The Patriot Post Friday Digest 8-30-2013

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The Patriot Post Friday Digest 8-30-2013
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Syria Question

August 30, 2013

THE FOUNDATION

"There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness." --George Washington

NATIONAL SECURITY
The Syria Question

"We have concluded that the Syrian government in fact carried these [chemical weapons attacks] out," says tough-talking Barack Obama. Yet there is some doubt that Bashar al-Assad himself actually ordered the chemical attacks. U.S. intelligence officials call the evidence "not a slam dunk," while British intelligence concludes that there is "a limited but growing body of intelligence which supports the judgement that the regime was responsible for the attacks." The alternate theory is that a possible rogue commander ordered the attacks. However, the practical effect of whether it was such a rogue official or Assad himself is of little import.

Either way, action against Assad's regime is not a sure thing at the moment, despite Obama's naive and ill-advised "red line" threat, and his current insistence that he can go it alone if need be. In the UK, an ally Obama hoped to "lead from behind," Parliament rejected Prime Minister David Cameron's appeal to follow Obama to war, leaving France as the president's only possible ally.

Obama, meanwhile, isn't worrying about Congress -- whatever he does will be on his own there too. Unfortunately, the administration has telegraphed its punches1, and an unnamed U.S. official noted that Obama wants a strike against Syria "just muscular enough not to get mocked." Now there's a bold foreign policy. U.S. military action in service of Obama's ego is not in our national interest.

The former community organizer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate is trying desperately to look presidential with his proposed "shot across the bow," but the reality is that the deterioration in the Middle East is in large measure thanks to his failed foreign policy, which has given rise to the "Arab Fall2." Wasn't this the man who bragged in 2009 that he'd "restored America's standing in the world"?

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
More Gun-Grabbing Executive Orders

Shamelessly exploiting the nation's grief-stricken state last December after the murder of 20 children and seven adults in Newtown, Connecticut, Barack Obama announced that he would bypass Congress and sign 23 executive orders to "do something" about "gun violence." At Thursday's ceremonial swearing-in of new ATF director Todd Jones, the White House announced two new orders3.

One order closes the "loophole" that allowed the registration of a firearm to a National Firearms Act (NFA) trust or corporation, which the White House claims provided a way for "felons, domestic abusers, and others prohibited from having guns [to] easily evade the required background check and gain access to machine guns or other particularly dangerous weapons." By "machine guns," of course, they mean semiautomatic rifles. But when was the last time an inner city thug went to the trouble of securing a firearm through an NFA trust before perpetrating a drive-by shooting?

The second order prevents anyone save museums from buying firearms previously exported from the U.S. to allied military forces. "This new policy will help keep military-grade firearms off our streets," the White House said. The Left continually complains about guns "on our streets" in order to scare people, though the White House "fact sheet" didn't point to a single crime committed with these guns. What it does mean is that ex-military M1 Garands -- not exactly the gang banger's weapon of choice -- will be even harder to come by. No word on how this order will affect illicit government sales to Mexican drug cartels.

ECONOMY
Hope 'n' Change: Euphemisms and Delays

Another week means yet another major delay for ObamaCare. This week, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it was postponing signing agreements with insurance plans to be sold on the federal exchanges starting Oct. 1. HHS claims the delay will only be a couple of weeks and that it won't affect the open enrollment period that begins in October. The reason for the holdup may have to do with technical difficulties in coordinating the display of insurance information on the federal online system. The delay reaches all 34 states that opted to let the federal government maintain exchanges for them.

Meanwhile, the IRS issued final rules this week regarding the individual mandate. The rules define what constitutes minimum essential coverage, the level of responsibility individuals hold for family members, and how the mandate applies to employees on union-sponsored plans and in other unique employment situations. Interestingly, the agency, which will be responsible for making sure people comply with the new insurance rules, was careful to avoid the word "tax" when describing the penalty people face for not maintaining minimum coverage. The new euphemism of choice is "shared responsibility payment." Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts ruled in 2012 that the individual mandate was constitutional only if it was in fact a tax. But that's a politically inconvenient word and it disproves Barack Obama's claim that he isn't raising taxes on the middle class. So, "shared responsibility payment" it is.

Finally, according to the president, we have nothing to worry about. He told reporters this week, "For a lot of people, [ObamaCare] will be cheaper than your cell phone bill." And probably just as effective at helping you obtain health insurance, too.

CULTURE
A Half-Century Later, Still a Dream

Fifty years ago on the National Mall, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. told a diverse audience that he had a dream of a nation where people "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." On the Aug. 28 anniversary of that iconic address, an audience marked by its lack of ideological diversity heard a succession of speakers bemoan the lack of economic progress attained by blacks -- this despite all the "advantages" that feel-good liberal government could dole out.

In 1963, King thundered about the injustice that "the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity." Today, that island of poverty is the Democrats' poverty plantation. Government handouts and a cynically played party loyalty system have yielded nothing more than slavery for many. They just don't see it.

In the age of Obama, all things are political. While Republicans such as House leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor reportedly declined invitations4 to the ceremony, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the nation's sole black senator, was snubbed. King was not a politician, but his legacy has become a political football. "Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom," he once reminded his listeners, "by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred." Yet bitterness and hatred seem to be all the leaders of today's civil rights industry have to offer. Sadly, theirs is nothing more than a bald-faced betrayal of Dr. King's dream.