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Lingua publica

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

web posted May 27, 2013

"The consensus in Washington seems to be that the [scandal] involving the IRS presents the greatest threat to President Obama, since everyone gets the IRS. But at the White House, the scandal that I sense is causing the most fear is Benghazi. ... Four people died. Help was not sent. And nobody really has any idea what the president did or didn't do about it the night it happened. The administration sought to falsify the story. ... Each of these scandals ... must be investigated. But Republicans would be remiss if they didn't get to the bottom of Benghazi, which may have been the greatest dereliction of duty of all. The White House has signaled as much." --columnist Keith Koffler

"Many countries around the world have introduced government health systems since 1945, but ... only in America does 'health' 'care' 'reform' begin with the hiring of 16,500 new IRS agents tasked with determining whether your insurance policy merits a fine. So now not only are your books and Facebook posts legitimate tax issues but so is your hernia, and your prostate, and your erectile dysfunction. ... Big Government is erecting a panopticon state -- one that sees everything, and regulates everything. It's great 'customer service,' except that you can never get out of the store." --columnist Mark Steyn

"[T]his will be a scandal like Watergate if it turns out that the IRS was acting under orders from Barack Obama or Valerie Jarrett. If the White House's conduct turns out to be unimpeachable, then it is something far worse: a sign that the government itself has become a threat to the Constitution." --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

"[T]he left suggests that only greater government can fix the issues that trouble Americans. That's because, according to the left, one grand, unifying problem underlies all the other problems: Americans are nasty. Some Americans are poor because other Americans are greedy. Minorities are disproportionately poor because white Americans are racist. Women are trapped in socioeconomic oblivion because male Americans are sexist. America is not a melting pot. America is a hell pit designed to consume its non-white, male, Christian inhabitants. How then can the patriarchal, xenophobic majority be defeated? Only with a coalition of victims. ... The true American experience, according to Obama ... is marginalization. And marginalization justifies massive government interventionism to foster e pluribus unum." --columnist Ben Shapiro

"For Obama, the only things separating America from redemption are politics, specifically obstruction from unhinged Republicans and others clinging to outdated and vaguely illegitimate motives. Opposition to gun control is irrational because the 'government is us.' Reject warnings 'that tyranny is always lurking,' he told the graduating class at Ohio State, because a self-governing people cannot tyrannize themselves. But, suddenly, when the administration finds itself ensnared by errors of its own making, the curtain is drawn back on the cult of expertise and the fantasy of statist redemption. ... Of course, it was Obama who once said, 'I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors.' That is, when things are going relatively well. When scandal hits the fan, he goes from 'the government is us' to talking of his own agencies the way a czar might dismiss an injustice in some Siberian backwater. The hubris of omnicompetence gives way to 'lighten up, we're idiots.'" --columnist Jonah Goldberg

"Barriers have come tumbling down, and new doors of opportunity have swung open, and laws and hearts and minds have been changed to a point where someone who looks just like you can somehow come to serve as president of the United States of America." --Barack Obama speaking to the predominately black Morehouse College, about the fact that discrimination is no longer an excuse for making bad decisions. Unfortunately, he still plays the race bait and class bait cards in order to make plenty of bad choices in government policy.

"I might have been in prison. I might have been unemployed. I might not have been able to support a family -- and that motivates me." --Barack Obama in his commencement speech to Morehouse College, many graduates of which face an economy with no jobs

"We're now poised for progress, but our work is not done, and our focus cannot drift. We've got to stay focused on our economy, and putting people back to work, and raising wages, and bringing manufacturing back to the United States of America. That has to be what we're thinking about every single day." --Barack Obama (*In short: Don't get sidetracked by so-called "scandals."*)

"You know, after listening to all of the discussion and reading all of the information that I've read, I am not convinced that this is a great big political conspiracy. I would certainly admit that there has been some ineptitude, there has been some lack of serious management procedures used and adhered to." --Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL)

"[Republicans] make so much of these issues because this president is such a great president. They will use talking points on Benghazi, they will use the IRS, they will use AP, as, I think, subterfuges -- evasions -- of what the American people want us to do." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

"This is climate change. We were warned about extreme weather: Not just hot weather, but extreme weather. ... Carbon could cost us the planet. The least we could do is put a little charge on it so people move to clean energy." --Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) advocating a carbon tax

"Now obviously many Republicans and some of whom are not Republicans, think how many other people had to be involved [in the IRS scandal]." --former CBS anchor Dan "fake but accurate" Rather

"I would say that the president, his administration is floundering because they haven't, they've allowed weapons of mass distraction [i.e., scandals] to dominate because they haven't found their core agenda for the second term." --The Nation's Katrina Vanden Heuvel

