The Patriot Post Wednesday Digest 9-11-2013

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The Patriot Post Wednesday Digest 9-11-2013
From The Federalist Patriot
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September 11, 2013

THE FOUNDATION

"Speak seldom, but to important subjects, except such as particularly relate to your constituents, and, in the former case, make yourself perfectly master of the subject." --George Washington

NATIONAL SECURITY
An Impaired Speech

The commander in chief addressed the nation last night regarding Syria. The address had been planned to bolster support for a military strike against Bashar al-Assad's regime for its alleged use of chemical weapons against rebel fighters. But, thanks to Secretary of State John Kerry's gaffe resulting in yesterday's Russian proposal to "secure" and dismantle Syria's weapons, Obama's address ended up merging two speeches -- one pleading for congressional authorization for an imminent attack and another asking Congress to delay its vote until a diplomatic solution plays out.

As former Ronald Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote, "It was a time filler: The White House had asked for the time and had to fill it."

The basic problem is that Obama's actions are not governed by overarching principles related to Liberty or our Constitution. Every action is judged on its political merit only. Thus, in the case of Syria, the politically expedient thing for Obama to do, having backed himself into a corner on the Syrian "red line," was to outsource our policy in the region to Russia, under the pretense of a "diplomatic solution," when in fact, Russia's only interest is to keep Assad in power in order to maintain its only military base in the region.

Either attacking Syria is in our national security interest or it isn't. Either chemical weapons use crosses the "red line" and means Assad must be removed or it doesn't. Obama came to the American people last night saying "all and none of the above." In other words, bad strategy, foggy objectives and no persuasive reason to follow his lead. At least the speech was brief.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Hope 'n' Change: ObamaCare Exchanges

The ObamaCare insurance exchanges currently being set up are designed to put enormous power into the hands of state and federal bureaucracies, according to a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine by Brookings Institution economist Henry Aaron and Georgetown University's Kevin Lucia. The exchanges, whether they be set up by Washington, as 33 states have chosen, or by the states themselves, will expand the reach and scope of government management in health care on an unprecedented level.

According to Aaron and Lucia, "Exchanges can set additional standards for the quality of care paid for by plans, bar plans that do not meet quality or price standards, and selectively contract with those that do." Those standards, of course, will be determined by an arbitrary panel of "experts" -- unelected, unaccountable death panels. States will also be able to bar the sale of insurance to individuals and small businesses outside the exchanges, creating a virtual monopoly over the choices that people may seek. Given that Democrats' goal is single-payer government health care, this is hardly surprising.

These are just a couple of examples of what ObamaCare has in store for the American health care system. Until now, we have been focused on the pratfalls and screw-ups of the federal government trying to get this Byzantine system up and running. Sooner or later that comedy will be superseded by the tragedy of real-life enactment.

ECONOMY
Income Redistribution: Work to Welfare

Forget troublesome unemployment rates. With welfare like the Obama administration offers, who needs a job? According to a recent Cato Institute report, "The current welfare system provides such a high level of benefits that it acts as a disincentive for work." In 35 states, welfare pays more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, and in 13 states welfare pays more than $15 per hour. It's hardly a shock, then, that welfare's ranks are growing.

Last month marked another new record for the number of households receiving food stamps -- 23,116,928. And while in 2008, 28.2 million individuals received food stamps, in 2012 that number hit 46.6 million, with concomitant costs spiking from almost $35 billion in 2008 to approximately $80 billion four years later. Barack Obama has apparently taken this as a mandate not to encourage welfare-to-work but, what else, to offer food stamps to illegal immigrants. Just visit the Mexican Embassy and you might see the Spanish-language USDA flyer saying that legal immigration status isn't a requisite for dining at Uncle Sam's table. But don't worry, you've got the bill.

CULTURE
Climate Change This Week: AGW = More AND Less Hurricanes

Climate blogger Steven Goddard observed, "Over the last five hurricane seasons, the US has had a total of three hurricane strikes -- Irene, Issac and Sandy. This few hurricanes has happened only twice before -- in 1984 and 1866."

The conclusion here is obvious: We were told that anthropogenic global warming -- now conveniently referred to as "climate change" -- would result in a significant increase in the number and intensity of hurricanes. But what the Goracle and his minions really meant was that global warming would result in an increase and decrease in the number of hurricanes.

Got it?

Meanwhile, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that over the next 50 years, the planet will actually cool, not warm. The IPCC, of course, is the organization whose 2007 report on the devastating effects of man-made global warming earned it and Al Gore a Nobel Peace Price. Six years later, it's "never mind."

BRIEF OPINION
Essential Liberty

Columnist David Limbaugh: "By seeking transformational change, Obama does not mean that he wants to return unemployment and economic growth to their traditional levels. He doesn't mean that he wants to ensure that America remains the world's lone superpower, committed to defending itself and its allies and to opposing radical jihadis in the war on terror. ... He means moving toward equality of outcomes to achieve 'fairness.' ... Obama has been not only preaching 'fairness' but deliberately lowering Americans' expectations for future growth. ... What is going on in this nation is breathtaking to those who love America as founded and as embodying the greatest principles of self-governance in world history. If we are to have any hope of rolling some of this insanity back in the short term and ultimately preventing Obama's goal of fundamental change, we must, at the very least, call Obama out on exactly what he's doing and do our best to re-establish the traditional yardsticks against which to measure his failures."