It’s Saturday, January 26th, 2013….and once again, despite the weekend, so many breaking stories….so little time.

So, here’s The Gouge!

First up, it’s the “Who Didn’t See THAT Coming?!?” segment, and two quick headlines we told you to expect:

Feinstein Gun Control Bill to Exempt Government Officials

 

….Along with their bodyguards, security details and active duty and retired law enforcement; yeah….like cops….

NYPD 10….one dead perp and nine innocent bystanders 0.

….are such great shots.  So we’re curious; no exemption for active duty or retired military….the only people supposedly qualified and in need of “military-style assault weapons” in the first place?

And if retired cops, who presumably no longer undergo the same rigorous marksmanship training as the Keystone cops responsible for the Empire State Building sprayathon (pictured above) are granted exemptions, why can’t Joe-average law-abiding-citizen undergo a state-sanctioned firearms safety and marksmanship course and gain a similar exemption?

Not that they should have to; we only wonder at the special status accorded active and retired cops….all of who we would bet the farm we would out-shoot left-handed?

Meanwhile, the evisceration of America’s defense posture continues with the active support of the Pentagon:

Gen. Dempsey: If Women Can’t Meet Military Standard, Pentagon Will Ask ‘Does It Really Have to Be That High?’

 

Why not; it’s worked for law enforcement.  Plus, SHE can own an assault rifle; you can’t!

It’s the Naval Academy Summer of ’76 all over again; the women couldn’t meet the standards, so rather than improving the women, they changed or eliminated the standards.  Are we the only one seeing a HUGE national defense problem here….as well as thinking Dempsey’s face should be on a wanted poster?!?

Who cares if they cost some grunts their lives; we’ve got OUR 30 pieces of silver!

And for those who didn’t think Hillary’s already in full campaign mode….

Obama, Clinton to appear in joint ’60 Minutes’ interview

 

….the race for the White House is on.  We won’t watch it, of course; our constitution isn’t that strong.  Besides, we know what’s going to happen; like our Dad used to say of his sons, “One of you’ll lie, and the other’ll verify it!”  And the MSM will simply swoon.  Our thanks to John Bills for this tip.

Speaking of the Artful Dodgeress, we continue our Benghazigate coverage with a number of commentaries well-worth your time.  Leading off the order, Hope n’ Change, and a look at….

Mind Over What Does It Matter

 

Physicists and deep thinkers investigating the mysteries of Quantum Mechanics and multiple-realities received a huge boon yesterday (Stephen Hawking was said to be so excited that he twitched an eyebrow) when Secretary of State Hillary “Splitting Headache” Clinton declared the end of causality and the death of Schrödinger’s cat by stating that answers – and therefore questions – are completely irrelevant in our universe because “What does it matter?!” 

Were our representatives brutally murdered and perhaps sodomized by YouTube protesters, or just by some guys strolling down the street with rocket launchers feeling bored? According to Hillary, “What does it matter?”

Did Obama really beat Al Qaeda, or is it still as big a threat as ever? What does it matter?!
Did Susan Rice and Barack Obama lie, repeatedly, about the attack? What does it matter?!
Did the State Department fail to interview their own survivors in Benghazi to find out what happened? No? What does it matter!?

Did Osama bin Laden bring down the twin towers, or was it George W. Bush? What does it matter?!
Obamacare is causing medical expenses to skyrocket rather than decline. What does it matter?!
Were the Sandy Hook murders committed with handguns, or the “assault weapons” the government is so eagerly trying to ban? What does it matter?!

Is this now officially the worst economic recovery in our nation’s history? What does it matter?!
Has Obama’s Jobs Council not even pretended to meet in over a year? What does it matter?!
Is one out of four kids in America now using foodstamps? What does it matter?!
Will raising taxes kill more jobs and become a disincentive for investing in America? What does it matter?!

Will Iran soon have nuclear missiles with which to wipe out Israel? What does it matter?!
Did the president of the United States use his inaugural address to viciously attack capitalism and foment class warfare? What does it matter?!

We could could go on and on, but you get the point. We all get the point.  Hillary has coined the perfect phrase to represent the Elitist Left in this country- because nothing matters to them except getting the results they want. No question of morality, responsibility, or even logic. If they think it’s the right thing to do, then what does it matter if our nation goes to hell? (And the Joint Chiefs are only too eager to help them!)