"You've got to hand it to the Republicans. In a week when they've obsessed over scandals, they've managed to miss an actual scandal. That's their 37th vote to repeal the president's health care law. ... They just want to play the political game of repeal, repeal, repeal that will go nowhere. It's ugly politics, and it shows the continuing power of Tea Party extremism governing today's Republican party." --MSNBC's Al Sharpton

"[T]he NRA convention just concluded in Houston. There are legitimate Second Amendment points to be made and some of the points that they make should be part of a reasonable discussion. On the other hand, this extremist absolutist view of the Second Amendment, which they cloak in high-minded talk about freedom and patriotism, they are the true patriots. Forgive me if I doubt that if the founders were reincarnated, that they would say, let's head to Houston, because that's where our intellectual and spiritual heirs can be found." --sportscaster Bob Costas

"I could take up a whole afternoon talking about [Barack's] failures." --Michelle Obama

"Benghazi is a laughable joke. ... Nobody believes that there was a scandal. ... There are no serious questions being asked about Benghazi. None." --former DNC chief Howard "The Scream" Dean

"This tornado is in Oklahoma so clearly it has been ordered to only target conservatives." --"The Daily Show" co-creator Lizz Winstead, who did later apologize

"The fact of the matter is that we, that this administration has a record on transparency that outdoes any previous administration's, and we are committed to that." --White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

"I dismiss the premise, the idea that these are scandals." --Jay Carney

"As President Obama recently reminded us, access to health care is 'not some earned privilege -- it is a right.' And that means we must work to ensure that everyone has access to the services they need. While expanding access to health coverage is a responsibility belonging chiefly to national governments, it is imperative that the international community fulfill its essential role as champions for universal coverage." --HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

"I do not believe that partisanship motivated the people who engaged in the practices described in the Treasury Inspector General's report. ... I think that what happened here was that foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient in their workload selection." --IRS acting commissioner Steven Miller

"Mr. Obama didn't need to pick up the phone. All he needed to do was exactly what he did do, in full view, for three years: Publicly suggest that conservative political groups were engaged in nefarious deeds; publicly call out by name political opponents whom he'd like to see harassed; and publicly have his party pressure the IRS to take action." --columnist Kim Strassel

"While denying involvement in high crimes and misdemeanors, the Obama administration appears to be pleading guilty to lesser crimes of bureaucratic incompetence." --columnist Ron Fournier

"This administration is as transparent as a burqa." --Fox News contributor Greg Gutfield

"The White House issued new embassy personnel guidelines. They guarantee rescue. From now on, every U.S. embassy must include a gay basketball player, an illegal alien and a woman in need of free contraception, and the Marines will be there in minutes." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"You know, if Republicans really want to do away with ObamaCare, they should endorse it as a conservative non-profit -- let the IRS take it down. ... President Obama announced the appointment of a man named Daniel Werfel as the new acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue. The other guy was fired. See, they're called 'acting' commissioner because he has to act like the scandal doesn't involve the White House." --comedian Jay Leno

"[T]he scandal is actually much worse if the IRS was acting without guidance from the White House. A corrupt administration can be ousted through resignation or impeachment, as in 1974. If the IRS and other permanent institutions of government are fundamentally corrupt, reforming them would be much more complicated and effortful." --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

"The Fifth Amendment privilege is not designed to protect the innocent. The innocent do not need protection from the truth (just from the IRS). The privilege is designed to protect the bedrock principle that the burden of proof is always on the government and, derivatively, that a person is never required to prove his innocence. (No surprise, I suppose, that an IRS official is unfamiliar with these foundational pillars of Anglo-American law.)" --National Review's Andrew C. McCarthy

"I believe we must keep information secret that protects our operations and our people in the field. To do so, we must enforce consequences for those who break the law and breach their commitment to protect classified information. But a free press is also essential for our democracy. I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable. Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs. Our focus must be on those who break the law." --Barack Obama

web posted May 20, 2013

"Jay Carney, whose unenviable job is not to explain but to explain away what his employers say, calls the IRS' behavior 'inappropriate.' No, using the salad fork for the entree is inappropriate. Using the IRS for political purposes is a criminal offense. ... Liberals, whose unvarying agenda is enlargement of government, suggest, with no sense of cognitive dissonance, that this IRS scandal is nothing more sinister than typical government incompetence. Five days before the IRS story broke, Obama ... warned Ohio State graduates about 'creeping cynicism' and 'voices' that 'warn that tyranny is ... around the corner.' Well." --columnist George Will

