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Lingua publica

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

web posted July 27, 2009

"Halfway into 2009, Americans have turned more control of their lives over to government and politicians than ever before in history. This proposed health care reform, through subsidies and expansion of Medicaid, would put tens of millions of new Americans on welfare. The result is predictable. Many more citizens with incentives to stay poor and dependent. The rest of us will transfer a major part of our freedom to manage our own private lives over to bureaucrats." --columnist Star Parker

"The most important thing to understand about the Democrats' domestic agenda is that they care more about establishing government control over our lives than they do about the stated policy goals of their proposals. It's true of their fraudulently named stimulus packages, their cap-and-tax scheme and especially their universal health care plans. With all of these programs and more, their driving aim is not only to acquire power for the sake of acquiring it but also to use government to impose their values on us and, effectively, destroy our personal liberties. The subject of liberty -- the very impetus for the founding of this nation -- is rarely mentioned in the public debate." --columnist David Limbaugh

"[S]ome members of Congress ... intend, as the New York Times puts it, 'to reinvent the nation's health care system.' Let that sink in. A handful of people who probably never even ran a small business actually think they can reinvent the health care system." --columnist John Stossel

"Because 32 'czars' isn't enough, the Democratic plan would add another overlord to the Obama administration. The new 'Health Choices Commissioner' would helm the new 'Health Choices Administration' (section 141 of the bill) -- separate from the already existing Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (formerly the Health Care Financing Administration), the Veterans Health Administration and the Indian Health Service." --columnist Michelle Malkin

"Both Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Ronald W. Reagan implemented the same solution to the recessions they faced. Note that both the Democrat and Republican chose exactly the opposite action that the current administration seems determined to fulfill. Kennedy and Reagan lowered the top marginal tax rates. When they did, small businesses hired more people, expanded the middle class, and brought the U.S. Treasury record revenues the years following the implementation. If President Obama wishes to genuinely solve the joblessness problem, all he has to do is embrace the historically proven solution." --columnist Kevin McCullough

"[T]he [health care] reforms we make will help bring our deficits under control in the long term. Those who oppose reform will also tell you that under our plan you won't get to choose your doctor, that some bureaucrat will choose for you. That's also not true. Michelle and I don't want anyone telling us who our family doctor should be, and no one should decide that for you, either. Under our proposal if you like your doctor, you keep your doctor. If you like your current insurance, you keep that insurance. Period. End of story." -- U.S. President Barack Obama

"Opponents of health reform warn that this is all some big plot for socialized medicine or government-run health care with long lines and rationed care. That's not true, either. I don't believe that government can or should run health care, but I also don't think insurance companies should have free rein to do as they please." --Barack Obama

x"This is legislation that will not increase the deficit. Half of the funds for the bill will come from savings, others from the revenue stream. I hope that we can change that percentage, that we have much more coming from savings. That I believe that all the costs of the health care reform bill can come from squeezing more savings out of the system." --House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on health care

"What you haven't seen [in the financial sector] is a change in culture, a certain humility where they kind of step back and say, 'Gosh, you know, we really messed things up.'" --Barack Obama, who could use a bit of humility himself

"We do actually have people in the White House who understand [the economy]. I think they're not forceful enough, but these are not stupid people. These are not crazy people. ... They understand what the problems of the economy are. You know, as I say, they're not stupid, they're not crazy, which is a big improvement on previous management." --New York Times columnist and former Enron advisor Paul Krugman

"Well, six months after President Obama took office, a lot of sociologists and analysts believe that harsh political discourse against him really amped up and people started to push the boundaries of what might be considered decency. From talk radio to those tea parties that we saw with some pretty offensive signs folks were holding, even in the presence of children. The anger has certainly intensified." --MSNBC's Tamron Hall, who apparently missed the Left's frothing hatred for the Bush administration

