Wednesday, January 29, 2014

THE PATRIOT POST 01/29/2014

Daily Digest for Wednesday

January 29, 2014

THE FOUNDATION

"A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must, in practice, be a bad government." --Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

Editor's Note

If you're like most Americans, you didn't sit through another round of Obama's statist State of the Union rhetoric. So Mark Alexander did the dirty work for you. Don't miss his succinct analysis of the more egregious deceptions from the teleprompters -- 2014 SOTU: The MO BO Show.

TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS

SOTU Quick Hits

Here are a couple of teasers to kick things off. Barack Obama said last night, "I'm committed to making Washington work better, and rebuilding the trust of the people who sent us here." (This from a proven -- and pathological -- liar, the most disingenuous executive branch occupant in our nation's history.) He also said, "Wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that's what I'm going to do. ... Citizenship means standing up for the lives that gun violence steals from us each day. ... I intend to keep trying, with or without Congress ..." (This was a thinly veiled threat to use executive orders to overstep the Second Amendment proscription on government interference with "the right of the people to keep and bear arms.")

The Narcissist's SOTU

Benjamin Franklin once said, "Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason." Case in point, last night's State of the Union address was all about one person: Barack Obama. The narcissist in chief referred to himself a whopping 74 times during the speech ("I" x 50, "my" x 11, "me" x 11," and "as president" twice). Obama's inability to shove his entire agenda through Congress has only elevated his plan of ruling by executive decree when he can't get his way -- a governing more reminiscent of a king or a dictator. Some "man of the people."

State of Disunion

Just in time for last night's State of the Union address, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that the "union" isn't so unified. A whopping 71% of Americans aren't satisfied with the economy, though this isn't surprising given the sorry state of Obama's "recovery." Only 31% think the country is better off than when Obama took office in 2009, and just 28% think we're headed in the right direction. It's going to take a lot more than a teleprompted speech to fix all of that.

Pelosi on GOP Opposition

Nancy Pelosi registered her complaint about how mean Republicans are to dare to oppose Barack Obama's leftist agenda. She swears that such opposition is new and different: "We did not treat President Bush this way," she said. "We thought we had a responsibility to work with the president to get a job done for the American people and we did. This obstruction to President Obama is something quite stunning. It's something quite different." It's laughable to think that Democrats treated Bush with anything approaching respect, but what's also "quite different" is just how far Left Democrats have taken us.

Coburn Loses Doctor

Sen. Tom Coburn, who is retiring at the end of his term this year, signed up for ObamaCare to show that he's not exempting himself from a law forced on the rest of us. However, the change means that he lost his oncologist while he's fighting cancer. Coburn remains upbeat, saying, "I'm doing well from a health standpoint, got great docs. Fortunately -- even though my new coverage won't cover my specialist -- I'm going to have great care and I have a great prognosis." That's because he's going to pay out of pocket to keep the doctor he likes. Once again, so much for Obama's promises.

For more, visit Right Hooks.

RIGHT ANALYSIS

Plowing the Farm Bill

Time for another farm bill.

Lost in the arguments over the budget and debt ceiling in the last few months was another disagreement over the fate of a wide-ranging 959-page farm bill formally called the Agriculture Act of 2014. At one time House Republicans crowed about two major accomplishments in reauthorizing the spending: a separation of the actual farming portion of the bill from food stamps that account for the bulk of the spending, and then cutting $40 billion from food stamps over a 10-year period. The federal food stamp program is known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

But yet again we're not surprised that House negotiators wimped out when push came to shove. The bills were reunited in conference, thereby making the food stamp program, which is rapidly becoming a staple of middle-class life for working-age Americans, the largest part of the farm bill for years to come. They also ratcheted down the promised $4 billion in annual spending-growth cuts to a paltry $800 million. Moreover, while the House successfully ended the $5 billion direct payment program, they didn't eliminate other subsidies, including a sugar subsidy that, for one thing, has driven a significant portion of our candy manufacturing to other countries. All told, the new farm bill reduces spending growth by a paltry $1.6 billion annually -- a total that could easily be wiped out if a modest additional increase in SNAP occurs.