"Can we not at least agree that the Obama administration has established a culture conducive to the type of stereotypical thinking that could lead to this? Didn't the Department of Homeland Security under this administration list right-wing groups as extremists and potential terrorists? Hasn't President Obama himself referred to tea partyers as 'tea baggers'? Haven't other Democrats deliberately depicted tea party groups as violent extremists who are a hair trigger away from armed revolution? Liberals have been trying to vilify conservative talk radio for years now, suggesting that its strong political opinions lead to violence. That is preposterous, but if we were to apply the same type of standard to Obama, we could say that he has personally fomented a climate of hate against conservative groups, such that the IRS targeting was completely foreseeable. Surely, it's fair to hold the president to his own standard." --columnist David Limbaugh

"With lies, as with potato chips, it is hard to stop with just one. ... The problem with telling a lie, or even a succession of lies, is that a very small dose of the truth can sometimes make the whole thing collapse like a house of cards. The State Department's own foreign service officer Gregory Hicks was in Libya during the [Benghazi] attack, so he knew the truth. When threats were not enough to silence him, it was then necessary to try to discredit him. After years of getting glowing job evaluations, and awards of honors from the State Department for his work in various parts of the world, Mr. Hicks suddenly began to get bad job evaluations and was demoted to a desk job in Washington after he spoke with a Congressman about what he knew. The truth is dangerous to liars." --economist Thomas Sowell

"We may be disgusted and horrified by Kermit Gosnell, but we should not be shocked by his crimes. Thanks to the misguided social entrepreneurship of the Supreme Court, abortion is protected as a constitutional absolute, and late-term abortions, grisly as they are, enjoy substantial protection as well. What that looks like in practice is Gosnell's slaughterhouse. We should not pretend that this evil does not extend past the Philadelphia city limits. If you would have an unlimited abortion franchise, then you will have all that goes with it, including the pitiless knife of Kermit Gosnell." --National Review

"[L]ook at Obama in this statement in Denver: 'I am constrained ... by the system that our Founders put in place.' That is an unwitting statement of truth. He is constrained. What does constrained mean? It means things I can't do. Why is he even thinking about things he can't do? There are things he wants to do. There are all kinds of executive orders and waiving of the presidential wand to make it happen he would love to do. But the Constitution's in his way, and he wishes it weren't. Be wary, folks, of any politician who talks about the Constitution and uses [phrases] like 'I am constrained.'" --radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh

"[T]he day after [Benghazi] happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism. ... The whole issue of talking points, frankly, throughout this process, has been a sideshow. ... There is no 'there' there. ... We dishonor [the four Americans killed at Benghazi] when we turn things like this into a political circus." --Barack Obama feigning outrage while perpetuating the myth about Cairo

"It takes funding to protect a consulate. ... Who cut the funds from embassy security? The Republicans in the House, that's who. ... And if it wasn't for the Democrats, it would have been cut more. ... So, I think the Benghazi scandal, in quotes, starts with the Republicans looking in the mirror." --Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA)

"I genuinely believe that there are actually Republicans out there who would like to work with us but they're fearful of their base and they're concerned about what Rush Limbaugh might say about them. And, as a consequence, we get the kind of gridlock that makes people cynical about government and inhibits our progress." --Obama

"To use the vernacular, there's suddenly a lot of senators out there who have seen the Lord. You find out that the senator from New Hampshire [Republican Kelly Ayotte] is in trouble; she voted no. I can name you four senators who called me and said, 'Jesus, I guess you were right -- maybe we can find some other way of doing this. Can we bring this back up?'" --Joe Biden trying to convince us that gun control is the only obvious answer

"The Affordable Care Act is bringing the cost of health care in our country down in both the public and private sector. And that is what is largely responsible for the deficit coming down." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

"I had a friend who got married to the wrong person, just so she could have health insurance. So, we'll also have a lot of less bad marriages as a result of [ObamaCare]." --Rep. Janice Hahn (D-CA)

"[W]e [Democrats] worked very, very hard together in order to be able to put together a balanced budget that reflects the values of the American people, that's fair, that's balanced in values and approach as well as in numbers, and we did that." --Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) on the Senate's budget that never reaches balance

"I.R.S. Focus on Conservatives Gives G.O.P. an Issue to Seize On" --New York Times headline, obfuscating the issue

"Look, if you play by the rules and if you do what you're supposed to do, an audit doesn't take very long. IRS agents are there for a reason. Am I defending the IRS? Yeah I am! ... So let's all get on board with the president who wants to simplify the tax code! ... I don't think the IRS ought to apologize for anything!" --MSNBC's Ed Schultz

"Even when they have real evidence of misdeeds and malfeasance, conservatives still want to change the subject to the fake, ginned up scandal they've been pushing month after month." --MSNBC's Chris Hayes

"Well, what difference will that make if the White House has already put out the talking points and said that they were written by the CIA with the input of other agencies?" --ABC's George Stephanopoulos echoing Hillary Clinton

"What's so sad about it is the president has been very rightfully proud of the lack of scandal in his administration so far." --Time magazine assistant managing editor Rana Foroohar

