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Lingua publica

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

web posted December 23, 2013

"[I]t breaks your heart to see what is happening [to illegal immigrants]. It's not the right thing. It's not who we are as Americans. ... We would frankly ... like to move on and pass comprehensive immigration reform so that the problem is put to rest. In the meantime, 1,100 people, on average [are being deported each] day. It's just wrong." -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

"We thought that [Barack Obama] was going to be -- I shouldn't say this at Christmastime, but -- the next messiah." -- Barbara Walters

"Hillary [Clinton] is a Patriot who loves her country completely. Her deep commitment to public service and progressive causes runs through her veins. ... I was an early and enthusiastic supporter during Hillary's run for the White House in 2008. I believed she would be a spectacular leader and a transformative president for our country. I still believe that. Now more than ever." -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein

"[A]nnounce and advertise that everyone between the ages of 18 and 34 who enrolls on the health-care exchanges by the end of the year is automatically entered in a lottery. Winners will receive everything from a free iPhone or iPad to a full-year of health-care underwritten by Uncle Sam. Refer a friend and get a discount. Buy one (year), get one free. In states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use ... by all means, throw in a bag of cannabis." -- Bloomberg columnist Caroline Baum with an ObamaCare promotional idea

"I think that the statement about keeping your plan was one that is applicable to the vast majority of Americans in the health insurance market. What we know is that we also designed the implementation of the Affordable Care Act to make sure that plans that were in place in March of 2010 ... were actually eliminated from needing to conform to any of the consumer protections in the 2014 Affordable Care Act. So a number of customers in the individual market had those grandfathered plans in place. It varies by company and by market." -- HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

"There are some individuals who may be looking at increases. I think you cannot make a statement based on cost unless you compare what they had to what they're going into." -- Kathleen Sebelius

"Over the weekend the ObamaCare website was down. Fortunately, most Americans were unaffected because they never knew it was up." -- Jay Leno

"The worst thing for Obama is he's lost control of events. Normally, a president is hostage to events; a war, Hurricane Katrina or whatever. Here, the irony is that the event Obama is hostage to is Obamacare; it's something he created. ... And what people have learned is that it completely remakes health insurance, completely affects their lives and that is what Obama is suffering from. And it is going to be extremely hard for him to recover because the law is now rolling along as McConnell indicated, and can't be stopped." -- Columnist Charles Krauthammer

"We do know that James Madison would be aghast at interracial marriage. We do know that James Madison would be aghast at an integrated cabinet room in the White House, first with African-American members of the cabinet and now with an African-American president presiding over that cabinet." -- MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell

"[T]he essence of this Tea Party is a racist institution. It is born of the fact that they cannot stand the fact that a black man is president of the United States." -- Radio talk-show host Bill Press

"I'm just like 150 million other people in America. My employer helps me pay for my health care." -- Henry Reid

"Our view of the law is that it -- if somebody is here without sufficient documentation, that is not reason for deportation." -- Nancy Pelosi

"[White House officials] need to focus on executive action given that they are facing a second term against a cult worthy of Jonestown in charge of one of the houses of Congress." -- White House counselor John Podesta

 "What the president really focused on was filling the gap and made a decision that's uniquely American, which is to stick with the private insurance market and make sure the kinds of plans that existed in workplaces also were available to people regardless of what kind of job they had. The president felt it was better not to disrupt the entire marketplace, but really to focus on where we had a real gap in the system." -- HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

web posted December 16, 2013

"Under ObamaCare, employers with at least 50 employees must offer qualifying health coverage to full-timers. By 2015, this provision is projected to add $2.24 per hour to the cost of providing single coverage to an employee, according to [The Heritage Foundation's] James Sherk and Patrick D. Tyrrell. ... Together with the aforementioned minimum-wage proposal, 'employers that provide health insurance would have to pay at least $13.27 per hour for workers with the required single health coverage' by 2016, Sherk and Terrell report. If employers opt instead to pay the penalty, the cost would be at least $12.71 per hour for each full-time employee. Businesses already operating within tight profit margins would be forced to cut jobs, roll back workers to part-time hours or both, thereby eliminating what typically are first-time employment opportunities. The minimum-wage proposal and what's already contained in ObamaCare will do considerably more economic harm than any conceivable good." -- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

 "We have spent $15 trillion 'fighting' poverty since 1965 and we are currently spending $ trillion a year -- an amount equal to about $22,000 per poor person or $88,000 for a family of four. Yet our poverty rate today (16%) is higher than when we started (14%)! If there has been a War on Poverty, poverty won. Is it not obvious that we are subsidizing and enabling a way of life? To put it bluntly, we are paying young women to have children out of wedlock. We are paying them to be unemployed. And we are paying them to remain poor." -- John C. Goodman

"When I took office, the American auto industry ... was on the verge of collapse. ... In the midst of what was already the worst recession since the Great Depression, another one million Americans were in danger of losing their jobs. As president, I refused to let that happen. ... When things looked darkest for our most iconic industry, we bet on what was true: the ingenuity and resilience of the proud, hardworking men and women who make this country strong. Today, that bet has paid off. The American auto industry is back." -- Barack Obama