"Walter's instructions to us in the field were always, you know, 'Tell it straight without fear or favoritism. Pull no punches. Say it like it is, insofar as is humanly possible. Keep your own prejudices and biases and feelings and emotions out of it.' To a very large degree he did that. Yes there were some exceptions. The time he spoke about the Vietnam War, just after the Tet offensive, being the best known example. But Walter was, what he stood for, the beacon he sent out was, 'Straight news reporting. Whatever your political persuasions are, however anyone wants to label you, get to the story, tell the story as straight as you can and the American public will understand.'" --former CBS anchor Dan Rather on Walter Cronkite

"When I was in law school ... the idea that you had a Second Amendment right to a gun was considered preposterous.... But the Supreme Court [in Heller] ... said that ... individuals have a personal right to bear arms." --CNN's legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin

"[T]he media in the States is much more to the right. I mean there is almost no liberal outlet for news commentary or editorializing." --former Air America talk-show host Janeane Garofalo

"We pledged at the time the Recovery Act became law that some of the spending and tax effects would begin almost immediately. We also noted that the impact of the Recovery Act would build up over time, peaking during 2010 with about 70 percent of the total stimulus provided in the first 18 months. Now, five months after the passage, we are on track to meet that timeline." --White House economic adviser Larry Summers

"But there are also questions to be answered ... whether the moon walk actually did happen." --co-host of "The View" Whoopi Goldberg on the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing

"Today, we're spending like we're Paris Hilton, regulating like we're Ralph Nader, nationalizing like we're Hugo Chavez, printing money like we're the Weimar Republic and taxing like we're, well, the Democratic Congress." --former Georgia Democrat Sen. Zell Miller

"Judged against the standard of the U.S. Senate, maybe Sonia Sotomayor has a point. 'A wise Latina' certainly came across smarter than most of those white men on the Judiciary Committee." --Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

"[Joe] Biden reminds me of what Churchill once said about our Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles: He is a bull who carries his own china shop with him." --columnist Ken Blackwell

"The president's good friend, Al Gore, who stands to clean up, thanks to the Cap and Trade bill, has long campaigned for the greening of America. How long will it take people to wake up to the fact that his major concern is the greening of Al Gore? For good measure, the greedy oaf recently compared the battle over global warming to the war against the Nazis. And, to think, some folks thought PETA was over the top when they compared a chicken farm to Auschwitz." --columnist Burt Prelutsky

"Hillary Clinton flew to India and Thailand and Indonesia Saturday. It's labeled a state visit but it's more like a scavenger hunt. She's quietly offering a $25 million reward for a certified copy of the president's birth certificate." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"The last time the president made grand promises and demanded passage of a bill before it could be reviewed, we ended up with the colossal stimulus failure and unemployment near 10 percent. Now the president wants Americans to trust him again, but he can't back up the utopian promises he's making about a government takeover of health care. He insists his health care plan won't add to our nation's deficit despite the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office saying exactly the opposite." --Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)

web posted July 20, 2009

"[T]here are certain qualifications to being a Supreme Court Justice. The chief qualifications are impartiality between parties and deference to the Constitution as written. And while judges like Sotomayor can lie and mouth slogans, their legal positions betray their true judicial philosophies." --columnist Ben Shapiro

"With the Sotomayor nomination, [Obama] is introducing the threat that justice will be administered differently for politically favored groups than for politically unfavored groups. The rule of law will be replaced by the rule of a judge's emotional empathy -- or antipathy -- as determined by what subjective 'perspective' the judge chooses to see. That's what is at stake in the Sotomayor nomination, and it has huge consequences for our lives and prosperity." --columnist Robert Tracinski

"The Democrats' war against our spies has taken two new turns. In their zeal to punish Bush administration officials -- and protect House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from publication of the facts showing her complicity in then-legal waterboarding of terrorist prisoners -- the Democrats have again accused the CIA of lying. This came during the same week when it was reported that Attorney General Eric Holder is considering the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute those who authorized and committed alleged torture of prisoners at CIA 'black sites', the secret prisons where high-value terrorists were interrogated since 9-11." --columnist Jed Babbin

