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Wednesday Chronicle
Apocalypse Now
February 27, 2013 
The Foundation
"No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable." --James Madison, Federalist 62Editorial Exegesis
The truth is that the sequester already gives the White House the legal flexibility to avoid doom, if a 5% cut to programs that have increased more than 17% on average over the Obama Presidency counts as doom. According to Mr. Obama and his budget office, the sequester cuts are indiscriminate and spell out specific percentages that will be subtracted from federal 'projects, programs and activities,' or PPAs. ... Not so fast. Programs, projects and activities are a technical category of the federal budget, but the sequester actually occurs at the roughly 1,200 broader units known as budget accounts. Some accounts are small, but others contain hundreds of PPAs and the larger accounts run to billions of dollars
For the Pentagon in particular, the distinction between PPAs and accounts is huge. This means in most cases the President has the room to protect his 'investments' while managing the fiscal transition over time. ... This White House has never been fussy when a statutory text or even the Constitution interferes with its political ambitions. ... Could it be that Mr. Obama is exaggerating the legal stringency of the sequester in a gambit to force Congress to shut it off? ... Neither the legal details of the sequester nor the practical work of reforming government are as interesting to the media as Mr. Obama's invocations of plagues and pestilence. The real revelation is that if the world does end, it will be Mr. Obama's choice." --The Wall Street Journal
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Upright
"Even during this desultory economic recovery, one industry thrives -- the manufacture of synthetic hysteria. It is, however, inaccurate to accuse the Hysteric in Chief of crying 'Wolf!' about spending cuts under the sequester. He is actually crying 'Hamster!' As in: Batten down the hatches -- the sequester will cut $85 billion from this year's $3.6 trillion budget! Or: Head for the storm cellar -- spending will be cut 2.3 percent! Or: Washington chain-saw massacre -- we must scrape by on 97.7 percent of current spending! Or: Chaos is coming because the sequester will cut a sum $25 billion larger than was just shoveled out the door ... for victims of Hurricane Sandy! ... Or: Famine, pestilence and locusts will come when the sequester causes federal spending over 10 years to plummet from $46 trillion all the way down to $44.8 trillion!" --columnist George Will"[I]f the Senate had followed the law and produced normal-order budgets, we wouldn't have the sequestration at all. The budget resolutions of both chambers would have gone to conference committee, which would have hashed out the differences. Obama would have signed the budgets, and we would have avoided nearly four years of crisis funding for the federal government. Reid and Obama haven't used normal order because they want to keep using continuing resolutions as a means to keep the inflated FY2010 spending levels as the baseline going forward, and especially because they want to keep House Republicans from having a real voice on spending and budgeting." --blogger Ed Morrissey
"We have moved the bill [to replace the sequester] in the House twice. We should not have to move a third bill before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something." --House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)
"Obama can not enact his second-term agenda without significant help from outside groups. Those outside groups can channel resources through Obama's old presidential re-election apparatus, which has now been rechristened 'Organizing for America,' an IRS 501(c)4 tax-exempt 'social welfare' organization. The sole purpose of OFA will be to advance Obama's policy agenda, and to that end, Obama will meet personally with OFA's national advisory board in the White House at least four times a year. And, here is the money part: You too can become a member of the national advisory board for the bargain basement price of just $500,000. ... If that isn't selling access, then we don't know what is. And it's also a clear case of hypocrisy -- of Obama doing precisely the thing for which he harshly criticized others, and with which he formed the very core of his political identity as a candidate of 'change.'" --The Washington Examiner
"Think about the First World War, from which nations on both sides ended up worse off than before....
Think about the Holocaust, and about other government slaughters of even more millions of innocent men, women and children under Communist governments in the Soviet Union and China. ... The Great Depression of the 1930s, in which millions of people were plunged into poverty in even the most prosperous nations, was needlessly prolonged by government policies now recognized in retrospect as foolish and irresponsible. One of the key differences between mistakes that we make in our own lives and mistakes made by governments is that bad consequences force us to correct our own mistakes. But government officials cannot admit to making a mistake without jeopardizing their whole careers." --economist Thomas Sowell
Insight
"The freedom now desired by many is not freedom to do and dare but freedom from care and worry." --American writer and historian James Truslow Adams (1878-1949)"The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust." --English author Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
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Demo-gogues
Blame game: "I don't know why it is in this town, folks leave stuff until the last minute. ... There's no other profession, no other industry where people wait until the 11th hour to solve these big problems. ... This is a problem that Congress can solve. You know, these automatic spending cuts that were put into place back in 2011, were designed to get Congress to actually avoid them, by coming together with more sensible approaches to deficit reduction." --Barack ObamaTransparency: "I know that some people in Congress reflexively oppose any idea that I put forward, even if it's an idea that they once supported, but rebuilding infrastructure is not my idea. It's everybody's idea. ... And folks who think spending really is our biggest problem should be more concerned than anybody about improving our infrastructure right now. ... And with that, what I want to do is clear out the press so we can take some questions." --Barack Obama at the National Governors Association
Tax hikes for everyone! "I was for the Clinton rates. I'm for the Clinton rates, today. Now, I wouldn't phase in the Clinton rates immediately, because the economy is still trying to get back, so I would perhaps go at least another year until you get the full Clinton rates." --House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
Gun grabbers: "They say [the assault weapons ban] will violate their rights under the Second Amendment. Not true! They say assault weapons like the AR-15 are needed for self-protection and recreation. They are not. There's plenty of ways you can protect yourself and recreate without an AR-15. They say it isn't about guns. They're wrong -- it is about guns!" --Joe "Buy a Shotgun" Biden