While reversing the trend toward making farmers wards of the government by eliminating all risk was perhaps too lofty of a goal -- one farm-state Republicans reject outright anyway -- the modest cuts announced by the House Agriculture Committee are little more than a rounding error in overall spending while maintaining an unsustainable status quo.

As agribusiness has consolidated from a patchwork quilt of more than six million mainly small family farms during the Great Depression to a far smaller segment of the population, the goal of farm subsidies has evolved from helping to feed the family and having a little left over to sell to making millions from government assistance. The "farm" portion of the bill is now little more than corporate welfare that artificially props up the price of food. And then we use food stamps to pay consumers to buy the food. That way Democrats and Republicans both get all the pork they want. No wonder costs are exploding.

GOP Prepares for 2016

All politics may be local, but the process of selecting the 2016 Republican presidential nominee just got a national tweak. The Republican National Committee (RNC) this week voted 153-9 to modify the primary rules, protecting the cherished early-primary voting of some states (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada), while creating disincentives for early voting in other states. As The Hill reports, "The four designated early states will be required to hold their contests in February. States that vote between March 1 and March 14 will be required to award their delegates proportionally, weakening their impact, while states with primaries after that will assign their delegates in a winner-take-all contest, making them much more consequential in the delegate count and adding an incentive to wait."

Rule-breaking states will be penalized by netting far fewer delegates at the nominating convention. In other words, the cold shoulder Florida received in 2012 for holding an early primary could turn into a much worse penalty in 2016. The new rules -- combined with the RNC's plan for an earlier national convention -- could mean an earlier finalization of the Republican nominee.

The jury is still out on whether this will prove beneficial for the GOP in 2016. But many in the party blame the brutal primary process in 2012 for weakening Mitt Romney, thereby aiding Barack Obama's re-election effort. Romney's loss is far more complicated than that, however, which leaves us wondering: Did the GOP learn any lessons?

For more, visit Right Analysis.

TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS

Michelle Malkin: Standing Up Against Wealth-Shaming
John Stossel: Re-State of the Union
Jacob Sullum: Let 50 Cannabis Flowers Bloom
Arnold Ahlert: Clinton 'Regrets' Benghazi
Jonah Goldberg: Hollywood, Propaganda and Liberal Politics

For more, visit Right Opinion.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Economist Walter E. Williams: "Though sports and Hollywood personalities earn multiples of CEO salaries, you'll never find leftists and progressives picketing and criticizing them. Why? The strategy for want-to-be tyrants is to demonize people whose power they want to usurp. That's the typical way tyrants gain power. They give the masses someone to hate. ... [T]here is no way that politicians could usurp the roles of Drew Brees, Kobe Bryant, Robert Downey Jr. and Oprah Winfrey. That means celebrities can make any amount of money they want and it matters not one iota politically. Do you think President Barack Obama would stoke the fires of hate and envy by remarking that he thinks that 'at a certain point, you've made enough money' ... in regard to the salaries of Winfrey, Brees and Hollywood celebrities?"

Columnist Terence Jeffrey: "Americans may look back in a few decades and see that 2007 was the year that production of electricity peaked in the United States and our nation began powering down. This may make many on the environmentalist left ... very happy. But it will not make life better for you, your children or your grandchildren. ... John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, joined in 1995 with Paul Ehrlich ... and Gretchen Daily ... to co-author a chapter in a book published by the World Bank. The chapter was entitled, 'The Meaning of Sustainability: Biogeophysical Aspects.' ... As President Obama moves forward with his plans for America's future energy production and economic well-being, Americans should remember that Obama's science and technology adviser declared 19 years ago that 'a world of zero net physical growth' was something that 'needs to be faced up to eventually.'"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832): "Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean."

Sen. Mike Lee: "Government-driven inequality is the reason why, as hard-working families across the country struggle to make ends meet, six of the 10 wealthiest counties in America are now suburbs of Washington, DC. Throughout the last five years, President Obama has promised an economy for the middle class; but all he's delivered is an economy for the middle-men."

Humorist Frank J. Fleming: "Worst part of SOTU was where Obama said, 'Freedom, religion, and the sun must be destroyed for my plan to work.' ... Obama's idea to decrease the deficit by increasing spending on Opposite Day doesn't sound like a great plan. ... The part where Obama tried to get the Republicans to sing 'Imagine' along with him was really awkward."

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

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