"Senators and representatives who vote on bills they haven't read and don't understand betray their constituents' trust. It is no answer to say that Congress would get much less done if every member took the time to read every bill. Fewer and shorter laws more carefully thought through would be a vast improvement over today's massive bills, which are assembled in the dark and enacted in haste. [House Majority Leader] Steny Hoyer chortles at the thought of asking members of Congress to do their job properly. It's up to voters to wipe the grin off his face." --columnist Jeff Jacoby

"Polls show that most voters -- and increasing numbers of independents -- are queasy about vastly increased government spending and more concerned about bolstering the economy than about reshaping health care or addressing projected global warming. They've noticed that the stimulus package hasn't delivered the promised results. Do they want to turn over the health care and energy sectors to a president inattentive to details and congressional leaders in disarray?" --political analyst Michael Barone

"This week's hearings on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court represent the opening skirmish in a long-term struggle to challenge the escalating activism of an increasingly conservative judiciary." --Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne

"To Democrats, Sotomayor is the perfect nominee. That a child of the projects would progress through Ivy League schools and later a 17-year career as a federal judge makes hers an all-American story." --CBS's Wyatt Andrews

"It's going to be very hard for Senators to vote against this wonderful life story that this woman has who was raised by a widowed mother and went on to be the first Hispanic woman to be nominated." --CBS's Bob Schieffer

"There was some consensus. The nations unanimously agreed to try to keep the average global temperature from ever rising higher than 3.6 degrees above what it was a hundred years ago. And some leaders said they're relieved that President Obama is here instead of President Bush." --CBS's Chip Reid at the G-8 summit, who, reminiscent of John Kerry's 2004 endorsement by "foreign leaders," failed to state specifically which "leaders" actually made that statement

"Barack Obama has been president for nearly six months now and our big question today, does his temperament strike you as more like a radical like FDR who changed everything, who wanted radical change or like a true conservative who wants to basically find a smooth course and retain what's valuable?" --MSNBC's Chris Matthews

"A majority of young people still approve of Obama's job performance, but a majority of seniors over 64 now don't (54%). Maybe they'll die before the next election."--Los Angeles Times blogger Andrew Malcolm

"Judge Sotomayor puts rule of law above everything else. Given her extensive and even-hand record, I'm not sure how any member of this panel can sit here today and seriously suggest that she comes to the bench with a personal agenda." --Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

"The empathy that President Obama saw in [Sotomayor] has a constitutionally proper place in the judiciary." --Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

"Reagan went through this in 1981 and, in fact, his approval rating, by the way, at this time was exactly the same as Obama's is today. And, and Republicans, Republicans stayed with him. They stayed despite the difficulties in the mid-term elections. They got to 1983, the recovery came; so did morning in America and so did the confirmation of the Reagan era. The real challenge here is for Democrats. Are they going to stick with the president? Are they going to get wobbly? Are they going to get afraid?" --Democrat strategist Bob Shrum
"So, in one paragraph, the man who worked for the presidential campaigns of Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry not only agreed that Reagan's economic policies resulted in a recovery, but used it as an example of why folks should be patient in letting Obama's policies work." --Newsbusters' Noel Sheppard

"House Chairman Charlie Rangel is proposing a tax hike on upper incomes to fund universal health care. Upper-income Americans already work four months a year for the government. Government employees don't work four months a year for the government." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"Capitalism and consumerism have brought the world to the brink of economic and environmental collapse, the Prince of Wales has warned. And in a searing indictment on capitalist society, Charles said we can no longer afford consumerism and that the 'age of convenience' was over.' He then got in his limo and was driven to his other palace. ... By contrast, as an example of an exemplary environmentalist, the Prince hailed his forebear, King Henry VIII. True, he had a lot of wives, but he did dramatically reduce Anne Boleyn's carbon footprint." --columnist Mark Steyn

"What the country needs now is a new bureaucracy to manage the growing appetite for apologies, amends and remedies for various other slights. The apology could be the lasting legacy of Barack Obama. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of oppressed people are no doubt eager to line up for their apology, waiting to be rewarded for slights real and imaginary, ranging from inability to find a parking space to ancient indignities suffered by long-forgotten ancestors." --Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

