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« on: October 18, 2013, 01:41:24 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Wednesday Digest 10-16-2013
From The Federalist Patriot
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THE FOUNDATION
“We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again.” –George Washington
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Strategic Blunders Cost GOP
The Republican strategy is a mess – so much so that Tuesday night the House GOP abandoned its proposal to fund the government through Dec. 15 and raise the debt ceiling through Feb. 7 in exchange for stripping the medical device tax from ObamaCare and forcing members of Congress and their staffers to live with the law. Speaker John Boehner’s plan was similar to the Senate’s version, but many Republicans objected to getting too few concessions on ObamaCare. The Senate proposal, which is also a temporary measure, includes just one ObamaCare tweak: An effort to verify incomes for subsidy seekers. The bottom line is that real concessions will not come until the GOP wins the White House.
The Obama Treasury Department says the nation has until Thursday before it sort of runs out of money, but as we’ve noted previously1, that’s an overblown fear even if it does have markets on edge. Yet Fitch Ratings, the third-largest credit agency, threatened to downgrade the U.S.’s AAA rating due to “political brinksmanship and reduced financing flexibility.”
It’s unfortunate that at the very moment of ObamaCare’s Hindenburg-like launch, Republicans stole the spotlight with ill-considered strategy2. House Republicans did manage post-shutdown to pass numerous partial measures putting Democrats on the spot, but it shouldn’t have come to that. All they had to do was get out of the way. Since the launch of Healthcare.gov on Oct. 1, the news cycle should have been dominated with stories3 of its outrageous cost, the overall technical disaster, no enrollees in several states and made-up ones in others, sticker shock for the few who successfully navigated the site and condemnation even from Obama allies. Instead, GOP infighting over strategy and tactics became the focus. And the end result will be that the government reopens and ObamaCare lumbers on.
ECONOMY
Supreme Court to Consider EPA Regulations
The Obama administration has been zealously waging its “war on coal” through EPA regulations on carbon emissions that will both endanger plans for new coal plants and effectively shutter existing ones because the plants can’t meet emissions standards. In June 2012, a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, upheld every contention the administration made to defend its regulations – from the assumption that greenhouse gases are causing global warming to the authority of the EPA to basically do whatever it wants to combat it. Now the U.S. Supreme Court will weigh in.
Unfortunately, the High Court is only considering the part of the appeals court ruling dealing with permitting requirements; they are leaving in tact the lower court’s finding on emissions and climate change, which, as we often recount in this space, is dubious at best. But SCOTUS found in 2007 that the Clean Air Act, which doesn’t define CO2 as a pollutant, nevertheless gives the EPA broad authority to regulate carbon emissions, so it’s not surprising that the Court is leaving that issue alone. That earlier ruling focused on vehicles and mileage standards, while this latest case deals with the question of power plants and other stationary facilities.
Though the administration urged the Court to reject the case, EPA chief Gina McCarthy applauded the justices' decision on a narrow hearing, which she said “confirms that EPA has the authority to protect public health by reducing carbon pollution.” Such Orwellian spin is hard to take from an agency that shackles the U.S. economy with incredibly burdensome regulations. Expect a decision in the case by June 2014.
NATIONAL SECURITY
Warfront With Jihadistan: Iraq’s Undoing
The mission in Iraq wasn’t accomplished when President George W. Bush made one of his most famous missteps in 2003, but by the time he left office, Iraq was seemingly on its way to becoming a model Middle Eastern nation. It was a status forged with the generous assistance of American troops to provide security and keep the remnants of the once-fearsome al-Qaida at bay.
Yet less than five years later the nation is once again in the grip of a religious sectarian war, with al-Qaida targeting Shi'ites, the Islamic sect mainly represented in the current Iraqi government. Since American troops left the country in 2011, the pace and scope of violence – including car and suicide bombings, prison breaks freeing hundreds of formerly detained al-Qaida members, and other random violence – has accelerated to a point where 700 or more Iraqis have perished each month in attacks since April. Moreover, al-Qaida is strongest in the western part of the country, affording the group easy access to intercede in the Syrian war as well.
Obviously the vacuum left by the departure of American troops has been filled by al-Qaida, which as a group was “on a path to defeat,”4 according to Barack Obama. If that path meanders through the undoing of what thousands of American troops accomplished at the cost of much blood and treasure, Obama doesn’t seem to mind.
Under this regime, America is quickly transitioning to the position of weakness we had prior to 9/11; meanwhile, Iraqis, once optimistic, are still looking for stability after a decade. It’s a sad state of affairs for a country that had such high hopes half a decade ago.
CULTURE
Village Academic Curriculum: NCLB Deadlines Loom
Twelve years ago, No Child Left Behind set out to ensure that by 2014, all students would reach proficient levels on state tests. With the big deadline just around the corner, eight states are far from ready5, with up to 74% of schools in these states missing the mark. Not that the other 42 states and DC are prepared – no, they opted to get waivers from the mandate.
Of the remaining states, three – Illinois, Iowa, and Wyoming – have waiver applications pending, but for the rest, the costs of not making the grade may be high and, in some cases, unachievable. For example, while NCLB promises that a child can choose to move to another school, in Montana, another school may be a significant distance away. And while many schools in states missing the deadline will need to continue providing tutors, in rural areas state-approved tutors are harder to come by. When asked about the consequences of missing the deadline, Education Secretary Arne Duncan advised Montana’s education head Denise Juneau to get a waiver. Hardly comforting. Indeed, when a federal mandate is so onerous that the government’s best advice is to request exemption from it, that’s a sure sign it was a bad idea to begin with. What’s next, ObamaCare waivers? Oh, wait… |