And included in their pronouncement is the assumption that the rest of us should presumably STFU and ignore things like cause-and-effect, evidence, accountability, and clear conclusions. But we won’t ignore those things. Because we know damn well what matters and, unlike our elected enemies of the state, we know why it matters.

Besides, Hillary WANTED someone to pay for those 4 American lives; it’s just that her hands were tied!

Clinton calls for change in law she says blocked discipline of employees over Libya

 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed this week that several employees who were “removed” from their positions in the wake of the Libya terror attack are still being paid and have not actually left her department. But she also gave a surprising answer when asked why: Her hands are tied, she said.

Amid complaints from lawmakers that no government official has really been held accountable for missteps in the run-up to the attack, Clinton claimed current federal regulations limit what disciplinary actions can be taken. 

Amazing, isn’t it?  Liberal politicians can’t find a way around federal regulations limiting disciplinary action in the case of four dead Americans, but they’ve no problem overturning the 2nd Amendment of a Constitution they’re sworn to protect and defend.

Next up, Jonah Goldberg offers evidence of….

Hillary Clinton’s dodgy testimony

Her lying, while outrageous, is incidental to the real offense.

 

A lot of people in Washington apparently forgot how good Hillary Clinton is at not telling the truth. Wednesday, in her testimony before the Senate and, later, the House, Clinton brilliantly fudged, dodged, and filibustered. Of course, she’s a pro. Clinton was slow-walking depositions, lawyering up, and shifting blame when many of her questioners were still civilians down on the farm.

Aided by a ridiculous format, she outfoxed most of the Republicans with ease.

Meanwhile, the Democrats, almost uniformly, seemed singularly interested in celebrating Mrs. Clinton as a global diva who somehow manages to carry the burden of her awesomeness with humility and grace. If smoking were still allowed in the Capitol, one could easily imagine her removing a cigarette from a gold case and tapping it nonchalantly on the witness table, and the entire Democratic caucus leaping over their desks for the chance to light it for her.

The most dramatic moment came early, when Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson tried to get Clinton to explain why the State Department blamed the September 11 terrorist attacks in Benghazi on an impromptu protest over an anti-Muslim video. In a rehearsed moment of spontaneous outrage, Clinton yelled back, “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided to kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?”

It is a measure of Clinton’s cult-like status on the left and among much of the press that this passed for a satisfactory, never mind impressive, response. But it’s also a tribute to Clinton’s gift for mendacity that it worked so well.

Even among the administration’s harshest critics, people seemed at a loss to fully explain what difference it makes whether the administration’s spin was true or not. For many, the answer is simply that government officials shouldn’t lie. That’s a necessary criticism, but hardly sufficient.

Just to be clear, Clinton lied and is still lying. When asked about the claim that the attack was sparked by a protest over a video, she responded, “I did not say . . . that it was about the video for Libya.”

That’s simply untrue. When she stood by the caskets of the four Americans killed in Libya, she directly blamed an “awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.” Afterward, she reportedly told the father of Tyrone Woods, the former Navy SEAL who was killed in the attack, “We will make sure the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted.” Why tell the man that if the video had nothing to do with it?

Moreover, Clinton was part of an administration that crafted an entire PR strategy to blame these attacks on “an awful Internet video.” White House press secretary Jay Carney was unequivocal: This was a “response to a video, a film we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting.” In his address to the United Nations, President Obama mentioned the video six times but al-Qaeda once. When he appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, he blamed the video directly. U.N. ambassador Susan Rice went on five Sunday shows blaming the video. All of this happened when they already knew it was not true on the day of the attack, and even the president of Libya had publicly called the protest explanation ridiculous.

But again, the lying, while outrageous, is incidental to the real offense, which is twofold. First, why did the administration lie? Well, it wanted to conceal its utter failure to prepare for terrorist attacks on September 11 — which is like being surprised by Christmas falling on December 25. Also, the Obama administration, by which I mean the Obama campaign, was desperate to protect its hyped record of fighting terrorism. A “spontaneous” attack invited not by the administration’s shortcomings but by some nutty video was just the ticket.

Indeed, on this score, Clinton was true to her word. While none of the murderers have been apprehended, the filmmaker is in jail, the picture of his arrest splashed across the globe.

