The Patriot Post Digest 1-28-2014

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The Patriot Post Digest 1-28-2014
From The Federalist Patriot
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Daily Digest

Jan. 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 Hooks1.
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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.