"These have been a bad few months for journalism. We're getting the big stories wrong, over and over again." --CBS's Scott Pelley

"What [the] IRS did [was] dumb and wrong. [Important] to note [that] GOP groups flourished [the] last 2 elections, overwhelming Ds. And they will use this to raise more $." --tweet from former Obama campaign chief and adviser David Plouffe on the IRS targeting Tea Party and Patriot groups

"Mistakes were made, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan motivation. ... There was a shortcut taken in our processes to determine which groups needed additional review. ... These are factually complex and sensitive cases, and it's challenging to separate out political issues from those involving education or social welfare. ... We want to stress that our employees -- all career civil servants -- will continue to be guided by tax law and not by partisan issues." --IRS acting commissioner Steven T. Miller

"Those from the IRS that have spoken about this obviously have much greater insight into what took place than we do. ... One person's view of what actions were taken or what that individual did is not enough for us to say something concretely happened that was inappropriate." --White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

"Anti-choice politicians, and their unrelenting efforts to deny women access to safe and legal abortion care, will only drive more women to back-alley butchers like Kermit Gosnell." --NARAL president Ilyse Hogue

"This [Gosnell] case has made clear that we must have and enforce laws that protect access to safe and legal abortion, and we must reject misguided laws that would limit women's options and force them to seek treatment from criminals like Kermit Gosnell." --Planned Parenthood spokesman Eric Ferrero (The reality is that, for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, the key distinction is whether the atrocity occurred inside or outside the womb.)

"I was going to start off tonight with an Obama joke but I don't want to get audited by the IRS." --comedian Jay Leno

"The best spin they have at their disposal is to argue that the President of the United States has to turn on the nightly news to find out what's happening [in] the government he runs." --columnist Guy Benson

"At a press conference, Nancy Pelosi blamed the sequester for keeping her from visiting the troops on Mother's Day. Ironically, the troops credit the sequester for the same reason." --Fred Thompson

"The White House was blasted for inaction during the Benghazi attack in House hearings. The terrorists overran the consulate then they overran the annex. So it does support Barack Obama's claim during the campaign that he's got al-Qaeda on the run." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"Obama recently warned some college graduates against being all worried about government tyranny, and Obama has good reason to warn you against that because worrying about government tyranny is the exact sort of thing that will get you audited. Or, when Obamacare is in full force, it will be the attitude that gets you denied life saving health care. So have faith in government. Or it will get you." --humorist Frank J. Fleming

"They make so much of these issues because this president is such a great president." --Nancy Pelosi

web posted May 13, 2013

"September 11, 2012, was a profound moral failure. ... If the most current reports can be believed, after depriving our men and women on the ground of the security they begged for, our leaders didn't just stand by and watch as a tiny band of courageous but out-gunned Americans gave their last full measure of devotion to try to save an ambassador, save their fellow diplomats, and save themselves against an overwhelming terrorist force; those same leaders told potential rescuers to 'stand down.' This isn't just a tactical failure, or a failure of process. It's a failure of character, and if there is any honor left in Washington, those responsible should resign." --National Review's David French

"[Hillary] Clinton's role in Benghazi is particularly damaging because it risks becoming the signature legacy of her tenure at the State Department. Despite racking up an exhaustive travel record, Clinton had few actual achievements to show for her four years as Secretary of State--a burden as she contemplates her 2016 ambitions." --columnist Joel B. Pollak

"It's this corrupt and vengeful White House that wields the sharpest axes and biggest grindstones. The casualty count in Obama's war on whistleblowers is double-digit. ATF insiders who testified before Congress about Obama's Fast and Furious gun-running nightmare faced systemic retaliation and harassment -- both from government supervisors who openly declared witch hunts against them and from liberal media water-carriers. ... No stone will be left unturned in the effort to slime, sully and squelch the Benghazi truth-tellers. Mark my words: This is how Obama's thugs roll." --columnist Michelle Malkin

"Unfortunately, you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted." --Barack Obama

"One of the things that bothers me most about the new Republican Party is how down on America they are." --Joe Biden

"[M]ost of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States. ... So we'll keep increasing the pressure on gun traffickers who bring illegal guns into Mexico." --Barack Obama

"The Second Amendment is not an absolute right, it is not a God given right, it [has] always had conditions upon it just like the First Amendment has. And this idea that the Second Amendment was put in there in order to allow citizens to fight their government is insane." --Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)

"We need to educate law-abiding gun owners, like myself, people that might belong to the NRA. ... This [background check] bill not only protects your Second Amendment but expands the Second Amendment." --Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV)

"Bottom line is that the right wing, and I say the Tea Party, has made deficit reduction the main priority -- the main economic priority, and I will tell you point blank that I do not think it is." --Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ)