Which brings us to the second part: the nature of the lie. Remember, not all lies are equally harmful. In this case, the U.S. government responded to the murder of four Americans by treating our constitutional rights as part of the problem. A former teacher of constitutional law, Obama was happy to watch the country argue new limits on free expression and the necessity of giving bloodthirsty savages and terrorists a heckler’s veto on what Americans can do or say.

Clinton was in on that lie, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Not to Dyed-in-the-Wool-Dimocrats, it doesn’t.

Then there’s this from Peter Wehner, writing at Commentary Magazine, and his thoughts on….

Hillary Clinton’s Postmodernism

 

I wanted to weigh in on the Congressional testimony yesterday by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As most people know by now, when Secretary of State Clinton was asked by Senator Ron Johnson about the Benghazi terror attack and the fact that the story we were told by the administration was false, Mrs. Clinton exploded.

“With all due respect,” Hillary shouted, “the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans. What difference, at this point, does it make?”

Let’s be clear what Mrs. Clinton is saying. It really doesn’t matter whether the president and his advisers misled (willfully misled!) the public on the origins of a lethal terrorist attack that claimed four American lives, including the first ambassador murdered in more than 30 years. What matters, she insisted, is what we do going forward. There is no useful purpose to be served by dwelling on the past. Get over it. Move on. Chill out.

What a perfectly post-modern approach to things. For Mrs. Clinton, like her husband, truth seems to have no intrinsic worth. It’s an instrument to be used in the quest to gain and maintain power. If people have to manipulate the truth, ignore it, or roll their eyes at it in order to maintain “political viability” (to use an infamous phrase from her husband), then so be it. If misleading the public is necessary to help a president prevail in a bitter election—well, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. That, at least, is the Clinton logic.

Seriously….how does the MSM let us get away with this bullsh*t?!?

Having a president and his administration mislead the nation is problematic. How problematic depends on whether the story was intentionally misleading or not. That is the difference between a mistake and a lie. And I’m not prepared to say the president and his administration lied. (But WE are!!!) What I am prepared to say is that the Obama administration misled us. That is serious enough. And for Mrs. Clinton to simply wave that off with a dismissive and aggressive outburst offers us a disturbing (if not altogether unsurprising) insight into her worldview.

What difference does it make? A lot, actually.

For Wehner and any number of other Conservative commentators far too reticent and reserved to call a spade a spade, Webster’s defines a “lie” as:

Any questions?

In a related item, we offer this editorial from the Washington Examiner, courtesy of Conn Carroll, which echoes what we’ve always maintained:

Hillary Clinton was not a great secretary of state

 

Come to think of it….WTF HAVE I actually accomplished?!?

If there was one constant through Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s appearances before congressional committees Wednesday, it was that lawmakers fell all over themselves heaping praise on her for the job she has done. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., was typical, saying: “Madame Secretary, you have represented us with tremendous strength and poise. You have won us friends.”

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., gushed, “We don’t have time to give a full listing of the achievements you deserve credit for.” And Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., began his remarks by saying that he shares the “tremendous respect” of his colleagues for the job she has done.

What on Earth are they referring to? American foreign policy under Secretary Clinton has been one disaster after another. She may not deserve blame for all of them — or even most of them — but it defies common sense to call her tenure a success. (And they were ON HER WATCH!)

Let us review the record. Obama said in his inaugural speech that the failure to address global climate change “would betray our children and future generations.” His administration, represented by Clinton’s department, presided over the complete breakdown of international talks on the subject in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009, and failed to accomplish anything of substance in Doha, Qatar, last year.

America’s relations with its two main allies in the Middle East — Israel and Egypt — have worsened during Clinton’s tenure. The new Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, is a fundamentalist who believes Egyptians should “nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred” toward Israel and who is now acting to consolidate his power. Obama, who at one point publicly doubted whether Egypt was our ally anymore, has continued the practice of providing arms to Egypt.

After the questionable intervention in Libya, a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed in a terrorist attack, thanks in large part to the failure by Clinton’s department to take seriously repeated requests for additional security at the consulate in Benghazi. For weeks after the attack, Secretary Clinton participated in deceiving the public about its nature and cause. Despite her testimony to the contrary, she did speak on at least two occasions (one at Andrews Air Force Base and another time to the father of one of the victims) as though the Benghazi attack had something to do with a YouTube video.

I think I feel another concussion coming on!

