, a more narrow message -- than Santorum. ... Here's where I think the campaign between Romney and Obama will be decided: Who has the ability to guide the nation through the next coming worldwide economic downturn. If Americans think that class warfare is the right approach, then Barack Obama will be re-elected. If, on the other hand, Americans believe that expanding opportunities to succeed is the best way forward, then Mitt Romney will be sworn in on January 20, 2013. In mid-April, it's too close to call." --columnist Rich Galen

"Romney needs to make the case that current policy ... is leading to a crash in which government will fail to keep its promises. He needs to argue that his 'opportunity society' means vibrant economic growth that can provide, in ways that can't be precisely predicted, opportunities in which young people can find work that draws on their special talents and interests. Obama's policies, in contrast, treat individuals as just one cog in a very large machine, designed by supposed experts who don't seem to know what they're doing. ... Romney, potentially strong with the affluent, needs to figure out how to get through to the young." --political analyst Michael Barone

"Sixty-one percent of debt issued by the Treasury is bought by the Federal Reserve -- which is to say the left hand of the U.S. Government is lending money to the right hand of the US Government. ... Nonetheless, in a land where every mewling babe in the American nursery is born with a debt burden of just under $200,000, the president brags that only his party is 'compassionate' to have no plan whatsoever even to attempt to do anything about this, no way, no how, not now, not ever." --columnist Mark Steyn

"I am instinctively skeptical whenever self-proclaimed environmentalists start pontificating. In part, this is because everyone has an incentive to exaggerate. The business community will always say that a new regulation imposes astronomically high costs, while environmentalists will claim minimal costs and say that thousands of premature deaths will be averted. Since exaggeration is omnipresent in Washington, that's not what really bothers me. My main problem with environmentalists is that they want to use so-called green issues to give government more power. And if you oppose them, you're an evil person." --Cato Institute's Daniel J. Mitchell

"Last week, President Obama warned that if the Supreme Court stops Congress from forcing Americans to buy government-approved health insurance, it will be imposing restrictions on federal power of a sort not seen since the early 1930s, the late 1920s, 1905 or 1789. ... The main point is that Republicans, who want the court to overturn the health insurance mandate, are trying to undo the New Deal. Obama made a similar claim regarding the House Budget Committee's recently unveiled fiscal plan, which he called 'thinly veiled social Darwinism,' 'an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country' and 'antithetical to our entire history.' In truth, however, neither the constitutional constraints nor the budgetary tinkering advocated by the Republicans would make the federal government any smaller than it is now. I wish they were half as radical as the president portrays them." --columnist Jacob Sullum

"So these investments -- in things like education and research and health care -- they haven't been made as some grand scheme to redistribute wealth from one group to another. This is not some socialist dream." --Barack Obama (For the record, here's what he had to say in 2008: "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody.")

"I have never been somebody who believes government can or should try to solve every problem." --Barack Obama

"I'm a firm believer that whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, that you're a patriot, you care about this country, you love this country. And so I'm not somebody who, when we're in a political contest, suggests somehow that one side or the other has a monopoly on love of country. ... [M]y vision ... the Democratic vision is one that says that free market is the key to economic growth; that we don't need to build government just for the sake of expanding its reach." --Barack Obama

"You know, some of the people who, I guess, believe that the way to get this economy going is reduce taxes on the wealthiest people make that argument, but there's no class warfare involved. It's a question simply of fairness. And the bottom line is most wealthy people I talk to say yes, I shouldn't pay a lower rate than somebody who's my secretary. Some ... say I don't want to pay any taxes. But they're a small group, they have disproportionate influence, obviously, with the Super PACs." --Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

"[W]hat's really bothersome to me ... is that it almost seems like my Republican colleagues in Congress and Mitt Romney are rooting for economic failure. I mean, they've been hyper-focused on one job, Barack Obama's, for really the last two years. And we all need to be pulling together to focus on moving the economy forward for the middle class and for working families." --DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)

"It's your money or your life. We are either going to dedicate ourselves to a cleaner, more livable planet and accept the initial investment necessary or we're going to pay a heavier price in terms of loss of human life, damage and costs associated with it." --Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) arguing that we should all drive hybrid cars to save the planet in response to the recent tornadoes around Dallas, TX. (Interesting that he used the language of a stick-up to advocate leftist climate policies...)

