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more jobs than a pipeline project loaded with jobs?
THE FOUNDaTION
“No taxes can be devised which are not more or less in- Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John
convenient and unpleasant.” --George Washington Boehner (R-OH), responded, “We are working on a bill
to stop a tax hike, protect Social Security, reform unem-
GOVErNmENT ployment insurance and create jobs. If President Obama
A Taxing Debate threatens to veto it over a provision that creates American
Congressional Republicans and Barack Obama’s merry jobs, that’s a fight we’re ready to have.”
band of class warriors spent much of the week battling
over whether or how to extend the payroll tax cut before it Barack Obama’s public ire toward Republicans may be
expires at the end of this year. Republicans and even some due in part to their interference with his holiday travel
Democrats initially opposed extending the cut, though plans. The Obama family is scheduled to travel next
for different reasons. The small number of opposition weekend to their beachfront getaway in Hawaii for 17
Democrats feared a shortfall in funding for Social Secu- days, but Barack may have to stay behind in Washington
rity, which is already paying out more than it takes in. if a tax deal isn’t done. Of course, if Michelle and the girls
Republicans pointed to the fact that the payroll tax cut has travel separately, there goes another $100,000 in taxpayer
done nothing to stimulate the economy or employment, money for the extra planes and security.
as the president claimed, since the cut is geared toward
employees, not employers. Additionally, they opposed the Obama had lambasted Congress for not getting a deal
Democrat plan to fund the extension with a 1.9 percent done in time for the holiday break, and he advised them
surtax on incomes over $1 million. This surtax would hit to stay in Washington until the work was completed. He
a large number of small business owners, and no doubt originally planned to skip town regardless, but as Mitt
result in reducing the number of new hires. Romney told Iowans, “I just think it’s time to have a
president whose idea of being ‘hands on’ doesn’t mean
Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid getting a better grip on the golf club.” Obama soon an-
(D-NV), shamelessly accuse Republicans of protecting nounced that he would stay in Washington until Congress
millionaires while allowing the middle class to receive presented him with a bill he could sign. As with all major
what would essentially be a tax hike. Politically, Demo- decisions made in Washington, however, we must wait
crats have the upper hand, and the House GOP therefore until the final minutes of the final hour before we learn
announced a proposal that would extend the current how this gets settled.
payroll tax for one year, provide for additional unemploy-
ment benefits, and avert a significant cut in payments to This Week’s ‘Braying Jackass’
doctors who treat Medicare patients. It would be funded “[T]here is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the
by extending a federal payroll freeze through 2015, plus last few decades, have said, let’s ... just cut more regula-
other smaller cost-cutting measures. An additional provi- tions and cut more taxes [and] our economy will grow
sion in the package, moving forward with the production stronger [and] then jobs and prosperity will eventually
of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas, drew trickle down to everybody else. They argue, even if
a veto threat from Obama. “Efforts to tie a whole bunch prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that’s the price of
of other issues to what’s something that they should be liberty. Now, it’s a simple theory. And we have to admit,
doing anyway will be rejected by me,” Obama warned. it’s one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our
healthy skepticism of too much government. That’s in
He also taunted his opposition: “However many jobs might America’s DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper
be generated by a Keystone pipeline, they’re going to be sticker. But here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It has
a lot fewer than the jobs that are created by extending the never worked. It didn’t work when it was tried in the
payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance.” In decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to
what alternate reality does paying people not to work create the incredible postwar booms of the 50s and 60s. And
THE PaTrIOT POST WWW.PaTrIOTPOST.US FrIDay, DEcEmbEr 9, 2011
it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade. lar debate performances. He is, after all, the “smartest guy
I mean, understand, it’s not as if we haven’t tried this in the room.” Due to his rise, however, another former
theory.” --Barack Obama, who for some reason, doesn’t House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, threatened Gingrich, “One
see that it is socialism that has failed repeatedly of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gin-
grich. When the time is right. ... I know a lot about him.