Clinton’s last visit to China was met with open hostility by Beijing. The U.S. has made no progress in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. After a much-ballyhooed “reset” — which came at the cost of alienating our allies in Eastern Europe — relations with Russia are as bad as they have been since the Cold War. They are so bad, in fact, that Russia has just banned the American adoption of Russian babies. As Obama nominee Chuck Hagel has pointed out, our Libyan intervention provided Russia with an additional ironclad excuse to keep working against us in Syria, where the ongoing civil war has killed 60,000 and a serious danger exists of the regime’s chemical weapons falling into terrorists’ hands.

One of the few areas where U.S. foreign relations have not deteriorated seems to be North Korea, whose U.S. relations remain as terrible as they were in the Bush and Clinton eras.

Last June, a Pew Research Center study of global attitudes toward the U.S. found that they have worsened in pretty much every country except Japan. Approval of the Obama administration’s polices have dropped by double-digit margins everywhere in the world since 2009.

It’s all well and good for chummy senators to congratulate Secretary Clinton, their former colleague, on her accomplishments. It’s a lot harder to name any of them, let alone enough good ones to outweigh the bad.

And in the B. Hussein Obama/Michael Bloomberg “WE’LL Tell You What’s Good For You” segment, this just in from Sunny Southern California and  The New Media Journal….

California School District Gets High-Powered Rifles

 

The school police force in this Southern California city has acquired 14 high-powered semiautomatic rifles for officers to bring to campuses. Fontana Unified School District police purchased 14 of the Colt LE6940 rifles last fall, and they were delivered the first week of December, a week before a gunman killed 26 students and educators at a Connecticut elementary school.

“I think it just further solidified the need to give our officers the tools they need to respond to an active shooter on campus,” schools Police Chief Billy Green said Wednesday about the tragedy. “If someone were to come onto one of our school campuses and kill our students…and they were wearing body armor or were equipped with a rifle, our officers were not properly equipped to respond to the danger,” Green said.

The rifles were purchased to address a “critical vulnerability,” although there has never been such an attack at any of the 45 Fontana campuses, the chief said. The 14 officers currently carry handguns, according to police officials. The weapons, which cost $1,000 each, are high-powered weapons (NOT assault rifles!) that are accurate at longer range and can pierce body armor.

The guns are stored in a fireproof safe at school police headquarters. Officers who have received 40 hours of training in their use can check them out and keep them in locked safes at high school and middle school police offices during school hours before returning them, Green said. “They’re not walking around telling kids, ‘Hurry up and get to class’ with a gun around their neck,” the chief said.

Which begs the question why law-abiding citizens with 40 hours of identical training aren’t afforded the same right?  Not to mention why is it when a school district purchases 14 Colt LE6940’s they’re termed “high-powered rifles”, but when Diane Feinstein wants to ban private possession of identical weapons, they’re “assault rifles”?!?

Which brings us to the “Your Government at Work” segment, and a little dust-up, not in Newtown, but Beantown:

‘Anti-Crime Advocate’ Shoots Girlfriend with Illegal Gun

 

Curiously, though a Google search revealed a photo of the Reverend Harrison, no picture of his son, Jeremy Harrison, could be found.  What are the odds his likeness would have been available had he been WHITE?!?

Boston is moving to fire the anti-crime advocate who prosecutors say was handling an illegal high-capacity firearm moments before his girlfriend was shot in the head. City street worker Jeremy Harrison, 28, pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges of possessing a large-capacity firearm, a firearm with a defaced serial number, a firearm without a federal identification card, and ammunition without a federal identification card, and improper storage of a firearm in the presence of a minor.

….Prosecutor Dana Pierce said police are trying to determine how the woman was shot. She called it “troubling” that a man hired by the city to teach violence prevention to youths had a loaded, unlicensed gun. Boston Centers for Youth and Families spokeswoman Sandy Holden said Harrison’s termination hearing (Like Hillary, what does it take to get fired?!?) is set for sometime this week. Pierce said the woman is “still alive and that is somewhat miraculous.”

Police say they found a semi-automatic firearm with a high-capacity feeding device and an “obliterated” serial number in the Arbutus Street apartment where the woman was shot. Harrison’s lawyer Jessica Dembro called the shooting “absolutely accidental and very, very unfortunate and very, very sad.” (As opposed to the Newtown massacre.)