"[A]lthough health care was not listed per se in the Constitution, it should be a constitutional right. And if you read the words, or quote the words of the Declaration of Independence, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident,' that we have certain inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, one might argue that education and health care fall into those provisions of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." --Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX)

"Send the guilty monsters directly to Guantanamo Bay for all eternity and let them rot in their own mental squalor. No, no, no. Not the wannabe sick kid who blew up the Boston marathon or the freak that's mailing ricin-laced letters to the president. I'm talking about the real terrorist threat here in America: the National Rifle Association." --Aurora (Colorado) Sentinel editor Dave Perry

"[T]his is the NRA's America. Guns for everybody. Gun shows for anyone who wants to buy one. And ladies and gentlemen, that means anyone. Felons, criminally insane, wife beaters. ... And this NRA creed ... is the de facto platform of the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln. Guns killed Lincoln. Killed James Garfield. Killed McKinley. Killed -- almost killed Ronald Reagan. All that's forgiven now by the NRA-infested Republican Party." --MSNBC's Chris Matthews

"The answer to our immigration issue is open borders. ... Tear down the fences. Rip up the red tape. ... Open borders attacks the root cause of Muslim extremism. ... It's Muslim poverty that's threatening our security, not our immigration system. Giving these men the chance to work here could diminish their poverty, their anger, and their misunderstanding of the U.S. before they're even radicalized. ... Open borders will improve the world." --MSNBC's Tour??

"[Obama's] opponents -- you talk about taking them out to dinner, making nice with them -- these people politically want to cut his heart out and throw his liver to the dogs. That does make it very, very difficult to come on nice to them." --Dan Rather

"[W]e have an obligation to tell each other and to try to convince people that if they're going with the NRA they're going against the lives of our children and of you and me." --New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg

"Can we just get to, first of all, how ridiculous it is for people to think that the Second Amendment protects them from tyranny? ... Thinking the Second Amendment can protect you from tyranny, it's like thinking the First Amendment protects you from Thor. It's ridiculous. It's nonsensical." --HBO's Bill Maher

"Six thousand a week [were] being killed [in Vietnam] and I destroyed some property. Show me the equivalence [to the Boston Marathon bombing]. ... I'm against violence. To conflate a group of fundamentalist people [in Boston] who are nihilistic in some way with a group of people who spent their lives trying to oppose the murder of 6,000 people a week... There's no equivalence [with Boston]. Property damage. That's what we did." --former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers (*We don't expect the Boston bomber to secure tenure at a major university, either, so there's that difference.*)

"[NBA player Jason] Collins' action will save lives. This is no exaggeration: Fully one third of suicides among teenagers occur because of their sexuality. Collins will truly affect lives, too. Millions of kids will see that it is OK to be gay. No need for shame, no need for embarrassment, no need for hiding." --former tennis star Martina Navratilova

"Our climate is changing, the weather is becoming more intense. It's going to cost a lot of money and a lot of lives. The big issue [is] how do we adapt, because it doesn't look like the people who are in charge are going to do what it takes to really slow down this climate change, so we are going to have to adapt. And adapting is going to be very, very expensive." --Democrat California Gov. Jerry Brown, reacting to the state's intense early start to the fire season

"President Obama turned into Chip Diller. Who is Chip Diller? He is the college boy who keeps screaming, 'Remain calm! All is well!,' as the town of Faber collapses around him at the end of 'National Lampoon's Animal House.' With his own administration saying chemical weapons have been used in Syria, a Democratic senator saying ObamaCare has become a 'train wreck,' and others worrying that the failure to neutralize the Tsarnaev brothers before the Boston massacre indicates a systemic failure in the nation's homeland defense, Obama spent an hour in a press conference [last week] Chip-Dillering America." --columnist John Podhoretz

"White House spokesman Jay Carney said in response to a question about the Benghazi attack that it 'happened a long time ago.' Yeah, sorta like that Bush administration Obama keeps blaming everything on." --Fred Thompson

"Janet Napolitano was grilled in Congress after Homeland Security ignored warnings about Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It was all there. You might suspect a political asylum seeker is a foreign-trained terrorist if after he's granted asylum, he goes back home for six months." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"Over the weekend President Obama gave the commencement speech at Ohio State University. He said, 'I dare you to do better' -- to which the students yelled back, 'No, we dare YOU to do better. We need jobs!'" --comedian Jay Leno

web posted May 6, 2013

"[T]he administration of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick stonewalled efforts by the Boston Herald to determine the extent of government benefits provided to the Tsarnaev brothers, particularly attack mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The Patrick administration's absurd stance, with its preoccupation with the 'privacy rights' of non-citizen Tamerlan -- an alien terrorist -- is a reflection of the kind of inept leadership and dogmatic thinking that led to the success of the attack in the first place. The egregious intelligence failures and uniform chorus of jihad denial following the attack have left little question that leftist political establishment, from state agencies to the Oval Office, does not recognize the true nature of the threats America faces. Nor does it take them seriously." --columnist Arnold Ahlert