The Free Enterprise Model I served on the investigative committee that investigated
The Patriot Post’s goal is to defeat the socialist agenda of him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed loca-
those in Washington and fight for Essential Liberty and tion for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”
Rule of Law. And we’re proud to say we didn’t qualify
for government handouts. We rely on the free market -- in Newt quickly thanked Nancy for the “early Christmas
other words, readers like you. What can we say? It’s in gift,” because, he retorted, “If she’s suggesting she’s
our DNA. going to use material she developed while she was on
the ethics committee, that is a fundamental violation of
Please, if you’re able, make a secure online donation the rules of the House and I would hope members would
today to our 2011 Year-End Campaign. If you prefer to immediately file charges against her the second she does
support us by mail, please use our printable donor form. it.” Well played, and Pelosi quickly backtracked. And
We still must raise approximately $129,600 by year’s end. yet, there is plenty that is unsettling about Gingrich being
the frontrunner. His horrendous personal history, his own
Thank you! flip-flops on policy and his mixed leadership in the House,
including some pretty pointed criticisms from his lieuten-
Nate Jackson ants, certainly give us pause.
Managing Editor
Ron Paul is rising. The Texas congressman is running
New & Notable Legislation second in Iowa, and a win there could propel him forward.
The Republican-controlled House sent three more jobs- For numerous reasons, we still don’t think he will be the
related bills to the Democrat-controlled Senate this week, nominee, but he’s certainly making waves and steering the
including the Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 3010) conversation toward actually cutting government.
and the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scruti-
ny (REINS) Act (H.R. 10). The House has passed 25 bills Mitt Romney is stagnant. The former governor of Mas-
directly related to fixing America’s job market, and all 25 sachusetts and godfather of ObamaCare can’t seem to get
sit in limbo in the Senate. Harry Reid refuses to take action more than 20-25 percent of the Republican electorate’s
on items that would address over-regulation or attempts by support. Voters have spent the entire summer and fall
unions to overrun private businesses, or to allow entrepre- looking for the Not Romney. Can he still win the nomina-
neurs easier access to company-building capital. Repub- tion? One thing is certain: In his last year as governor,
licans should seize this opportunity to educate voters that he spent $100,000 on new computers for his office in
Obama’s so-called “Do Nothing” Congress resides in the what Reuters called “an unprecedented effort to keep his
Democrat Senate, not the Republican House. records secret.” What could that possibly be about?
Campaign Trail Tidbits Hope ‘n’ Change: NAACP Voting Complaint
Herman Cain is out. His campaign couldn’t survive the In a potentially frightening development, the NAACP
latest allegation of a 13-year affair, and Cain called it has filed a complaint with the United Nations claiming
quits on Saturday. In our view, more damaging than the that there is a deliberate and concerted effort to restrict
allegations -- which were unproven -- was Cain’s shock- the vote of blacks and Hispanics in the U.S. They filed a
ing lack of knowledge, or even the desire to gain that report pointing to what they believe are examples of state
knowledge, about national affairs. In particular, his stock and federal efforts to keep the minority voting population
“consult the experts” answer for anything related to for- from expanding, and in some instances actually disenfran-
eign policy caused us to question his readiness to be the chising registered voters. The examples the NAACP point
nation’s commander in chief. to include new regulations in certain states that require
-- horrors! -- proper identification. The civil rights group
Newt Gingrich is rising. The former House speaker has claims that it’s no coincidence that these states are consid-
shot to the top of national polls, thanks largely to his stel- ered important in next year’s presidential election contest.
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THE PaTrIOT POST WWW.PaTrIOTPOST.US FrIDay, DEcEmbEr 9, 2011
They also have the fastest growing minority populations. disregard for debt accumulation.