"When the mainstream media is preoccupied with [Michael Jackson], it's probably doing, on margin, less damage than when it's dealing with public policy." --columnist George Will

"California lawmakers are still trying to close the state's massive budget deficit, so they're now talking about saving money by consolidating state agencies. By far the most controversial proposal is for a 'Department of Education, Firearms and Alcohol.'" --comedian Conan O'Brien

"I don't know many small business men or women who are making, themselves, $280,000 [per year], so I'm not sure that very many small businesses are going to be affected by this [$540 billion tax hike]." --House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

"I don't know how that one percent of households did over the last 10 to 15 years, but my sense is pretty well. I think the president believes the richest one percent have had a pretty good run of it." --White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on raising taxes on the "rich" to pay for health care

"When we asked questions of the white male nominees of a Republican president, we were basically trying to find out whether -- to make sure that they would go far enough in understanding the plight of minorities, because clearly that was not in their DNA." --Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) to Sonia Sotomayor

"To those who say that our economic decisions 'have not produced jobs, have not produced prosperity, and simply have not worked' I say, take a look around. I say, 'Don't let your opposition to the Recovery Act blind you to its results.' Come see what I see everywhere I go: workers rehired, factories reopened, cops on the street, teachers in the classroom, progress toward getting our economy back on the move.'" --Vice President Joe Biden

"[F]olks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president know, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable. It's totally unacceptable. And it's completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now, we can't do it financially. We're gonna go bankrupt as a nation. Now, people say -- when I say that people look at me and say, 'What are you talking about, Joe? You're telling me we gotta go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?' The answer is yes, that's what I'm telling you." --Joe Biden

web posted July 13, 2009

"As was the case with Ronald Reagan, who was also dismissed as a less than serious type, Sarah Palin has a quality that appeals to a broad base of Americans who sense the country is headed in the wrong direction. She has that much in common with another charismatic figure on the American scene -- Barack Obama -- even if his political and cultural leanings are quite the opposite of hers. The moral of the story: Politics, like Sarah Palin herself, is just full of surprises." --columnist Paul Greenberg

"What is it about Palin that elicits such furious bipartisan Washington dismissiveness? After all, the polls show her to be tied with Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee for the very early lead in the 2012 Republican primary. As an outspoken conservative with about an 80 percent favorable rating among Republicans and a high-40s percentage favorable plurality among independents, objectively she should be seen as quite competitive nationally compared with other Republicans, particularly given that Republicans are generically weak and that she has been targeted so viciously by the media." --columnist Tony Blankley

"North Korea launches a missile and it takes Barack Obama and the UN five days to respond. Iran holds fraudulent elections, kills protesters and it takes weeks before Barack Obama can stand up and say that he is 'concerned' about the situation. Then the people of Honduras try to uphold their constitution and laws of the land from being trampled by a Chavez-wanna be and it takes Barack Obama one day to proclaim that this was not a legal coup." --radio talk-show host Neal Boortz

"There was an attempted coup in Honduras, but it was Zelaya who initiated it, not his opponents." --columnist Mona Charen

"If Honduras is hung out to dry, if America suspends trade and economic aid, the forces arrayed against liberty in Latin America will have won a major victory. On the other hand, if Honduras is not abandoned now, those Iran-supporting, America-hating, liberty-loathing forces will have suffered a major defeat." --columnist Dennis Prager

"Some conservatives have hoped to shrink government by 'starving the beast.' Refuse to raise taxes, they figured, and eventually spending would have to fall. It's beginning to look as though the new team may have a similar strategy, in reverse: Increase spending, and eventually taxes will have to be raised." --Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt

"Palin, who was thrust on to the national stage as John McCain's running mate against President Obama, defended her decision [to resign] as a move to avoid becoming a lame duck. Love her or hate her, Sarah Palin's able to -- she was already lame -- Sarah Palin's able to electrify the conservative base of the party like no other Republican in the country." --CNN's Jack Cafferty

"Caribou Barbie is one nutty puppy." --New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd on Sarah Palin