"Perhaps you noticed that President Obama became the first president to speak at a Planned Parenthood gala, without ever mentioning the word abortion. This new poll suggests why: 55 percent of Americans, including 38 percent of pro-lifers, do not know that Planned Parenthood provides any abortions. Just 6 percent of all Americans know Planned Parenthood clinics perform more than 300,000 abortions each year. Alongside the refusal of television and other media to cover the sensationally disturbing Gosnell trial, this fact alone exposes the extent of the Left's cultural domination of the media-infotainment landscape." --National Review's Maggie Gallagher

"Obamacare is 'working fine,' President Obama said yesterday in his press conference. It's made health insurance 'stronger, better, more secure than it was before.' ... Right. There's nothing to worry about, which is why Members of Congress are trying to exempt themselves and their staffs from Obamacare. In reality, health insurance premiums are rising, and states -- meaning taxpayers -- are staring down some astronomical expenses. ... President Obama dismissed Obamacare opposition from the states as political. But it's a very real bottom-line issue. Heritage research shows that 40 of 50 states would see increases in costs due the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. In just three years, costs would exceed any potential savings that have been suggested." --Heritage Foundation's Amy Payne

"President Obama didn't kill American free-market health care. It began dying during World War II, when government imposed wage and price controls. At first, companies said, 'Great, stability!' But then they realized that they could not attract better workers without raises. So companies got around the rules, as companies do. They gave 'benefits,' like health insurance. Government then distorted the market further by giving employer-based health insurance better tax treatment than coverage you buy yourself. But employer-based insurance is nuts. Many workers feel locked into their jobs. Company insurance largely destroyed the health care free market, since employees rarely shop for the best service at the lowest price. Now Obamacare may kill what's left of that market." --columnist John Stossel

"[W]e have the fact that up came these, at some point after a trip to Russia and before it, up came Islamic videos, or, I'm sorry, terrorist videos on [Tamerlan Tsarnaev's] website." --CNN's Candy Crowley apologizing and correcting herself for using the term "Islamic"

"What does the trial of a Philadelphia doctor who is accused of performing illegal late-term abortions by inducing labor and then killing viable fetuses have to do with the debate over legal abortion?" --New York Times columnist Andrew Rosenthal

"We would be far better off with a system like that in France, where abortion is limited after 12 weeks but freely available and fully subsidized before then. Late-term abortion can be truly problematic. That doesn't mean that the anti-abortion movement is the solution." --Daily Beast columnist Michelle Goldberg

"We will see [openly gay NBA player Jason Collins'] name in history next to Jackie Robinson and Billie Jean King. It's getting its due because it is such an important -- not just a sports history moment -- but an American history moment." --USA Today sport columnist Christine Brennan fawning over the first major-four-sports player to come out of the closet

"Jason Collins is Jackie Robinson." --Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi

"While America has been fixated on the threat of Islamic terrorism for more than a decade, all but a few domestic terror plots have failed. Between September 11, 2001, and the end of 2012, there were no successful bomb plots by jihadist terrorists in the United States. Jihadists killed 17 people in the United States in four separate incidents during this time, according to data collected by journalist Peter Bergen and the New America Foundation. All four of these incidents involved guns, including Nidal Hassan's shooting rampage at Fort Hood, which killed 13 people. In contrast, right-wing extremists killed 29 people during those 11 years." --Mother Jones' Dave Gilson

"I mean, if we could get guns under control, if we could get rid of them, I'm with all of that. ... Of course I want to get rid of guns." --actor Tracy Morgan

"If you live in a city and you think you need protection of your home, you're way better off with a shotgun than an assault weapon. Trust me. It's not even close." --Bill Clinton

"Creating a pathway to earned citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in this country is absolutely essential. The way we treat our friends and neighbors who are undocumented -- by creating a mechanism for them to earn citizenship and to move out of the shadows -- transcends the issue of immigration status. This is a matter of civil and human rights." --Attorney General Eric Holder

"If we want to make progress on climate change, we need everyone in Congress on board for a solution. It's our job to show them there's a price to pay for being a climate denier." --Organizing for Action's Jon Carson

"When a woman doesn't want to be pregnant, she'll go through hell, high water in North Dakota -- blizzards, floods, you know, she'll hit a deer on the way, and have a flat tire and say, 'Can I still come?' When a woman doesn't want to be pregnant, she'll do what she needs to do. And unfortunately it just adds to the stigma that women feel when they hear all of these things about heart beat, sex selection, genetic abnormality. You know, abortion is very common and the stigma is disgusting." --North Dakota abortion-clinic director Tammi Kromenaker