"When we do things right, they don't get a lot of attention. If, on the other hand, you've got an office in Cincinnati, in the IRS office that ... is trying to streamline what is a difficult law to interpret ... and they've got a list, [then] suddenly everybody's outraged. ... I'll point out that there are some so-called progressives ... perceived to be liberal commentators who during that week were just as outraged at the possibility that ... the Democratic Party, in some way, discriminated against these folks." -- Barack Obama

"I think everyone at this table agrees that [the Tea Party is] bad for the country, really bad for the country, terrible, destructive in all the ways we talk about all the time. ... I think what you've seen with the Tea Party is they are reckless. I mean, they are reckless with the country. They're reckless with people's lives, but they are also reckless politically." -- MSNBC's Chris Hayes

"I want to talk today about a controversial word. ... A word that was originally intended as a derogatory term, meant to shame and divide and demean. The word was conceived of by a group of wealthy white men who needed a way to put themselves above and apart from a black man. To render him inferior and unequal and to diminish his accomplishments. ... Y'all know the word that I'm talking about: ObamaCare. ... Short of bringing about world peace before he leaves office, the Affordable Care Act will loom large in the president's legacy as the singular accomplishment of his two terms." -- MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry

"I think Joe Biden will go down in history as one of the best vice presidents ever." -- Barack Obama

"This winter storm has left thousands without electricity. It's as if President Obama had taken over the power companies." -- Jay Leno

"[T]he 'wealth gap' that ostensibly antagonizes the president is in fact occurring. The word 'ostensibly' is critical because it is precisely this administration's embrace of the Federal Reserve's Quantitative Easing policy most responsible for it. ... [W]hat amounts to little more than a debasement of our currency, represented by the $85 billion per month of newly-created money, exacerbates the wealth gap even more: devalued currency amounts to a de facto tax on everything Americans buy. Yet while this utterly misguided policy has been a boon for the rich, the massive amount of government 'stimulus' that has necessitated it has done virtually nothing for the poor, other than providing an increasing disincentive to work. ... It is precisely the maintenance of ... dependency -- rather than the liberation from it -- that forms the heart of progressive policy-making." -- Columnist Arnold Ahlert

"[Obama] has been honest about [ObamaCare]. ... I'm sure when he said what he said he believed it. When they put the grandfather clause in, he believed that that would take care of these kinds of transitional problems. It didn't. And, you know, I think the real lesson here is don't ever speak in absolutes because there's always going to be an exception and that exception is going to become an example that your opponents lift up." -- Former Obama adviser David Axelrod

"I am absolutely confident that the role that you [HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius] played in bringing affordable health care to millions, tens of millions of Americans, will go down in history as one of the great achievements of our country throughout its entire history. And I just want to thank you for that." -- Rep. Jan Schakowsky

"A lot of individuals who received cancellation notices are thrilled with the choices that are now available to them." -- HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

"I don't think there are any extremists in my party." -- House Demo Whip Steny Hoyer

"Joe Biden flew to South Korea for security discussions [last] Friday where the government asked Biden to give a TV speech to the South Korean people. The effect was galvanizing. It is the first time in history that South Koreans were caught trying to sneak into North Korea." -- Comedian Argus Hamilton

web posted December 9, 2013

"Does requiring a two-year-old to have their own health insurance policy sound like a joke? Well it's no joke, because that's exactly what happened to self-employed title insurance business owner Cornelius Kelly and his pediatrician wife Jennifer. ... Cornelius, with hesitant but hopeful anticipation, ventured forth onto the New York State of Health Web site. ... Cornelius heard that none of the plans would include the youngest member of his family who, according to a representative, until her second birthday would have to have a separate insurance policy of her own. He, his wife and their three oldest children, ages three, five, and six, could all be together on one policy ranging in price from $810.84 to $2,554.71 a month. The baby, because she was not yet two, required a separate plan whose options ranged in price from $117.21 to $369.31. So, as liberal logic would have it, children can stay on their parents insurance until they're 26-years-old, but if a child is not yet two-years-old, they're on their own." -- Columnist Jeannie DeAngelis

"People and nations must be ruled by something, or there is anarchy. Either it is God, or secular laws that control our lower nature. Today, we are out of control as we pursue happiness through prosperity in the false hope money and things will satisfy. The problem with prosperity is that one is never satisfied. ... If things satisfied, wouldn't Americans be the most satisfied people on Earth? ... Previous generations had less and yet seemed to have more of what matters: more character; more virtue; more contentment, all of it reinforced by parents, clergy and, for the most part, culture. In our day, materialism has become a false god we worship in the vain hope it will bring peace. In our conspicuous consumption we are self-immolating and the fuel is materialism. ... Israel's King David warned, 'The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men.' (Psalm 12:8). Can't say we haven't been warned." -- Columnist Cal Thomas