"Henry Waxman is to Congress what Ted Williams was to baseball -- a natural. ... This is the voice of David, whose career has featured the slaying of one Goliath after another. ... Waxman's personal accomplishments are impressive." --Washington Post associate editor Robert Kaiser

"Well, I think they're hoping that this summer period is when they can in fact ramp up the [stimulus] spending. It's not easy to spend the amount of money that they appropriated, $800 billion, that quickly." --CNBC Chief Washington correspondent John Harwood

"[The July 4th tea party protesters are] exercising that First Amendment right to protest, but hopefully, they'll clear out of the way for the fireworks tonight." --CNN's Brooke Baldwin on DC protesters on Independence Day

"Michael Jackson is an accidental civil rights leader, an accidental pioneer. He broke ground and barriers in so many different realms in artistry, in pictures, in movies, in music, you name it. So, no, I don't think it's overkill." --CNN's Don Lemon on the non-stop Jackson media circus

"I don't think anybody can honestly say that we're satisfied with the results so far of the stimulus. But we believe the stimulus was absolutely essential. ... We certainly want to see how this develops over the next few months." --House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

"If you did a consensus within the Democratic Party, you would find the level-playing-field public option [for health care] to be the answer. And now that we have 60 votes [in the Senate], it seems to me like we don't have to turn it inside out for something we don't like. ... I think the Senate HELP committee compromised already, because you have a lot of members on the HELP committee who would've liked [the public option] to be much closer to Medicare. The idea seems to be catching everybody's imagination, and sense of fairness. And the only holdouts are sort of ideologues on the Republican side of this saying no government involvement whatsoever. ...[W]hat the CBO is saying, if you're a fiscal conservative you ought to be for a public option because it saves money." --Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

"[Private insurance companies] should be afraid, I mean let me tell you, they should be afraid. ...[T]hey have a right to be exposed, a right to be afraid that they will not be able to compete against a strong Medicare type public plan which treats people with dignity." --Sen. Bernie Sanders (S-VT)

"It will either be 'What were you thinking, didn't you see the North Pole melting before your eyes, didn't you hear what the scientists were saying?' Or they will ask, 'How is it you were able to find the moral courage to solve the crisis which so many said couldn't be solved?'" --Al Gore forecasting the next generation's climate of opinion about planetary heating

"And I never would have believed that we would have budgets that are running into the multi-trillions of dollars, and we are amassing a huge, huge national debt that, if we don't pay for in our lifetime, our kids and grandkids and great grandchildren will have to pay for it." --Obama backer Colin Powell, who apparently wasn't listening to his man's stated plans to unmake the United States

"As someone who will have been in the committee a grand total of six days and isn't an attorney, I kind of see myself fulfilling a certain role for Americans watching the hearings [for Sotomayor]." --"Saturday Night Live" entertainer-turned-U.S. Senator Al Franken, who announced that his first order of business would be preparing for the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor

"The stimulus is a bust? It's stimulating nothing but non-jobs like Executive Stimulus Coordinator for Community Organization Stimulus Assistance Programs? Hey, let's spend even more, even faster, even less stimulatingly!" --columnist Mark Steyn

"President Obama flew to Russia for Kremlin talks Monday. Russia tried national health care, they tried government ownership of industry and they tried to win a war in Afghanistan. If you can't be a good example you can at least be a horrible warning." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"The soon to be former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, is like one of those souffles my mother sometimes made. The recipe warned against premature removal from the oven because the dish would collapse." --columnist Cal Thomas

"With the Supreme Court's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano [last] week, we can now report that Sonia Sotomayor is even crazier than Ruth Bader Ginsburg." --columnist Ann Coulter

"Being a conservative, I naturally spend an inordinate amount of time attempting to psychoanalyze left-wingers, trying to figure out what makes them tick. God knows I'm not bragging. It is, after all, time I could otherwise devote to alphabetizing my canned goods or trying to make contact with Harry Houdini, but I know from the large number of emails I receive that I'm not alone. The lunacy on the left is enough to turn a lot of us into little Sigmund Freuds." --columnist Burt Prelutsky

"Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of." --Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a statement so grotesque we don't know where to begin

"Our first stimulus bill ... was sort of like taking half a tablet of Viagra and having also a bunch of candy mixed in ... as if everybody was putting in enough for their own constituents." --billionaire investor and Obama supporter Warren Buffett, though he also thinks a second stimulus "may well be called for"

"The more that we can do to stimulate the economy in the short term, the challenge we've got as everybody knows is that we inherited a big deficit, and it is at a certain point potentially counterproductive if we're spending more money than we're having to borrow." --President Barack Obama

web posted July 6, 2009

"Just last Friday, the House of Representatives came together to pass an extraordinary piece of legislation that will finally open the door to decreasing our dependence on foreign oil, preventing the worst consequences of climate change, and making clean energy the profitable kind of energy. Thanks to members of Congress who were willing to place America's progress before the usual Washington politics, this bill will create new businesses, new industries, and millions of new jobs, all without imposing untenable new burdens on the American people or America's businesses." --President Barack Obama on the cap and tax bill

"[U]nder my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket ... because I'm capping greenhouse gasses, coal power plants, natural gas ... you name it ... whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retro-fit their operations. That will cost money. ...[T]hey will pass that money on to the consumers." -- Obama in January 2008

"We passed transformational legislation, which will take us into the future. For some it was a very difficult vote because the entrenched agents of the status quo were out there full force, jamming the lines in their districts and here, and they withstood that." --House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on cap and trade

"[Republicans] want to play politics and see if they can keep any achievements from being accomplished that may be beneficial to the Democrats. They're rooting against the country and I think in this case, even rooting against the world because the world needs to get its act together to stop global warming." --Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA)

"The House just passed the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade carbon emissions control act. If it passes the Senate, expect the president -- the bill's pusher-in-chief -- to sign it at first opportunity. I have not read the bill, so I should not comment on it at length. But then, neither has any congressman read the now 1000-pages-and-plus wonder. So they should not have passed it. We are supposed to believe it is a good bill because we must trust the congressional assistants who wrote it. If anything is a testament to 'the power of belief' it's the enthusiasm for a bill that has not been read, much less understood." --columnist Paul Jacob

"This climate bill has nothing to do with saving the planet or the polar bears. The problems that this legislation claims to address do not exist. Regulating our behavior and limiting our freedom will not have any effect on the climate. It is a pure power and money grab..." --radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh

"So why does President Obama so often get history wrong, so often call for utopian schemes he would hardly adopt for himself, and so often distort by misinformation and incomplete disclosure? Partly the culprit is administrative inexperience, partly historical ignorance. But mostly the disconnect comes because Barack Obama believes he is a philosopher-king, whose exalted ends more than justify his mendacious means." --columnist Victor Davis Hanson

"There is a tendency for newly installed presidents, like adolescents suddenly liberated from adult supervision, to do the exact opposite of what their predecessors did. ...[S]ome of it, and especially in the case of Barack Obama, seems to come from an adolescent-like confidence that everything done by those who came before is (insert your own generation's expletive here). ... As parents know, it takes time for an adolescent to grow up." --political analyst Michael Barone

"I once asked evangelist Billy Graham if he experienced temptations of the flesh when he was young. He said, 'of course.' How did he deal with them? With passion he responded, 'I asked God to strike me dead before He ever allowed me to dishonor Him in that way.' That is the kind of seriousness one needs to overcome the temptations of a corrupt culture in which shameful behavior is too often paraded in the streets." --columnist Cal Thomas

"So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement. But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases. And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn't help thinking that I was watching a form of treason -- treason against the planet." --New York Times columnist Paul Krugman

"President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care." --Los Angeles Times columnist Peter Nichols

"New Haven's Mayor said he would respect the [Supreme Court's Ricci] decision but complained the city was obeying 38 years of civil rights law forbidding anything that caused a disparate impact against minorities. ... Civil rights leaders also predicted an era of confusion over when minorities are protected and when they are not." --CBS reporter Wyatt Andrews on the Supreme Court's ruling that 18 white New Haven, Connecticut, firefighters were discriminated against (denied earned promotions) because of race