"This president has an inordinate faith in the power of his rhetoric. He campaigned against Scott Brown, against Chris Christie, against Bob McDonnell. He campaigned hard for the Democratic candidates in 2010 that got shellacked. He campaigned for Obamacare. It's still very unpopular. His rhetoric is overrated. It is no basis for government." --columnist George Will

"The FBI and Boston police completely sealed off the neighborhood where the second bomber fled. They were sure they'd find the college kid. If the FBI and local cops couldn't find him, they were thinking of bringing out the big dogs, student loan collection agents." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"President Obama held a press conference [Tuesday], and he said he still wants to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility, but he doesn't know how to do it. He should do what he always does: declare it a small business and tax it out of existence. It will be gone in a minute." --comedian Jay Leno

"This year, the government will spend at least $890,000 on service fees for 13,712 bank accounts with a zero balance. Leave it to the government to find a way to make being broke cost money." --Fred Thompson

"The American people could be forgiven for being underwhelmed [with Obamacare]. ... Obama promised average annual premium reductions of $2,500 per family once Obamacare passed. He promised no interruptions in your current coverage if you were satisfied with it. He promised to bend the cost curve down for government spending on health care while adding millions to Medicaid's rolls. And, he promised to do it all without adding to the deficit. None of those things are true, yet he claims the master plan is 90 percent complete. ... And, let's talk about the 15 percent -- that 'small group of people' for whom he concedes implementation will be a problem. When we began the process of debating and passing Obamacare, some 80+ percent of insured Americans were satisfied with their health insurance coverage. The president insisted we disrupt much of the entire system to serve exactly the 'small group of people' he now admits without any apology will be hardest hit by implementation" --Hot Air's Mary Katharine Ham

"[M]aybe I should just pack up and go home. Golly!" --Barack Obama at his Tuesday press conference

web posted April 29, 2013

"The Boston Herald has broken the story ... that 'Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism.' A responsible national establishment press would treat this as an important story, because, as the Herald's Chris Cassidy noted in the understatement of the day, it 'raises questions over whether Tsarnaev financed his radicalization on taxpayer money.' ... It's be pretty obvious that the family's dependence should this be a national story at AP, the New York Times, and on the broadcast and cable TV networks, as it also raises the question of how many others might be living on taxpayer money while plotting to do us harm. Will it be? Don't hold your breath." --Newsbusters' Tom Blumer

"Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the oldest of the two Boston bomber suspects, is now the fifth suspected terrorist to be questioned by the FBI before they attempted their acts of terror. ... Yet we not only persist with political correctness, we now go so far as to actually arm our enemies. The Obama administration persists in giving F-16s and advanced tanks to Egypt, even after the Muslim Brotherhood ... took power. The United States just pledged $500 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority, a government that is even now unifying with Hamas, one of the world's worst terror organizations. While we revise stylebooks and debate the power of movies and music over the power of jihad, our enemies laugh -- and plan future attacks. Political correctness kills." --Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice

"'They failed because the people of Boston refused to be intimidated,' the president said referring to the brothers Tsarnaev. 'They failed because, as Americans, we refused to be terrorized.' That statement in and of itself is curious. First, the people of Boston were terrorized, even if it was a short-lived emotion. Furthermore, if three people killed and more than 170 wounded, several of whom have had limbs completely blown off, is considered a 'failure,' one can only imagine what this president considers a 'success.' ... [T]here is no chance that the Obama administration is willing to admit something that would completely shatter the carefully crafted illusion under which they continue to operate: just like every other part of the world, the United States of America is also the 'field of battle' -- in the war against Islamic terror." --columnist Arnold Ahlert

"According to Dana Priest and William M. Arkin of The Washington Post, 'Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States. ... An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.' ... Despite a domestic army of federal, state and local forces, the suspects managed to evade capture for days.... Osama bin Laden's announced intention was to conduct a 'war of a thousand cuts' against America to harm our economy and permanently change our way of life. If he can see from Hell, he must be pleased about the way things are going." --columnist Cal Thomas

"[T]his [gun control] effort is not over. I want to make it clear to the American people we can still bring about meaningful changes that reduce gun violence, so long as the American people don't give up on it. Even without Congress, my administration will keep doing everything it can to protect more of our communities. ... And if this Congress refuses to listen to the American people and pass common-sense gun legislation, then the real impact is going to have to come from the voters." --Barack Obama

"Before I get to the [immigration] bill, I'd like to ask that all of us not jump to conclusions regarding the events in Boston, or try to conflate those events with this legislation." --Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

"In this age of instant reporting and tweets and blogs, there's a temptation to latch on to any bit of information, sometimes to jump to conclusions." --Barack Obama