"[L]let's don't forget that race will be a factor in this presidential campaign. Yes, the country can feel good about [the fact] we elected a person of color, which I did not expect to see in my lifetime, but race will be a factor in this." --Dan Rather, who works for some backwater cable channel

"Historically, after a surge in black power there is a retort, a reassertion of white power. ... Now in the wake of the rise of Obama, we see the power structure responding by continuing to implement voter ID laws tailored to functionally disenfranchise poor blacks. We see an increase in violent crimes that target blacks but not specific blacks, any black person will do. ... The anxiety about Obama's success has led to many reactions, most of them not physical but still emotionally violent." --Time magazine contributor Tour??

"[Republicans are] happy to have [Obama] involved in using his labor to build the White House, but for him to win an election and live in the White House? That's just not acceptable." --MSNBC's Martin Bashir

"Should an MSNBC anchor be moderating a White House event and talking about celebrating what the administration has accomplished?" --CNN's Howard Kurtz

"President Obama [was] elected to repair the economy, get us out of two wars ... repair equality divides in this country and also heal a racial divide. Is it just too much to ask from one president?" --MSNBC's Thomas Roberts

"Everything [Obama] does is subject to a different lens and seen through a microscope that really tends to pick him apart. I think it's indivisible from the broader issue of his race, of his being a black man with a certain kind of authority. These are impolite things we don't want to talk about. We think that they're being extraordinary ratcheted up. But I don't see any other way to explain it but a remarkable resistance to the integrity of this man that has no other explanation." --Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson

"Time to get booted up and suited up for this race war we're in, the things that are about to happen to these crackers, these honkeys. ... We gotta go do it, we have to cross the Red Sea, not some sea in the Middle East part of the world, we're talking about some blood -- go through some blood, some battles. There are those who wish they could stand in this hour to see the destruction of the devil's world, not some dude under the ground with a pitchfork, I'm talking about blond-haired, blue-eyed sometimes brown-eyed Caucasian." --threat from the "New" Black Panthers

"As High Commissioner for Human Rights, I call for an immediate investigation [into the shooting involving Trayvon Martin]. Justice must be done for the victim. It's not just this individual case. It calls into question the delivery of justice in all situations like this." --UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay (For the record, the UN Commission on Human Rights includes such paragons of virtue as China, Cuba, Libya and Saudia Arabia.)

"I love Fidel Castro. I respect Fidel Castro. You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that motherf----r is still here." --Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen, who later apologized but was suspended anyway

"[W]hy was [Jesus] killed? Because He fought and He occupied the corrupt temple." --"Reverend" Jesse Jackson attempting to compare Jesus to Occupy Wall Street

"President Obama just hosted a Passover Seder at the White House. And this year he celebrated Passover as he always does: by Passing over policies that support Israel." --NewsBusted's Jodi Miller

"President Obama challenged the Supreme Court's authority to overturn a law passed by Congress. He decided to backtrack the next day. President Obama's threat to take over the Supreme Court fizzled when he found out the government already owns it. --comedian Argus Hamilton

"Keith Olbermann is suing his former employer, Current TV, for $70 million. That comes out to $10 million per viewer." --comedian Jay Leno

"President Obama's reelection campaign store is now selling 'Obama Baby Bibs.' Seems appropriate, since he's always trying to shove stuff down our throats that we won't swallow." --Fred Thompson

"Our fiscal commitments are unsustainable over the long run, but we cannot put our long-run fiscal challenges above all others. We have to be willing to do things, not just cut things." --Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner

"[Mitt Romney's] wife has actually never worked a day in her life." --CNN pundit Hilary Rosen on a stay-at-home mom who raised five sons while battling multiple sclerosis and breast cancer

web posted April 9, 2012

"Can I tell you what I'm a tiny bit sick of hearing? Maybe you are too. Some version of this: 'Conservatives are hypocritical to root for the Supreme Court to overturn the health-care law. For years, conservatives have griped about interference by the courts. And now they're hoping that a handful of unelected, black-robed individuals will do their work for them?' Oh, come on: What we've objected to, all these years, is judicial activism -- judge-made law. The usurpation of the legislative role by judges. We have not, to my knowledge, objected to the striking down of unconstitutional laws. We are not hostile to a separation of powers." --columnist Jay Nordlinger

"The margin of passage has never been a factor in the Supreme Court's review of any law. That's simply not a part of American jurisprudence. In fact, if Mr. Obama believes what he says, he ought to be very satisfied with the validity of the Defense of Marriage Act, which passed in 1996 by a whopping 275 margin in the House and by 71 votes in the Senate." --The Washington Times

"One of the greatest sins of Obamacare is actually that the president decided to pursue legislation that would fundamentally change the country even though he didn't have a strong majority for it in Congress. And 'judicial activism' generally refers to rulings based on emotion and political views instead of the Constitution and precedent. The judges' questions about the health care law went right to whether it violated the Constitution. There was no 'activism' on the order of, say, finding previously undiscovered meanings in the Constitution to justify a decision. To say that ruling against an unpopular law barely passed by Congress violates 'judicial restraint' would seem a strange new interpretation of the term." --columnist Keith Koffler

"[T]he U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics found that between the years 2001 and 2005, nine-out-of-ten black murder victims were killed by other blacks. ... The DOJ also determined that homicide is the leading cause of death for black males between the ages of 15 and 34. ... In 2005 alone 8000 black Americans were homicide victims. If one assumes that measurement has remained relatively constant on an annual basis, it means that 56,000 blacks have been killed over the last seven years. For perspective's sake, 5,000 American troops were killed during combat in Iraq over the same period of time. ... [T]he media and racial demagogues are ably convincing black Americans to believe that their real problem is racist America; that the white-controlled 'System' is what really threatens their lives, when this is the furthest thing from the truth. This is the lesson from the Trayvon Martin tragedy." --columnist Arnold Ahlert

"[T]he violence and mayhem that disproportionately afflicts the African-American community is part of a society-wide disorder. ... That disorder is family breakdown, and no discussion of violence or murder or victimization is informed without reference to that overwhelming fact. Why do African-Americans, with 12.6 percent of the nation's population, account for 50 percent of the murder victims? Because fatherlessness is most pervasive among blacks. ... In 2012, we reached a grim milestone: The majority of births to women under the age of 30 are now outside of marriage. Among blacks, 72 percent of births are to unmarried women. ... The result of this adult folly is chaos, misery and often violent death for kids." --columnist Mona Charen

"I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress. I just remind conservative commentators that for years what we have heard the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint. That an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example and I am pretty confident that this Court will recognize that and not take that step. ... As I said, we are confident that this will be over -- that this will be upheld. I am confident that this will be upheld because it should be upheld. And again, that's not just my opinion, that's the opinion of a whole lot of constitutional law professors and academics and judges and lawyers who have examined this law, even if they're not particularly sympathetic to this particular piece of legislation or my presidency." --Barack Obama

"I think that it is the crown jewel. It is the greatest achievement." --Nancy Pelosi on ObamaCare

"Should the Supreme Court overturn this law, it would be so far out of the mainstream that the court would be the most activist in a century. If they were to throw out the health care law, things like Medicare, Social Security, food safety laws could be in jeopardy on the very same grounds. It would be a dramatic, 180 degree turn of the tradition of the Commerce Clause." --Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

"Why is a big gift from the federal government a matter of coercion? In other words, the federal government is here saying, we are giving you a boatload of money. There are no, there's no matching funds requirement, there are no extraneous conditions attached to it, it's just a boatload of federal money for you to take and spend on poor people's health care. It doesn't sound coercive to me, I have to tell you." --Justice Elena Kagan, who should have recused herself after serving as Obama's solicitor general while ObamaCare was being crafted