"Common sense facts are these assault weapons are unnecessary and dangerous weapons that put our law enforcement personnel at risk. ... I've been working with the police agencies for 35 years. I am going to say something outrageous: You've had no better friend over the last 35 years than me." --Joe Biden
Non Compos Mentis Award: "I think we will make the case that these weapons do not belong on the streets of our cities, that many of the parts of these weapons make them into weapons that are specifically designed to kill large numbers of people in close conflict. ... America has to step up. The mothers, the women, the men of America have to make a decision as to whether their personal pleasure is more important than the general welfare." --Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Video of the Day
Watch Maryland Senate candidate Dan Bongino at the Guns Across America Rally in Annapolis, Maryland, explain why Feinstein and her ilk are so wrong.Dezinformatsia
"[W]ith the clock ticking down, no signs of progress, but plenty of dire warnings from the administration about the potential impact of the so-called sequester. Fewer FBI agents on the job. Kids kicked out of child care programs. Even meat shortages that could jack up prices, with fewer inspectors working. ... Air travel could be crippled, fewer TSA agents would mean longer security lines. Fewer air traffic controllers, meaning more time on the tarmac." --NBC correspondent Peter AlexanderBlame game II: "[L]et's be very clear about what's happening in Washington today, and why it's undermining the city of Chicago -- because there's a mindset now in our government, in Washington, from the Republican members of Congress, that sequestration is an acceptable way of doing business, that we can in fact engage in these massive irresponsible cuts that no one thinks is a logical approach to budgeting. And that undermines law enforcement in our cities; it undermines so many education opportunities for our younger people and it does in fact create an impoverished class of our society that leads to abuse, leads to violence and leads to more Chicagos." --Democrat strategist and CNN contributor Robert Zimmerman
Honesty: "The Supreme Court has ruled that whatever the human costs involved, the Second Amendment 'necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.' The justices are right. But the human cost is intolerable. Repeal the Second Amendment." --American Magazine editorial
Belly laugh of the week: "I don't have my own set of facts. And I don't make stuff up. ... Because I have a boss that won't accept that. You have to operate in the arena of facts." --MSNBC's Ed Schultz
Hot air: "The volume outlines the complex pressures exerted by the effects of climate change on the convulsions which swept through the Middle East in 2010 and 2011, exploring the long-term trends in precipitation, agriculture, food prices, and migration which contributed to the social instability and violence which has transformed the region, and offering solutions for progress." --The Center for American Progress detailing an upcoming panel on why global warming led to the Arab Spring
Newspulper Headlines:
Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: "Obama: 'We've Got to Do Some Governing'" --Politico.comWhatever You Do, Don't Tell Anyone!: "President Obama Holds Off-Record Meeting With Top White House Reporters" --Politico.com
Longest Books Ever Written: "On the Dangers of Listening to Joe Biden" --Commentary website
Questions Nobody Is Asking: "MSNBC, a Bastion of Obama Advocates?" --CNN.com
Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking: "Jimmy Carter: No Relationship With Obama" --Politico.com
Bottom Story of the Day: "John Kerry Threatens to Bore the World to Death With Excruciating First Speech as Secretary of State" --Daily Telegraph website (London)
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
Village Idiots
Ignorance -- or worse: "[Chicago teen Hadiya Pendleton] was caught in the line of fire because some kids had some automatic weapons they didn't need. I just don't want to keep disappointing our kids in this country. I want them to know that we put them first." --Michelle Obama (Apparently, handguns are now considered automatic weapons.)Speaking from experience: "People have sometimes wondered about why our Supreme Court allows one group or another to march in a parade even though it's the most provocative thing in the world and they carry signs that are an insult to one group or another. ... In America you have a right to be stupid -- if you want to be. And you have a right to be disconnected to somebody else if you want to be." --John Kerry, an expert at being stupid Stupid is as stupid does: "[American diplomats] fight corruption in Nigeria. They support the rule of law in Burma. They support democratic institutions in Kyrzakhstan and Georgia." --John Kerry concerned about his favorite made-up country
Transparency II: "When I went through the process of becoming press secretary, one of the first things they told me was you're not even to acknowledge the drone program. You're not even to discuss that it exists." --former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
Emphasis: "There's always confusion when you have a tragedy of that sort [in Benghazi] and Americans are killed. The bigger tragedy ... is we've spent all of these months trying to figure out the origin of some talking points which were cleared at the highest levels of the intelligence community and, in my opinion, not enough time doing the service that we owe to our fallen colleagues." --United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice (That's right -- according to Rice, the debate post-Benghazi is a "bigger tragedy" than the murder of four Americans.)
Short Cuts
"Al-Qa'ida has issued a list of 22 ways that al-Qa'ida members can avoid being killed by U.S. drones. Here's a good one: Don't join al-Qa'ida." --comedian Jay Leno"Joe Biden spoke against assault weapons and advised women to go outside and fire two shots from a double barreled shotgun to scare off intruders. He's so wise. Once an intruder knows your gun is empty he'll gladly go home and leave you alone, ladies." --comedian Argus Hamilton
"Here are some things that will result from the sequestration cuts: All prisons will be shut down and prisoners released. Even the most violent of criminals. ... Medicare will be replaced with a hammer given to old people to kill themselves with. ... Our military will be armed with nothing but bayonets. All traffic lights will be turned off. No more money for cowboy poetry festivals, the only thing keeping cowboys from violence and thus the only thing keeping the wild west from breaking out again. ... No more postage for strongly-worded letters sent to Iran and North Korea telling them to stop having nuclear weapons. Obama will only get five golf outings a month." --humorist Frank J. Fleming
"Sometimes the only thing that keeps me from being pessimistic is knowing that the when the country collapses, the people most responsible will die out in the first winter." --Frank Fleming
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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