"The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry. But we live in a complex word where you're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change." --New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ???Hot air: "One gets the sense that this is more reflective of the, quote, unquote, new normal, if you will. So much of society is changing so rapidly, we talk about a new normal when it comes to climate change and adjusting to a change in the weather patterns. New normal when it comes to public security in a post-9/11 world where these random acts of violence, which at one time were implausible, now seem all too frequent." --New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo

"Being in Watertown right now, the streets are empty. It's erie. It's as though a bomb had dropped somewhere." --CNN's star reporter Susan Candiotti on the scene during the man-hunt for the Boston bomber

"The NRA's efforts to guarantee that American mass murderers are the best-equipped mass murders in the world is not limited to murderers who use assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. The NRA is also in the business of helping bombers get away with their crimes." --MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell

"I mean, what difference does it make why they did it if they did it?" --MSNBC's Chris Matthews

"The Boston event, obviously a serious tragedy. But, I don't know whether it's going to go down in the history books. The question -- it is not necessarily that big an event. ... And what we know about the Boston case now it seems ... that this was not organized, that this is not some ideology." --The Washington Post's Bob Woodward

"[G]iven that they're Chechen, given that they are literally Caucasian, our very sense of connection to them is this framed-up notion of, like, Islam making them into something that is non-normal." --MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry

"I don't want to politicize an act of terrorism, but it's, it is worth remarking upon ... in that within a week's time a very, very, very weak gun control bill gets defeated, in effect defeated in the Senate, we see yet another act which might have been a hell of a lot more difficult to pull off with effective gun control. Not for nothing." --The New Yorker's David Remnick

"We need to redouble our efforts to make America stronger and healthier so it remains a vibrant counterexample to whatever bigoted ideology may have gripped these young men. ... We need a more 'radical center' -- one much more willing to suggest radically new ideas to raise revenues, not the split-the-difference-between-the-same-old-options center. And the best place to start is with a carbon tax." --The New York Times' Thomas Friedman

"Look, it's not like people who are Muslim who do wacky things have a monopoly on it. We have hypocrites across faiths, Jewish, Christian who say they're out for God and end up doing not so nice things." --Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism (*Even anti-Christian lefty Bill Maher called this what it is: BS.*)

"The American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world." -- Richard Falk, the UN's "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967." Faulk is also a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, who called the police action in Boston a "hysterical dragnet," and said that Boston's dead were "canaries" that "have to die" because of America's "fantasy of global domination."

"[T]he mortuary pictures of the older brother of the two are extremely disturbing, raising questions as to whether the Boston Police Department captured him with too much force. ... While terrorism is about causing fear ... we do have to account for our conduct in these extreme times when adrenaline is running high." --City University of New York Professor Ruth O'Brien

"I was forced to confront the fact that people who oppose equal rights for gays in the marriage sphere are basically acting out of concerns for their own identity not out of respect for anyone else." --Bill Clinton accepting a GLAAD award and who signed the Defence of Marriage Act

"If we are going in this room to say a baby is born alive because it moves one time without any other movement, that is ludicrous." --Dr. Kermit Gosnell's defense attorney Jack McMahon

"We made it clear that there would be these kinds of negative effects [flight delays] if Congress failed to take reasonable action to avert the sequester. The fact is Congress had an opportunity, but Republicans made a choice, and this is a result of a choice they made to embrace sequester, as -- and I'm quoting Republicans -- a victory for the Tea Party and a home run." --White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

"A new Gallup poll shows that 55% of Americans say their income taxes are 'fair.' I'm guessing that'd be the 47% who pay none, plus a few Obama cabinet appointees." --Fred Thompson

"President Obama paid taxes on six hundred grand in income. He made eight hundred grand last year and a million-seven the year before. While other politicians just talk about economic decline under President Obama, President Obama leads by example." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"So, I guess you have to have a license to have a gun in Massachusetts, but the two loser brothers who did the Boston Marathon bombing did not have a license for the guns they used on their shootout with cops. They were running around shooting at people with guns that Massachusetts very clearly said was illegal for them to have. It's like, come on, guys we're a nation of laws; if you're going to be murderous criminals, at least legally posses your guns first, you know. What's wrong with you?" --humorist Frank J. Fleming

"We have a situation where this country has been driven by the Tea Party for the last number of years. When I was in school, I studied government and I learned about the anarchists. Now, they were different than the Tea Party because they were violent. But they were anarchists because they did not believe in government in any level and they acknowledged it. The Tea Party kind of hides that. They don't say they're against government, but that is what it all amounts to. They're not doing physically destructive things to buildings and people, directly, but they are doing everything they can to throw a monkey-wrench into every form of government, whether it's local, state or federal. ... Government is not inherently bad; government is inherently good. That's why we have a Constitution and that's what we direct the activities of this government based upon." --Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

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