Democrats, who have long held a lock on the minority While recognition of Europe’s financial crisis is wide-
vote, have also opposed any and all voter identifica- spread, consensus on a corrective course of action is
tion measures. Of course, these rules are really meant to more difficult to find. The Washington Post reports that
prevent voter fraud, i.e., the all-too-common voting by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancel-
non-citizens and individuals who cast ballots in as many lor Angela Merkel have “reached a difficult compromise
precincts as their Democrat bus can get them to before the agreement ... to seek mandatory limits on budget deficits
polls close. Anyone in a state that enforces these regula- among debt-laden European governments.” Yet their
tions may obtain the necessary documentation by mak- “fix” is hardly guaranteed to work or even be accepted.
ing the minimal effort required, and it’s free. The only The compromise, which would amount to a renegotiated
disenfranchisement that occurs is being perpetrated by European Union treaty, is already drawing criticism on
fraudulent voters who cast one or multiple ballots. The the grounds that it may encroach on national sovereignty.
NAACP’s report doesn’t include that issue, of course, British Prime Minister David Cameron, for example,
nor does it make clear just what they expect the UN to announced he will not “pass any powers from Britain to
do about their bellyaching. While if the UN follows its Brussels.”
usual model -- which is that it will likely do nothing -- the
NAACP didn’t file this complaint for no reason. A vigi- Meanwhile, in the shorter term, Sarkozy and Merkel
lant eye should be kept on this one. disagree on whether the European Central Bank should
bail out the European countries by buying up government
Blagojevich Sentenced bond issues. In truth, the solution is quite simple: seri-
Former Illinois Democrat Governor Rod Blagojevich was ous reform and reduction of entitlement spending. As we
sentenced to 14 years in federal prison Wednesday for, have seen in our own country, however, doing so is easily
among other things, attempting to sell Barack Obama’s proposed but rarely disposed.
former Senate seat. Oddly, though, the word “Demo-
crat” was absent from most of the Leftmedia’s cover- Quote of the Week
age. As governor, Blagojevich had the power to appoint “I simply do not know where the money is.” --Jon Corzine,
Obama’s successor, but he wasn’t about to do it for free. former CEO of MF Global on the bankruptcy of the com-
The 14-year sentence was considerably less than the 20 pany and the whereabouts of $1.2 billion of client money
years prosecutors sought, but far more than the laughable
three-and-a-half years desired by Blagojevich’s team, his MF Global’s bankruptcy is the eighth largest in history,
pleas about ignorance of the law notwithstanding. Still, he and Corzine, former Democrat governor of New Jersey,
did say, “I caused it all, I’m not blaming anybody. I was doesn’t know what happened. He did, however, advise the
the governor, and I should have known better, and I am Obama administration on the economy. The silence of the
just so incredibly sorry.” If it’s any consolation, he’s not Occupy Wall Street crowd is deafening.
alone. He can join the gang of former Illinois governors --
Otto Kerner, Dan Walker and George Ryan -- who spent As National Review’s Kevin D. Williamson quipped,
time in the big house. “Let’s translate that Jon Corzine quote into Latin, engrave
it in stone, and make it the official motto of Congress.”
EcONOmy
Europe Facing Credit Downgrade Income Redistribution:
With the European financial system verging on collapse, Some Governors Just Don’t Get It
Standard and Poor’s this week announced that it was plac- Working on opposite coasts, two governors have come up
ing 15 European Union members, including AAA-credit- with nearly the same solution for their respective states’
rated France and Germany, on CreditWatch for a potential budget woes: raise taxes on the wealthy. How novel. That
downgrade. Among the reasons cited by S&P are “[h]igh said, their approaches to getting this revenue are radically
levels of government and household indebtedness” and different.