"What has brought California to such a perilous state? How did its government become so wildly dysfunctional? One obvious cause is the deep recession that has caused tax revenues to plunge for all states. But California's woes have a set of deeper reasons: direct democracy run amok, timid governors, partisan gridlock and a flawed constitution all contribute to budget chaos and people in pain. And at the root of California's misery lies Proposition 13, the antitax measure that ignited the Reagan Revolution and the conservative era. In Washington, the Reagan-Bush era is over. But in California, the conservative legacy lives on." --Time magazine's Kevin O'Leary

"If Obama can push health care -- single-pay or whatever he's trying to do -- through, will that alleviate the problem, do you think?" --The View's Joy Behar cheerleading for Obama while not sure of the game plan

"Democratic presidents nominate very centrist justices to the Supreme Court. The Republican presidents over the past 10-15 years have nominated very extremely conservative justices and that's why the court has eschewed to the right. ... And the role of the Democratic judges -- justices -- has been to play the middle... And that is, I think, at a larger ideological point, a discussion we should have, because Democratic presidents have been hesitant to put really liberal justices on the court." --former NY governor Eliot Spitzer

"Too bad, if a governor had to go missing it couldn't have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin." --Sen. John Kerry on SC Gov. Mark Sanford's strange disappearance

"Nixon always said Reagan was a dumb son of a b**** and, you know, I think that he was. And I think, I really think George W is dumber. ... I do think that by doing the 'W' movie I kind of put all my efforts behind dumbness." --filmmaker Oliver Stone

"Like most good scams, cap and trade as outlined in the Markey-Waxman legislation is simple. The government sets a cap on how much pollution the nation's factories, cars (and flatulent cows) are allowed to expel into the atmosphere. Companies can buy, sell or trade their emissions, or lack thereof. (If the cows must be cited for violations, Al Gore, a onetime tobacco farmer, can measure the barnyard effluvium.) But the most acute pain will be the rising costs of everything as companies pass the effects of the tax on to consumers. Nobody knows this better than Mrs. Pelosi and her merry band of robbers." --Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

"Socialized medicine redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in all the wrong ways, and, if you cross that bridge, it's all but impossible to go back. So, if ever there were a season for GOP philanderers not to unpeel their bananas, this summer is it." --columnist Mark Steyn

"I often find myself thinking that if liberals didn't have double standards, they wouldn't have any standards at all." --columnist Burt Prelutsky

"I was never a big fan of Michael Jackson. I don't mean personally. Personally, I think he should have been institutionalized. I mean I was never a huge fan of his music. The last live concert I went to was a reunion of the Limeliters and the Kingston Trio which, I believe, was 'Presented by Depends.' Which is another reason why I never get invited out much." --political analyst Rich Galen

web posted June 29, 2009

"I doubt whether there are many Americans who think Congress has either the right or competency to choose where they live, what clothes they wear or what cars they drive. Yet many Americans stand ready to allow Congress to decide what doctors they go to and what treatments they receive. We forget that once we have government-sponsored health care, it can be used to justify almost any restraint on liberty." --economist Walter E. Williams

"The president claims that we must pass a government-run health insurance program -- possibly the most wide-ranging and intricate government undertaking in decades -- yesterday or a 'ticking time bomb' will explode. If all this terrifying talk sounds familiar, it might be because the president applies the same fear-infused vocabulary to nearly all his hard-to-defend policy positions. You'll remember the stimulus plan had to be passed without a second's delay or we would see 8.7 percent unemployment. We're almost at 10." --columnist David Harsanyi

"Even if the 'stimulus' package doesn't seem to be doing much to stimulate the economy, it is certainly stimulating many potential recipients of government money to start lining up at the trough. All you need is something that sounds like a 'good thing' and the ability to sell the idea." --economist Thomas Sowell

