Daily Digest for Tuesday

January 28, 2014

THE FOUNDATION

"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others." --Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1784

Editor's Note

If you're like most Americans, you don't plan to sit through another round of Obama's statist State of the Union rhetoric. However, tomorrow Mark Alexander will provide a succinct analysis of the more egregious deceptions from the teleprompters tonight. Stay tuned.

TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS

Hillary: Benghazi 'Biggest Regret'

Gearing up for a 2016 presidential bid, Hillary Clinton finally expressed sentiments concerning the terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi just prior to Obama's re-election. The former secretary of state said Monday, "You know, my biggest, you know, regret is what happened in Benghazi. It was a terrible tragedy, losing four Americans, two diplomats and now it's public, so I can say two CIA operatives, losing an ambassador like Chris Stevens, who was one of our very best and had served in Libya and across the Middle East and spoke Arabic." It's nice of her to espress her regrets, but what difference, at this point, does it make?

S&W Bolts California

California lawmakers may not be able to outright ban firearms, but they're adding enough regulatory hurdles to make it nearly impossible for gun manufacturers to continue doing business. Smith & Wesson is following the footsteps of Sturm, Ruger & Co. in ending California sales thanks to a bill requiring microstamping -- tiny engraving of information such as make, model and serial number -- on all new semiautomatic weapons and shell casings. S&W pointed out that "a number of studies have indicated that microstamping is unreliable, serves no safety purpose, is cost prohibitive and, most importantly, is not proven to aid in preventing or solving crimes." Therefore, "Smith & Wesson does not and will not include microstamping in its firearms." We applaud S&W for not caving to draconian gun control measures and for rejecting decrees from those who won't honor their oaths of office.

WashPo's Shooting Survival Guide

What's a person to do if an armed assailant enters the premise? Anything but fight back. That's the advice offered by The Washington Post in a piece titled "Protecting yourself during a shooting event." The leftist paper interviewed Move2Safety chief executive Matthew Maasdam, whose recommended survival tactics to employ in the event of a shooting consists of four steps: "Move to safety," "Look for an exit," "Take cover, stay low," and "Stay sharp." Notice none of these prescriptions involve the use of a firearm by law-abiding citizens to quickly and effectively eliminate the threat. The NRA's Wayne LaPierre was loudly chastised by the Leftmedia for remarking, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." On the contrary, his statement couldn't be more on target.

Working for Food Stamps

Barack Obama sure has brought about hope 'n' change. One big change is in food stamps. Some 47 million Americans now receive them at an exploding annual cost of $80 billion -- twice the price of five years ago. But another change is the demographics of the recipients of food stamps. For the first time, working-age Americans make up a majority of recipients. Food stamps have historically been a safety net for the young and the old, but in Obama's "recovery" working-age people need the help even more.

Sperm Donor Child Support

In a bizarre court ruling, a Kansas court ordered a sperm donor to pay child support to a lesbian mother because the two didn't use the proper channels when conceiving the child. The mother and her then-partner wanted to have a baby, so in 2009 they placed a Craigslist ad for a sperm donor and a man soon answered the call. The two made arrangements, the woman impregnated herself and a modern family was born. When the mother tried to get state-provided health insurance, however, the state refused, sued the father for $6,000 in previous child support and insisted he take up future payments. The state won, though the father plans to appeal. This is the Brave New World the Left has envisioned. No thanks.

For more, visit Right Hooks.

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RIGHT ANALYSIS

The Executive Order Branch

Barack Obama plans to use tonight's State of the Union address as a sort of reset to get his presidency back on track after a dismal 2013. The botched ObamaCare rollout, the IRS targeting scandal, and a host of other foreign and domestic setbacks, many of the White House's own making, sapped the energy of the administration and squandered the post re-election bounce Obama hoped to use to push his agenda.

Now the president says he's prepared to go it alone, and has threatened to enact his agenda unilaterally if Congress refuses to go along. No surprise, but Obama's statement indicates that he hasn't learned much from the overreach and blunders of last year. His senior staff somehow came to the conclusion that he was governing too much like a prime minister and plans for him to govern even more like a king. Maybe this former constitutional law professor could take a cue from our Constitution and actually govern like a president.

Senior adviser Dan Pfieffer lamented that the Obama team didn't have a campaign to keep them focused in 2013, so expect the White House to return to full campaign mode going forward. This is unlikely to help improve Obama's fortunes, however, as such a mentality is more likely to lead to a greater partisan divide with little opportunity for deal-making. But Obama is not a deal maker, so that probably suits him just fine.