“[m]arkedly higher risk premiums on a growing number
of eurozone [countries].” While unwelcome news for EU New York Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo has leavened
nations, it should come as no surprise, given Europe’s his tax proposal by adding a slight cut on the tax rate
lavish government spending on entitlements and chronic for middle-class earners as well as a small easing of an
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THE PaTrIOT POST WWW.PaTrIOTPOST.US FrIDay, DEcEmbEr 9, 2011
already existing “millionaires’ tax,” which was set to instead, the mail will arrive on the second business day
expire after this year. The rate that high earners, most of after the Post Office receives it. This may not seem like a
whom are job creators, would pay is less than it was under crushing blow to the public in the era of electronic mail
the current rules, but far more than it would have been and Internet access, but the idea of “snail mail” becoming
had the temporary tax increase expired without replace- even slower won’t make the Post Office any more entic-
ment. Once again, the new rate will be “temporary,” as it ing in the face of other delivery services that have sup-
expires after 2014. planted the USPS. We think they’re misunderstanding the
maxim that “less is more.”
On the other coast, California Democrat Gov. Jerry
“Moonbeam” Brown conceded that raising taxes would SEcUrITy
be impossible through the legislative process, as anti- Second Amendment: Fast & Furious Fallout
tax conservatives have a large enough minority to block As if the dirt and skullduggery weren’t thick enough in
measures that require a two-thirds majority. So he’s going Washington, new controversy surrounds the ill-fated
to the people with a series of initiatives for the 2012 elec- would-be firearms sting “Operation Fast and Furious.” In
tion, including acts that would increase tax rates on the addition to letting several thousand firearms walk across
highest earners by 1 to 2 percentage points and raise the the border illegally, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
state’s sales tax -- already one of the highest in the nation also helped launder and transport millions of dollars in
-- a half-point to 7.75 percent. Brown claims these mea- cash into Mexico in efforts to track and disrupt drug traf-
sures will raise $7 billion and are necessary to alleviate ficking.
the state’s massive deficit. That estimate, of course, erro-
neously assumes that people won’t change their economic That’s right: the DEA is helping drug cartels make
behavior when their taxes go up. money. Of course, we all understand the need to infiltrate
organizations to get to the “top guy,” but two things give
The alternative, both governors claim, is to make what us pause: First, the organizations “infiltrated” are the
Brown called “deeper and more damaging cuts” that, as same ones the ATF and State Department decided to arm
Cuomo added, “decimate essential services [and do] real courtesy of Uncle Sam. Second, one might expect, as we
harm to the state’s economy.” Of course, other states have did, that after several years we would see drug cartels
tried the “soak the rich” approach and failed to raise the taken down, weapons caches recovered, and money and
taxes needed to stave off deficits. There’s no reason to drugs confiscated. We’re still waiting. The upshot is that
believe the results will be different in California or New not only are we arming Mexican drug gangs, but, appar-
York. Both have lost many revenue producers over the ently, we’re directly funding them, as well. But wait, it
last decade while their government spending nonethe- gets better.
less surged, and raising taxes certainly won’t make job
creators return. It turns out that a parallel “gun running” effort by commu-
nistas in the Obama administration is actually responsible
First-Class Mail Posts Second-Class Service for the bulk of the surge in arms supply to cartels. Specifi-
The United States Postal Service is facing a $5.5 billion cally, under the “direct commercial sales” program ap-
default on a payment due to the federal government for proved by the U.S. government, large numbers of firearms
retiree health benefits. To address this and certain future were sold directly from manufacturers to the Mexican gov-
red ink, the USPS is proposing the closure of nearly half ernment. Unfortunately, however, the weapons either never
of its mail processing centers and thousands of local post arrived or were diverted by military and police personnel
offices, resulting in perhaps the loss of 100,000. On the defecting to the cartels. The Mexican military recently
revenue end, the price of a first-class stamp will go up a claimed nearly 9,000 such weapons to be “missing.”