"I hear politicians talking about values in an election year. I hear a lot about that. Let me tell you about values. Hard work, personal responsibility -- those are values. But looking out for one another. That's a value. The idea that we're all in this together. I am my brother's keeper. I am my sister's keeper. That's a value. ... [W]e wouldn't win the race for new jobs and businesses and middle-class security if we were just applying some you're-on-your-own economics." --Barack Obama

"No president, and I would argue in the 20th century and including now the 21st century, has had as many serious problems which are cases of first-instance laid on his table. Franklin Roosevelt faced more dire consequences, but in a bizarre way it was more straightforward. ... I've watched him make decisions that would make another man or woman's hair curl." --Joe Biden

"It's worth noting that I first arrived on the national stage with a speech at the Democratic Convention that was entirely about American exceptionalism, and that my entire career has been a testimony to American exceptionalism. But I will cut [Republicans] some slack for now because they're still trying to get their nomination." --Barack Obama

"Behind the challenges to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) being heard at the Supreme Court [last] week is the idea that Barack Obama wants to take away your freedoms.... I defy anyone to name for me a specific and precise freedom that Obama has taken away from the American people. You can't. When they're not just invented out of whole cloth by multi-millionaire propagandists, all such laments are based on ignorance about what freedom actually means and an equal ignorance about how our system of government works." --The Daily Beast's Michael Tomasky

"If the conservatives decide that they can sidestep the Constitution to negate Congress's choices on crucial national policies, the court's legitimacy -- and the millions of Americans who don't have insurance -- will pay a very heavy price. Chief Justice Roberts has the opportunity to avoid this disastrous outcome by forging even a narrow ruling to uphold the mandate and the rest of the law. A split court striking down the act will be declaring itself virtually unfettered by the law. And if that happens along party lines, with five Republican-appointed justices supporting the challenge led by 26 Republican governors, the court will mark itself as driven by politics." --New York Times editorial

"This guy looks like he's up to no good ... he looks black." --NBC's edited version of the Zimmerman/Martin 911 call (The actual transcript -- Zimmerman: "This guy looks like he's up to no good. Or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around, looking about." 911: "OK, and this guy -- is he black, white or Hispanic?" Zimmerman: "He looks black.") NBC later admitted an "error."

"A report in the conservative Daily Caller said the White House only jumped into the [Trayvon Martin] fight, quote, 'following demands by the New Black Panthers and others on the scene.' But the impression I got was that the president was extremely reluctant to discuss this matter. And if you look at the president's tenure as president, he has very rarely entered into matters where race has been an issue." --MSNBC's Martin Bashir

"I get up every morning thinking, today I'm gonna make a difference. Today I'm gonna end capitalism. Today I'm gonna make a revolution. I go to bed every night disappointed, but I'm back again tomorrow. That's the only way you can do it." --Obama's political mentor and Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers to Occupy Wall Street confab

"[The] Occupy movement pretty much saved the entire country from destruction. ... Occupy Wall Street really kind of, like, helped us to hit a reset in the country." --forMER Obama czar Van Jones

"Climate change poses a massive threat to our present social, economic and political order. From a sociological perspective, resistance to change is to be expected. People are individually and collectively habituated to the ways we act and think. This habituation must be recognized and simultaneously addressed at the individual, cultural and societal level -- how we think the world works and how we think it should work." --University of Oregon professor Kari Marie Norgaard

"Keep in mind the 2010 electorate is not the 2012 electorate. More people will vote and a more diverse America will show up and people had two years of the Tea Party Congress and the polls show they didn't like it very much." --Bill Clinton

"Some people honored Earth hour last Saturday by turning off their lights for an hour to help the environment. Except for the green companies supported by the Obama Administration -- their lights were turned off permanently." --NewsBusted's Jodi Miller

"President Obama traveled to the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea where he peered through binoculars. He couldn't believe what he was seeing in North Korea. Here was a country where the rich paid their fair share and it was in ruins." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"There were three winning lotto tickets. I guess we're not sure who the three winners are yet. But when they do come forward, two things happen immediately. You get a call from the IRS asking for half. Then you get a call from your friends and relatives asking for the other half." --comedian Jay Leno