The president will have an opportunity to test his new governing theory come February with the next debt ceiling crisis. Obama and congressional Democrats want a "clean" debt limit hike with no strings attached, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already signaled that it won't happen. He would prefer to attach something to the hike that either approves the Keystone XL pipeline or otherwise positively addresses the nation's fiscal problems. Democrats are betting that the political damage Republicans suffered over recent debt ceiling fights will keep them from pushing the issue, and they're using America's economic security as collateral.

The GOP Health Care Alternative

Just last week, we relayed some ideas for what conservative health care reform might look like. As it so happens, GOP Senators Tom Coburn, Orrin Hatch and Richard Burr released their own plan on Monday -- the Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment Act. The proposal has two primary elements: repealing ObamaCare (though it would re-implement some aspects of it) and working to restore the consumer -- not the federal government -- to the center of health care. The goal is to get as close to universal coverage as possible.
To get there, the reform plan boils down to a few elements. All Americans at or below 300% of the federal poverty level who do not have employer-provided health insurance would receive a tax credit for the purchase of insurance. States could then establish an opt-out auto-enrollment program for the remaining uninsured, placing them in private plans with premiums priced at exactly their tax credit. Consumers would have a choice to participate or not, or to buy more or less coverage, free from the bureaucratic mandates central to ObamaCare.
Another element would allow small businesses to pool together to secure better rates on insurance, while states could work to enable the purchase of insurance across state lines. As for those with pre-existing conditions, the proposal would offer a one-time sign-up period for everyone, protect people with continuous coverage when they switch plans, and provide for covering those with higher costs through state high-risk pools.
Currently, ObamaCare prevents insurance companies from charging more than three times as much for older people as they do for younger people, which only drives up the price for everyone. The GOP proposal would ease that by allowing insurance companies to charge older customers a more traditional five times as much, though states could cap that at a lower amount.
Furthermore, tort reform is a key part of the proposal, as is an effort to make prices more transparent. (Ever try to ask what treatment costs beforehand?)
Like the ideas we noted last week, this proposal is a good beginning in the effort to replace ObamaCare. We'd certainly prefer to see even more free market aspects and less government control -- this proposal deregulates without getting the federal government out of the health care sector. But we also have to acknowledge that ObamaCare has moved the political baseline for health care policy, and any effort at moving policy back to the Right will require accounting for that reality before changing it.
For more, visit Right Analysis.

TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS

Ed Feulner: A Smarter Strategy Needed in Afghanistan
Tony Perkins: State of the Dictatorship
William Murchison: Shut Up, She Explained
Thomas Sowell: The Inequality Bogeyman
Michael Barone: A Lackluster Year for Obama and His Would-Be Successors

For more, visit Right Opinion.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Columnist Mona Charen: "Only 28 percent of respondents to a recent Harris Poll say they plan to watch the State of the Union address. Some of those are lying. It's clear the Obama charm has worn extremely thin. ... Obama will boast that he has a 'pen and a phone.' He can use his pen to relax some of the job-depressing regulations his administration has imposed, particularly in the health, financial and energy sectors. He can use his phone to approve the Keystone pipeline. And he could use his influence to extol the essential habits of success, without which more and more Americans will fail to flourish. ... But that would require more imagination than Obama has ever demonstrated. Instead, he'll stubbornly continue to push policies that have failed everywhere they've been tried. When they fail for him, he will blame Republicans. Once hailed as a messiah, he's now revealed as just a mess."

Columnist Dennis Prager: "[I]f what bothers you most is evil -- the deliberate infliction of cruelty on people by people -- North Korea, Congo, China, Syria and radical Islam will bother you more than anything else on the world scene. So, then, what was the subject of the meeting convened Friday by the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights? The alleged racism of the name of the National Football League's Washington team, the Redskins. That's right. All these horrific evils are happening as you read this, and the second-ranking official in charge of human rights at the United Nations had a meeting about the name Washington Redskins. ... This left-wing obsession with a non-evil exemplifies the left's moral universe. That universe is preoccupied with lesser evils while nearly always ignoring the greatest evils."

Columnist Burt Prelutsky: "I think that when Obama and his thugs demand that an order of nuns or anyone else who holds sincere religious beliefs caves to the power of the state, it behooves us to stand and declare, whatever our religion or gender, that we are all Sisters of the Poor. Judas betrayed Christ for 30 pieces of silver. This administration would have Christians betray their convictions for a handful of birth control pills and publically-funded abortions."

Comedian Argus Hamilton: "President Obama in his State of the Union will announce new NSA guidelines to guard against unconstitutional snooping. They are strict. The NSA can no longer violate your privacy rights and glean your personal information, that job has been outsourced to Target."

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team

Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform -- Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen -- standing in harm's way in defense of Liberty, and for their families.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

THE PATRIOT POST 01/28/2014