penny early next year, to 45 cents. Postmaster General
Patrick Donahoe is also contemplating other changes, The State Department, which oversees the program, found
such as reducing delivery to five days per week, revising in a recent audit of sales from 2009, the most recent year
labor contracts, and further increasing postage prices, but for which publicly released data is available, that over a
he needs congressional approval to carry out his plans. quarter of the roughly 19,000 guns sold that year to the
region including Mexico were “diverted” or, in bureau-
With the closures and job losses, local deliveries of crat-speak, had other “unfavorable” results. For those
first-class mail will no longer be promised the next day; counting, that’s about 5,000 guns a year that are almost
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THE PaTrIOT POST WWW.PaTrIOTPOST.US FrIDay, DEcEmbEr 9, 2011
certainly winding up in criminal hands, all courtesy of be inspected. This woman, being in a wheelchair, tried
Team Hope ‘n’ Change. And, according to Attorney Gen- to lift a lightweight walker off her lap when the metal
eral Eric Holder, those guns will be turning up at crime bars banged against her leg, causing a bleeding gash due
scenes “for years to come,” and “it is going to continue to in part to her blood thinning medication. “My sock was
have tragic consequences.” soaked with blood,” she said. The TSA agents showed no
sympathy, instead pulling down her pants and asking her
In the wake of this additional buffoonery by the White to raise her arms. “Why are you doing this?” she asked
House, it’s reasonable to think that the “Fast and Furious” the agents, who, being good, unthinking brownshirts, did
operation itself would have faded into oblivion. However, not respond. The TSA later both denied the incidents and
as long as new controversies surrounding this operation claimed that agents were just following protocol. We find
keep arising -- this week, for example, comes the revela- the official response as cold as the agents’ behavior.
tion that ATF officials sought to leverage the operation to
implement draconian reporting requirements on U.S. gun Clearly, we’re all guilty until proven innocent in the
dealers -- “Fast and Furious” will remain in the headlines. TSA’s eyes, all for the sake of avoiding politically incor-
After all, as Holder maintained, “I have no intention of rect profiling or more targeted searches. This is nothing
resigning.” more than tyranny and oppression from our own govern-
ment, and it must stop.
The BIG Lie
Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) to Eric Holder: “Tell Department of Military Correctness:
me what’s the difference between lying and misleading ‘Workplace Violence’
Congress, in this context?” During a joint session of the House and Senate Homeland
Security Committee this week, even liberal Senate Repub-
Holder’s response: “Well, if you want to have this legal lican Susan Collins of Maine rightly took issue with the
conversation, it all has to do with your state of mind and Obama administration’s depiction of the Fort Hood mas-
whether or not you had the requisite intent to come up sacre in 2009. She referenced a letter from the Defense
with something that would be considered perjury or a lie.” Department that read, in part, “The documents attached
illustrate how the Department is dealing with the threat
TSA Abuses Continue Apace of violent Islamist extremism in the context of a broader
“They who can give up Essential Liberty to obtain a little threat of workplace violence.” Workplace violence? And
temporary safety, deserve neither Liberty nor safety.” So here we thought they would classify it as an “expression
said one of our nation’s Founders, Benjamin Franklin, in of faith” protected by the First Amendment.
1775. Nowhere is Franklin’s keen insight better exempli-
fied than by what the Transportation Security Adminis- On the contrary, as Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) put it, the
tration has become. The stories of TSA oppression are military has become a “direct target of violent Islamist
legion, but it appears that this holiday travel season may extremism.” Indeed, as The Washington Times reports,
be a record breaker. jihadis are trying to infiltrate the military, likely in hopes
of perpetrating another massacre. In other words, as with
Last week, crack TSA goons prevented a teenage girl from most things, the administration has it exactly backward.
boarding her flight to Jacksonville because her handbag There may be workplace violence, but it will be in the
had a gun design on the front of it. Yes, you read that right. context of a broader threat of Islamic extremism.