"[T]he unifying constant of [Obama's] domestic policies -- their connecting thread -- is that they advance the Democrats' dependency agenda. The party of government aims to make Americans more equal by making them equally dependent on government for more and more things." --columnist George Will

"While doctrinaire socialists might feel betrayed by liberalism's cozy embrace of big business, their betrayal pales in comparison to the bitterness of free-marketers who defend big business's freedom to operate, only to see these businesses use that freedom to hide behind the skirts of the nanny state. Real freedom means the freedom to fail as well as succeed. Big business wants to be protected from the former and deny competitors the latter. And their betrayal, more than anything, disheartens those who would defend both freedoms." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

"We can debate endlessly whether the Constitution authorizes any president to 'overhaul' the financial system. But I want to focus on a different matter: whether any president, with all his advisers, is capable of overseeing something as complex as the financial system. My answer is no, and it is ominous that a bright guy like Obama doesn't know this. He thinks he must regulate the system because it is so complicated and important. In fact, those are the reasons why he cannot regulate it, and should not try." --columnist John Stossel

"[T]he honeymoon is coming to an end for President Obama, but it's not personal, it's professional, as now the public appears to be judging the president on some of his actions. And right now, there's a growing concern about the budget deficit and some of this government interaction into the economy on things like GM. Five months into office, President Obama is now dealing with a public that is judging him more and more for the actions he's taking, and not just the promises he's made." --NBC's Chuck Todd

"It is not an infomercial. ABC News does not do that." --ABC's Diane Sawyer on ABC's health care infomercial for Obamacare last Wednesday night

"Howard Dean [is] the man who really laid out the path for Barack Obama. He was the St. John the Baptist, I'd say, leading for that fellow, not to make any further reference there to the Deity." --MSNBC's Chris Matthews

"In this fatherless world, where did you learn to love? ...[E]very parent in the country is watching your every move as a parent." --CBS's Harry Smith to Obama

"Now, the public [health care] plan, I think, is an important tool to discipline insurance companies. ...[I]f what the insurance companies are saying is true, that they're doing their best to serve their customers ... they should be able to compete." --President Barack Obama

"The international capitalist order is retreating... It is absolutely obvious that the age of empires has ended and its revival will not take place." --Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his own re-election

"What Obama needs is a rapid return to peace and quiet in Iran, not continued ferment. His goal must be to deflate the opposition, not to encourage it. And that, by and large, is what he has been doing." --Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Robert Kagan

"And then I saw the end of the [Vietnam] war. I saw us pull out, and then I saw the communists move in and slaughter two and a half million people in South Vietnam and Cambodia. And I saw the left that had precipitated this turn away, just walk away from it. ... They didn't take seriously the blood that they had been directly causing. ... But I must say programming is very, very deep. And I didn't really pull out of it for quite a while afterward. But that's where the dime dropped and things started to happen." --actor Jon Voight on why he became a conservative

"Having the government compete against the private sector is kind of like my seven-year-old daughter's lemonade stand competing against McDonalds." --Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

"You know, most people, when they read '1984,' were scared. When Barack Obama read it, he started taking notes." --radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh

"Whether it is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Weather Underground, Central Park rapists, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Jim Jones and the People's Temple, welfare recipients, Palestinian terrorists, murderers, abortionists, strippers or common criminals -- liberals always take the side of the enemies of civilization against civilization. In the view of The New York Times, every criminal trial is a shocking miscarriage of justice -- except the ones that actually are shocking miscarriages of justice." --columnist Ann Coulter

"The polite explanation for Barack Obama's diffidence on Iran is that he doesn't want to give the mullahs the excuse to say the Great Satan is meddling in Tehran's affairs. So the president's official position is that he's modestly encouraged by the regime's supposed interest in investigating some of the allegations of fraud. Also, he's heartened to hear that OJ is looking for the real killers." --columnist Mark Steyn

"The Pentagon deployed missile interceptors to Honolulu on Friday after reports that the North Koreans are planning to fire a missile at Hawaii. The president's birthplace is safe. It'll take them ten years to build a missile that can reach Kenya." --comedian Argus Hamilton

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