"Today all you have to do is repeat a thing often enough and it becomes true. ... Winston Churchill once said that Hitler was possible because his country stopped being able to recognize evil. I believe that Obamanomics, Euronomics and Abenomics is possible only because people can no longer recognize even their own lies. They can't distinguish between what is true and the fantasy that exists only in their imagination. And if you applied that definition to a single individual, there's only one word you can use to describe it: psychosis. Hopefully in 2014 over 50% of American voters can find help." -- Columnist John Ransom

"I've gone up and down [in the polls] pretty much consistently throughout. But the good thing about when you're down is that usually you got nowhere to go but up." -- Barack Obama

"Clearly, just like Google and Facebook and all the internet sites [that] are constantly tweaking their sites, [and] constantly improving them, [Healthcare.gov] still has a ways to go. But it is certainly working reasonably well. I think, actually, we are going in the right direction, and for the first time, most importantly, we actually have effective management overseeing." -- ObamaCare architect Ezekiel Emanuel

"[Americans] don't want an effective website. They want health insurance. They want affordable, quality coverage. And that's what we're working to achieve." -- White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

"[Obama] should have been more forthright with how the Affordable Care Act was going to impact the country. But with that being said, all Americans know politicians lie. The question is, which lies can you live with? And, time and time again, Americans have said we can deal with the lies that President Obama tells us because we believe in his heart, he has the best interest for the American people." -- ESPN columnist and CNN pundit LZ Granderson

"To put it mildly, our forbearers would be appalled by how right-wing conservatives are trying to use government to force their religious views on all of us. Make no mistake, this is what Hobby Lobby wants to do -- use government to push a conservative religious agenda. ... This is, plain and simple, a corporation trying to contort government to impose the religious views of some onto many. This is precisely what our nation was founded against." -- The Daily Beast's Sally Kohn

"Oprah Winfrey caused a storm when she told the BBC she thinks the Obama Administration gets no respect due to racism in America. Actually there's very little left of that. If nothing else, Joe Biden has destroyed the myth of white supremacy once and for all." -- Comedian Argus Hamilton

"[C]onsider last week's decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to consider two cases stemming from Obamacare: Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius and Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores. ... What both ... object to is paying for abortifacients -- drugs that terminate a pregnancy rather than prevent one. ... All they are asking is that the people using such drugs pay for them themselves rather than force employers and co-workers to share the cost. ... You may have no moral objection to such things, but millions of people do. By what right are liberals seeking to impose their values on everyone else? Isn't that something they denounce conservatives for? They could have allowed for plans that exclude controversial forms of birth control -- or even uncontroversial ones -- which would have lowered premium costs and expanded health care coverage to more poor people. But Democrats wanted a wedge issue to drum up a new battle in the culture war -- a war in which liberals have always been the aggressors." -- Columnist Jonah Goldberg

"NBC's Michael O'Brien had some fun ... paraphrasing President Obama's latest infliction on the ears of America: 'Obama said his signature health care reform law is going nowhere as long as he's in office.' 'Going nowhere' could mean either 'here to stay' or 'unable to progress.' A look at the text of the president's remarks makes clear, as if you have any doubt, that he means it in the former sense: 'We're not repealing it as long as I'm president, and I want everybody to be clear about that. ... We're not going to walk away from it.' I'm not a crook. I did not have sexual relations with that woman." -- WSJ's James Taranto

"What [Obama] said was true: If you want to keep the insurance you have, you can keep it. The problem is we did not put the bill into effect that way. There's a lot of administrative fixes [that] kicked in, and there have been three changes in anyone's policy since then. It's not the same policy." -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

"Republicans saw a calamity in every glitch [on Healthcare.gov]. And, you know, I've got a one-year-old granddaughter, and even on Thanksgiving Day she had a number of little glitches, but we're not ready to throw her away because of a glitch here and there. Most things in the beginning stages are going to be difficult to pull off." -- Rep. Emanuel Cleaver

"I'll tell you what I think God thinks of the Affordable Care Act. It's a big amen!" -- MSNBC's Ed Schultz

"Christmas time is no time for Congress to tell more than one million ... Americans that they have lost their ... insurance, which is what will happen if Congress does not act before they leave on their holiday vacation." -- Barack Obama on unemployment "insurance"

"[Income inequality] is the defining challenge of our time. ... And while we don't promise equal outcomes, we have strived to deliver equal opportunity -- the idea that success doesn't depend on being born into wealth or privilege, it depends on effort and merit. ... Together, we forged a New Deal, declared a War on Poverty in a great society. We built a ladder of opportunity to climb, and stretched out a safety net beneath so that if we fell, it wouldn't be too far, and we could bounce back. And as a result, America built the largest middle class the world has ever known. ... Look, I've never believed that government can solve every problem or should -- and neither do you. ... But government can't stand on the sidelines in our efforts. Because government is us." -- Barack Obama

"Are we talking about making income equality within America or within the whole world? I don't think I can live on $12k a year." -- Humorist Frank J. Fleming

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