Agents told her, “This is a federal offense because it’s in
the shape of a gun.” The girl asked, “But it’s a design on Warfront With Jihadistan: Iran and the UAV
a purse. How is it a federal offense?” Agents refused an Iran claimed on Sunday to have shot down an advanced
answer, and she was delayed and missed her flight. American unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the RQ-170,
in eastern Iran. The Pentagon eventually acknowledged
Meanwhile, TSA abuse of the elderly continues apace at the loss but reported that it was due to command link
New York’s JFK airport. One woman in her 80s claimed malfunction, not hostile action, and that it was flying over
this week that agents made her pull down her waistband Afghanistan when the malfunction occurred. Western
to show her colostomy bag. Another 80-year-old woman media speculated wildly about who might gain access
said that she was forced to lower her pants and under- to the UAV’s technology (Russia and China), where the
wear in front of an agent so that her back brace could UAV had really been flying (Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan),
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THE PaTrIOT POST WWW.PaTrIOTPOST.US FrIDay, DEcEmbEr 9, 2011
and how it was lost (crash, anti-aircraft fire, Iran hijacking belief that they have regained some scintilla of credibility.
the command signal). On Thursday Iran released video Unfortunately, since they weren’t bright enough to fold
footage, but aviation enthusiasts around the world imme- ‘em the first time, they now find themselves ensnared in
diately noted the near-total lack of airframe damage, the Climategate II due to the recent release of another 5,300
clumsy appearance of the connection between wing and emails from ground zero of Climategate I.
fuselage, and numerous other oddities, all of which only
muddied the picture even further. These messages contain dire warnings about getting
caught manipulating data, such as the message from Peter
The important issue is what happens next. For starters, Thorne of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
China will win the bidding war with Russia to exploit Administration who wrote, “I also think the science is
any surviving technology from the UAV -- regrettable, being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for
but not terribly serious. Iran will have a new grievance all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.” Too
with which to complain of U.S. and Western “psycho- clever by half, Mr. Thorne.
logical warfare.” Iran’s leaders will wonder how many
other UAVs may be flying over their nation, and to what The hacker/leaker releasing these emails has advised that
purpose, adding to their already high level of paranoia. there are another 220,000 encrypted emails that may be
And we hope and expect the U.S. and our allies will go released at some future date. Unless these hoaxers quit
right on using UAVs and every other tool available to while they’re behind, the Warmists’ failure to heed the
keep pressure on Iran. 2011 has seen Iran make significant maxim “falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus” (false in one
strides on its path to nuclear capability, and the day of thing is false in all) may lead to Climategate III.
reckoning grows closer. Even the Obama administration
seems to realize that a charming personality and an expen- Village Academic Curriculum: Zero Tolerance
sive suit are not enough to change Iran’s behavior and that A North Carolina principal tendered his resignation this
military force may be required as the last resort. In that week, ending his 44-year career in education. He came
context, UAVs perform a valuable function in gathering under fire after suspending a nine-year-old boy, not
information and “shaping the battlefield.” for bullying or acting out in class, but for referring to a
teacher as “cute.” The principal was so busy overreacting
cULTUrE that he overlooked two key issues: The first is that sexual
Climate Change This Week: harassment is not so much about sex, but about power.
More Emails From East Anglia Even for those who could make the stretch to believe that
With the latest release of data massaged to suggest Hi- a nine-year-old could intend to sexually harass someone,
malayan glaciers are melting, previously discredited and he certainly didn’t have any power over a teacher to do
politically motivated climate-change charlatans from the so. Second, he didn’t even say it directly to the teacher,
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have but to another student. If not for a substitute teacher who
failed to learn the Rogers Rule. Derived from singer Kenny overheard the remark and a principal with an overdevel-
Rogers’s song “The Gambler,” it says you’ve got to know oped sense of political correctness, the boy would have
when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em. It appears been like any other child, sitting in class or even engaging
that the Warmists within the IPCC are crummy gamblers. in -- heaven forbid -- a game of dodge ball. Instead, he
was branded as some sort of sex offender in training.