Harrison is the son of Dorchester youth minister Rev. Shaun Harrison, who leads Operation Project GO, an anti-crime outreach program for youths.

Then there’s this in “Tell Us Something We DIDN’T Know” segment, courtesy of Carl Polizzi and Marxists everywhere:

Communists Cheer On Obama’s Gun Grab

 

“….the ability to live free from the fear or threat of gun violence is a fundamental democratic right — one that far supercedes any so-called personal gun rights allegedly contained in the Second Amendment.”

And since we’re on the subject of Communism, it’s only appropriate we turn to the opiate of the masses and today’s installment of the Religion Section, where it appears his second inauguration has finally forced The Obamao into a venue from which he’s been conspicuously absent his entire first term: church!

Obama Tweets from Church: `Let’s Go’

 

After all, the troops are always foremost on his mind.

It’s said that the Twitter messages actually thumbed by President Barack Obama @BarackObama are signed `BO.’ The one this morning came from St. John’s, the church across Lafayette Park from the White House, where the first family went this morning on the chilly and overcast day of the public inauguration ceremonies:

The president and his family arrived at St. John’s at 8:35 am EST. The service ended at 9:39. BO tweeted at 9:25.

Perhaps this was code he needed to push back his tee time?

On the Lighter Side….

Finally, last and certainly not least, we’ll call it a wrap with another kick in teeth to The Obamao’s attempts at Executive Rule, courtesy of Kate Hicks and Townhall.com:

Court to Obama Admin: Actually, Those Recess Appointments Were Unconstitutional

 

 

Which is different from the way I’ve been operating the rest of the time….HOW?!?

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals today unanimously slapped down the controversial “recess” appointments President Obama made to the National Labor Relations Board way back in early January of 2012, in what the Associated Press rightly calls an “embarrassing setback.” Indeed, if the Supreme Court upholds the decision, it very well may nullify everything the board has done since the appointments, as it won’t have actually had the quorum of three members required to issue regulations. Ouch.

The unanimous decision is an embarrassing setback for the president, who made the appointments after Senate Republicans spent months blocking his choices for an agency they contended was biased in favor of unions.

The Obama administration is expected to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but if it stands, it means hundreds of decisions issued by the board over more than a year are invalid. It also would leave the five-member labor board with just one validly appointed member, effectively shutting it down. The board is allowed to issue decisions only when it has at least three sitting members.

Recall, Senate Republicans gaveled in and out of pro forma sessions during the Christmas season, meaning that technically, the Senate was never fully out of session. The court’s decision helps to define what, exactly, a “recess” is, and definitively establish when a president may unilaterally make appointments, sans the requisite “advice and consent of the Senate.”

Importantly, the decision distinguishes “a recess” from “the Recess” (and the English major in me had a giggle at the court’s reference to Samuel Johnson’s dictionary when defining “the”). Essentially, the president has an extremely narrow window in which to make recess appointments: between formal sessions of Congress. From the decision:

All this points to the inescapable conclusion that the Framers intended something specific by the term “the Recess,” and that it was something different than a generic break in proceedings. (Heaven forbid similar deference be granted their intentions as regards the 2nd Amendment!)

[The] appointments structure would have been turned upside down if the President could make appointments any time the Senate so much as broke for lunch.

Obama’s use of the recess appointment in such a manner represents one of many instances when he has attempted to skirt congressional authority to achieve his desired outcome.

In other words….

The dearth of intrasession appointments in the years and decades following the ratification of the Constitution speaks far more impressively than the history of recent presidential exercise of a supposed power to make such appointments. Recent Presidents are doing no more than interpreting the Constitution. While we recognize that all branches of government must of necessity exercise their understanding of the Constitution in order to perform their duties faithfully thereto, ultimately it is our role to discern the authoritative meaning of the supreme law.

The Richard Cordray appointment to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will likely face the same fate, although it was challenged in a separate case. The federal government will likely appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, so this isn’t the end of the conflict; however, it represents a serious threat to one of Obama’s preferred methods of skirting congressional authority. What’s more, several labor-friendly regulations hang in the balance. In a sense, this is shaping up to be a two-fold loss for Obama: he could very well lose both pieces of his agenda, as well as a method of enacting it.

Who’d have thought Conservatives would end up using the Lib’s own weapon….the courts….against them?!?  Next target, carbon tax!

Magoo