While John McCain was playing kissy face with John Kerry in
Kerry’s confirmation hearing, Dianne Feinstein was pushing gun
control, Obama was planning immigration legislation, and Leon
Panetta was lifting the ban on women serving in combat. There was
so much SGO in Obama’s full court oppress last week, we need to
take some time and sort it all out.
(For those just joining us, “SGO” is an acronym for “s*** going
on,” a comprehensively useful term coined by former SEAL Al
Clark.)
If John Kerry were Barry Obama, he’d spend the next four years
blaming his predecessor for the sorry mess the world is in that
he’s inheriting from Hillary Clinton. But after Hillary’s bravura
performance in last week’s Benghazi hearing, Kerry should ask her
for a tutoring session. Clinton, claiming responsibility for the
Benghazi disaster, then denied knowledge of or involvement in any
aspect of the attack, saying that someone else had knowledge of and
responsibility for the long list of errors that ended with four
dead Americans. It was the best performance since her best pupil
claimed he “didn’t have sexual relations with that woman, Ms.
Lewinsky.”
Kerry will also find the double Islamic play combo — from
Afghanistan to Libya to Mali — somewhat difficult to deal with.
Kerry said that he wanted to focus on global warming so he’ll try
to ignore the effects of Obama’s ill-advised intervention in Libya
which has so far resulted in terrorists being armed all across
northern Africa with arms flowing from Libya’s arms caches. Vichy
John Kerry may again find common cause with the French intervention
in Mali, another comprehensively bad idea. He and Chuckie Hagel
will get along just fine, giving gifts to our Islamic enemies such
as the twenty F-16s we’re giving to Egypt’s president Muslim
Brotherhoodlum Mohammed Morsi.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) was brave enough to ask Hillary about
the abject lies she, Obama, and UN Ambassador Rice spread by
insisting for weeks that the attack on the Benghazi consulate was a
spontaneous demonstration against an obscure anti-Islamic video.
But Hillary was prepared with righteous indignation and even tears.
She shouted back at him, “What difference at this point does it
make?”
None whatever, except that another chance was lost to hold Team
Obama responsible for its manifest errors. But, as usual, Johnson
and the rest of the Republican senators were less tough and
resolute than Clinton. Part of their irresolution may reflect the
fact that they came to the hearing fresh from their party’s annual
“retreat” in Williamsburg, Va. Subsequent to the retreat, Speaker
Boehner’s statement that Obama was trying to annihilate the
Republican Party resulted in the RNC’s decision to decamp from his
D.C. headquarters to permanent positions in Lord Cornwallis’s
former entrenchments in Yorktown, Virginia. The RNC is rumored to
be asking the French government for the architectural drawings for
the Maginot Line.
Meanwhile, Beyoncé apparently lip-synched the national anthem at
Obama’s inauguration, to the dismay of the Marine Band. Later in
the week, while announcing an appointment, a housefly buzzed
persistently around the president’s head apparently detecting food
content in Obama’s words.
The White House flies were apparently dealt with before Obama’s
interview aired last night, side-by-side with Hillary, to praise
her performance as secretary of state. The only fly buzzing around
was Joey Biden, kept outside the room, who may have lost his shot
at the 2016 presidential nomination with Obama’s praise of
Clinton.
Late in the week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
threw out Obama’s “recess” appointments to the National Labor
Relations Board because they were made when the Senate wasn’t in
recess. The court’s action invalidates about 300 NLRB rulings over
the past year as well as rulings by the Consumer Finance Protection
Board which is chaired by another Obama “recess” appointee, Rich
Cordray. This will rein in Obama’s appointments because he — and
future presidents — can’t decide for themselves when the Senate is
in session or not. (Just for laughs, constitutional law expert
Obama might want to re-read Article 1, Section 5 of the
Constitution which says that the House and Senate make their own
rules and procedures, which means they decide when they’re in
session or not.)
The courts will be busy sorting out what the NLRB and CFPB did
while the illegal appointees ruled the day. In the meantime,
companies that suffered from the rulings by illegal appointees
would be well advised to ignore them.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal.) led her gun controllers to the
podium to push her new version of the “assault weapons” ban. Her
bill, as I
pointed out a few weeks ago, is probably unconstitutional as
Justice Scalia’s opinion says in the Supreme Court’s D.C. v.
Heller decision.
In an effort to show how reasonable her approach is, DiFi’s bill
lists hundreds of weapons that aren’t banned. I’m sure that the
Holland and Holland people, makers of some of the world’s best
shotguns, are relieved to see that their “Royal Series” of elegant
shotguns — each of which costs upwards of $100,000 — aren’t
banned. I’m waiting for a stimulus program that will entitle each
gentleman shooter to buy a pair at government expense.
DiFi’s bill makes for some pretty hilarious conversations among
gun cognoscenti.
For example, the bill bans guns such as the Ruger Mini-14 and
Remington 870 shotgun if they have folding stocks or pistol grips,
but not if they don’t. The fact that they’re functionally identical
with or without the scary-looking “military” features is irrelevant
to DiFi. And anyone who knows how to use a screwdriver can change
one configuration to the other with readily available parts.
Some of the gentlemen shooters who know how to do that — special
operators in the SEALs, Green Berets, and Marine Force Recon — are
pretty angry at the women in combat policy announced by Defense
Secretary Leon Panetta. I’m getting some pretty strong feedback
which isn’t quotable in a family publication.
The Marines, from what I hear, are also pretty angry about this.
Look for a series of resignations and a decrease in re-enlistments
as the women in combat deal policy holds. A lot of real warriors
are going to conclude that there’s no reason for them stay in the
service. Though the full effects won’t be known until a combat unit
with women has to fight an enemy hand to hand, the new policy will,
over time, cost many lives and severely damage our ability to fight
without sacrificing a lot of our troops’ lives.
Tomorrow, Obama will begin the week’s SGO with his announcement
of an immigration “reform” which, according to his favorite
Republican John McCain, will be just like the one McCain tried to
push in 2007. It will include a path to citizenship for illegal
aliens and a lot more. Look for an early surrender by the Maginot
Republicans in the Senate.
While we’re preoccupied — again — with immigration “reform,”
Iran is busily propping up Syria, Israel’s red line on Iran is
rapidly approaching, Hugo Chavez’s impending death will unravel his
oil money-funded control of neighboring nations, and Republicans
are kicking the can down the road — again — on the debt ceiling.
Team Obama will be reinforced by Kerry, Chuck Hagel, and John
Brennan after some senatorial huffing and puffing on their
nominations.
The Washington Post is doing yeoman’s work, one op-ed
yesterday
claiming that Obama’s agenda isn’t really liberal. In two
weeks, Obama will deliver his State of the Union speech, which is
going to demonize every Republican idea. As much as we would love
to have one day off from the news, the flow of SGO is going to get
a lot faster and deeper.
Photo: UPI