"A new study shows that sitting down too much can kill you. That's really bad news considering how much Obama is doing that we won't stand for." --Fred Thompson

web posted April 2, 2012

"One of the big issues of this election will be what Mr. Obama might do in a second term once he is unchecked by any future electoral constraints. ... The worry is especially apt on national security, where Congress has far less power to limit Presidential policies. Mr. Putin wants to limit or kill U.S. missile defenses in Europe and elsewhere. Mr. Obama hasn't dared to cut such an arms control deal in his first term, but what about in a second? In 2001, he told a Chicago TV station that 'I don't agree with a missile defense system.' ... But one of the lessons of Mr. Obama's first three years is that when he said he wanted to transform America, he wasn't kidding. He probably meant what he told Mr. Medvedev too." --The Wall Street Journal

"If the Supreme Court agrees with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit that the insurance mandate cannot be justified as a regulation of interstate commerce, it may be 'a huge symbolic victory for limited government,' as Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett says. But it will still leave in place an absurdly broad reading of the Commerce Clause.... Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who dissented from a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that upheld the mandate on Commerce Clause grounds, argued that 'just a minor tweak to the current statutory language would definitively establish the law's constitutionality under the Taxing Power.' ... In other words, Congress could accomplish exactly the same thing by wording it a little bit differently. ... We might wish taxes were used simply to pay for the government's legitimate functions, but that is not how things are. ... As currently interpreted, it also involves the power to manipulate us into submission." --columnist Jacob Sullum

"The facts of the Trayvon Martin case are still unclear. But that hasn't stopped the all-knowing, all-seeing President Obama from voicing his opinion of the situation. ... Obama implies that we all share some collective guilt for Trayvon's killing. ... [A]s Rahm Emanuel might put it, in every tragic death lies a liberal opportunity. When Communist Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated JFK, liberals quickly blamed it on a supposed 'climate of hate'.... When nutcase Jared Loughner shot Gabby Giffords, the left quickly suggested that it was overheated rhetoric that had led to the shooting. When Islamists riot in the Middle East, President Obama suggests that it's all our fault for backing Israel. ... President Obama's rhetorical flourish was far more than a rhetorical flourish. It was an active attempt to change the narrative, to magnify the Trayvon situation into an 'America is racist, and you're part of it' meme." --columnist Ben Shapiro

"Crime is one of the results of the liberal agenda. Blacks are 13 percent of the population but are more than 50 percent of murder victims. About 95 percent of black homicide victims had a black person as their murderer. Blacks are not only the major victims of murder but also suffer high victimization rates of all categories of serious violent crime. Most often, another black is the perpetrator. ... The liberal agenda, coupled with courts granting criminals new rights, later caused the murder rate to double, and the rates of other violent crimes also began to skyrocket." --economist Walter E. Williams

"American leadership has been essential to progress in a second area -- taking concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons. I believe the United States has a unique responsibility to act -- indeed, we have a moral obligation." --Barack Obama

"Obviously, we wish Solyndra hadn't gone bankrupt. Part of the reason they did was because the Chinese were subsidizing their solar industry and flooding the market in ways that Solyndra couldn't compete. But understand, this was not our program per se." --Barack Obama

"You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon. All of us have to do some soul-searching to figure out how does something like this happen." --Barack Obama

"[Trayvon Martin] was executed for 'WWB' in a 'GC.' Walking While Black in a Gated Community." --Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)

"This is Treyvon Martin. Trayvon Martin's murderer is still at large. It's been one month, thirty days, with no arrest. I want America to see this sweet young boy who was hunted down like a dog, shot in the street, and his killer is still at large." --Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL)

"I am sending a letter to the Justice Department to ask them to expand their investigation into the general application of these 'stand your ground' laws, whether they actually increase, rather than decrease, violence, and whether they actually prevent law enforcement from prosecuting cases where a real crime has been committed." --Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