Climategate I, which involved the leak of thousands of
emails and documents from the University of East Anglia That all changed, however, when the Gaston County
Climate Research Unit, revealed that the climate change Schools superintendent heard the story. He assured the
industry is a hoax perpetrated by modern day snake oil boy’s mother that the suspension would not go on her
salesmen. Their livelihoods depended upon continuing a son’s record and that he would get extra classroom in-
scheme that claimed the climate would face irreparable struction to make up for time lost. He also told the prin-
harm unless leading industrial nations tithed hundreds of cipal that he could either resign or be fired. The principal
billions of tax dollars to poorer nations. To help maintain a chose the former, but he also complained that the superin-
fiction that requires far more blind faith than any religion, tendent’s actions were “politically motivated.”
scientists who disputed the contaminated data were ostra-
cized and denounced. Now these same characters are again Faith and Family: Atheist Claus
trying to spin the same old yarns under the wildly incorrect It just wouldn’t be the Christmas season without a bunch
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THE PaTrIOT POST WWW.PaTrIOTPOST.US FrIDay, DEcEmbEr 9, 2011
of atheists trying to ruin it for everyone else. This year, the world, became an answer to the Tea Party, and was
they set up a grotesque display on the lawn of the Loud- a cry against what we should all be angry about -- “not
oun County Courthouse in Virginia -- a crucified skeleton at big government but at the big banks that gutted the
in a Santa suit. Not surprisingly, the community was world economy and took billions in bailouts from the U.S.
outraged, and before long “Skeleton Claus” was mysteri- government.” Priceless. National Review’s Jonah Gold-
ously dismantled. berg wrote, “I’m not at all shocked by the suggestion that
Time’s editors want it to be the #1 news story of the year.
Rick Wingmore, the president of the Virginia Chapter But if you actually believe it was the most important news
of American Atheists, had the nerve to complain that the story of the year, it’s a very good sign you live in a liberal
Loudoun County sheriff was watching while a “vandal” bubble.” That’s putting it mildly.
took down the skeleton. A spokesperson for the sheriff
denied this and said they are “investigating” the mat- And Last...
ter. Of course, the list of suspects is nearly endless, as Speaking of the Occupy Movement, the Los Angeles
most people objected to such a display. Why the atheists’ Times reports, “Some Occupy L.A. arrestees feel trau-
disdain for Christ has extended to Santa is unclear, but it’s matized, might seek therapy.” They’re not traumatized
ironic that an organization with no respect for the beliefs by participating in a ridiculous movement that frequently
and traditions of others becomes angry when the favor is turned destructive or violent. No, they’re very upset about
returned. how they’ve been treated by police when they resist
removal or arrest. According to the Times, “Several [of
Meanwhile, Barack Obama, who just found Jesus after the the 300 arrestees in LA] said they felt traumatized after
most recent presidential poll showed his weakest support witnessing police use non-lethal force and being forced to
was from church-going voters, celebrated Hanukkah at wait for hours in zip-tie handcuffs. Some displayed cuts
the White House this week. He lit all the candles, but did on their wrists from the handcuffs. Others complained
so two weeks early, saying, “we never need an excuse for that they were forced to urinate in bags on the bus as they
a good party.” were transported to jails.” Sounds to us like a marked
improvement over the sanitary conditions at their camp.
Non Compos Mentis: Time’s ‘Story of the Year’ Regardless, whatever the therapy that’s involved here, we
Time magazine’s bizarre leftist antics are well known, just hope it includes taking a shower.
including their numerous controversial selections for
“Person of the Year.” This week, it’s their choice for the Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis! Nate Jackson
top U.S. news story of the year. But before we tell you for The Patriot Post Editorial Team. Read online at http://
their selection, here are a few candidates: the economy, patriotpost.us
the debt ceiling crisis, the European fiscal crisis, Osama
bin Laden’s death or the GOP presidential race. Time (Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s
chose none of those. Their top story of the year? Occupy way around the world, and for their families -- especially
Wall Street. families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines
and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense
Marveling over what began as “a couple hundred protest- of American liberty.)
ers demonstrating against the excesses of corporate execs”
in Manhattan, Time describes a movement that changed
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