"This Congress has put forth some of the worst attacks on women's health care that any of us have seen in our lifetime. In fact, the level of these attacks on women's health that we've seen make a lot of us wonder whether we're in the Dark Ages or in fact whether we're in the 21st century." --Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO)

"[W]e believe the government has the better of the policy and legal case for why the individual mandate is necessary and constitutional. ... The mandate is an indispensable tool for achieving the government's compelling goals of universal coverage and lower costs. Insurance companies would be unable to offer affordable coverage to those with preexisting conditions, for example, unless they also were guaranteed enrollment of the young and healthy customers who are less likely to consume health-care services." --Washington Post editorial

"So if you force everyone to buy insurance that means the insurance companies have more money, right? So that they can afford to cover people with pre-existing conditions. So they can afford to do that." --CNN's Carol Costello

"And this is where the problem with guns comes, because if you just -- are a person who's a little off and has some false sense of power, that's one thing if you don't have a gun in your hand. ... I'm saying the gun is the problem. That's what kills you." --ABC's Cokie Roberts

"You know, right now, we're actually safer than we've been at any time since the end of the Reagan administration. Murder rates started to spike when Ronald Reagan came into office as the economy crashed, and they actually reached a peak in 1991, about three years after Reagan left office, before Bill Clinton was able to turn it around with, you know, by raising taxes. ... Crime was going up during the Reagan administration and I would submit to you that it was going up because he had destroyed the economy." --radio talk-show host Thom Hartmann

"[Dick Cheney's heart transplant] has raised a lot of ethical questions, moral questions, about whether the vice president, in fact, should have received his heart against -- ahead of other people. ... When a patient Cheney's age receives such a scarce, life-extending organ, some doctors question whether hospitals are depriving younger patients, who typically survive longer after the surgery." --NBC chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman (For the record, Cheney was on a waiting list for 20 months -- more than the average patient.)

"Let me utter a sentence that Paul Ryan, if he lives to be a hundred, will never utter: I helped balance a budget. I worked in the White House. I put together a federal budget that was balanced, and it created the greatest boom in American history and global history. We did it in part by raising taxes mostly on the rich, cutting spending where it wasn't working, and investing in things that make us stronger and safer and smarter." --former Clinton adviser Paul Begala

"We want to be a Christian nation and we want to act in a Christian manner, but, oh, by the way, we don't believe in turning the other cheek. And we don't believe in love your enemy. And we believe in loading citizens and basically give them an opportunity to shoot people." --ex-Bush aid Matt Dowd

"Liberals are better at getting at the truth in complex, nuanced situations -- as are their psychological brethren, scientists. ... So part of the truce would require conservatives to recognize that if you want knowledge, you must go to a person ... that is adept at determining what it actually is. You don't just get to make it up for yourself and deny what actual experts say, because you're sure you're right." --author Chris Mooney in his new book "The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science -- and Reality"

"A video has surfaced from 1995 in which current Attorney General Eric holder says he wants to make guns unpopular. Unless, of course, you're a member of a Mexican drug cartel, then Holder will make sure you get your guns for free." --NewsBusted's Jodi Miller

"[I]'m from probably the last generation to play with stupid toys like the Etch A Sketch and Lincoln Logs and Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, because this was during the dark ages before the days of sophisticated video games that you can basically spend your whole life playing. ... [T]hen there's Barack Obama, and I think we've all had a toy like him. One we were super excited for and dying to have and about which we screamed, 'Mommy, you have to get it for me! You have to! You're racist if you don't buy that toy for me!' And then when we finally got it -- it was just boring and pointless and stupid." --humorist Frank J. Fleming

"Occupy Wall Street announced it was broke, saying they 'don't have enough money to meet our recurring budgets.' Remember back when sitting around doing nothing didn't cost a dime?" --Fred Thompson

"President Obama visited the Copper Mountain Solar Panel Facility. This plant is in Nevada. It's more evidence that solar power is genuinely useful when you notice that every solar panel company is located in the home state of a powerful Democrat." --comedian Argus Hamilton

Home

Site Map

Email ESR

Home