What an embarrassment of riches……

• Senator Diane Feinstein (D for Demagogue, California) recently defeated an amendment to her proposed gun ban bill that would have exempted veterans in the same way that she wants to exempt government employees and law enforcement*.  Her reasoning was that veterans all have PTSD, which is a new development from Iraq, and we are all going to go crazy and start shooting baby ducks and premature infants.  You see, the good Senator believes that us vets are all ticking time bombs, all ate up with the ghosts of wars past, and are just a bad hair day away from losing our collective shit.  I’ve got news for her – Veterans are a slice of the society that produced them.  Most are honorable, honest, law-abiding folks.  Some have been negatively impacted by their experiences and are in need of help.  And a small minority of them were scumbags before they got to basic training and didn’t get much beyond that stage of personal evolution.  In other words, we’re just like everyone else.  And PTSD isn’t exactly a new phenomenon.  After the Civil War, they called it “Soldier’s Heart”.  In World War I, it was called “Shell Shock”.  During World War II and beyond, it was called ” Battle Fatigue”.  Since Vietnam, it’s been called “Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome” and “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”.  My guess is that there has been some kind of way to describe people who have gone through something and come out shaken and hurt since Og picked up a rock and hit Unga upside the head.  As a matter of fact, PTSD is common among people who go through horrible events, like the shooting of a co-worker by another.  Perhaps the good Senator is projecting a bit here, and might be in need of her own counseling.  Who knows?  Maybe under all that pancake make-up and Botox, she’s a seething cauldron of murderous thoughts, and all it takes is for one of us uppity commoners to question her authority to unleash the beast.
• Senator Feinstein (D for Decrepit, California) has also been in the news for an exchange between her and Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas on Friday.  Senator Cruz asked Senator Feinstein if she would do the same thing to books, which are protected under the 1st Amendment, as she is doing to guns, which are protected under the 2nd Amendment.  Rather than reply to a yes-or-no question with a yes-or-no answer, the good Senator from California regaled us all with her experiences during that horrid day when a California politician threw a temper tantrum over not being able to un-resign his office and shot two people, and how she poked a finger into a gunshot wound looking for a pulse.  Since she didn’t deny that she would be open to restricting the freedom of the press as much as she wants to restrict the freedom to bear arms, I’m going to guess that she would be quite happy seeing subversive literature like “Atlas Shrugs” or “1984” suppressed.  She might like parts of “Fahrenheit 451”, but something tells me that “The Federalist Papers” and “Common Sense” wouldn’t make her cut.
• The President and his band of merry gentlemen continue to make targeted cuts with an eye to making Main Street hurt while protecting their core constituencies and pet projects. The latest that I’ve seen is that they are planning on cutting USDA food inspectors while still spending money to tell illegal immigrants how to sign up for food stamps.  That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, the President would rather that my children die from food poisoning than an illegal immigrant not sign up for free goodies paid for with the sweat of my brow.  I’m sure, of course, that his daughters will only be eating the finest food with every possible safety inspection done on it, to include proctological examinations of the cattle prior to slaughter.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is machine politics in its highest form.  If he was mayor of Chicago, that hive of scum and villainy, he would be laying off snow-plow drivers two days before Christmas so that he could pay for a New Years Eve party. 
• President Obama is spending money we don’t have so that he can make his first trip to Israel.  The Nobel laureate and giver of all that is good and clean in this world has lowered expectations that his very presence in the Holy Land will bring about a flowering of peace and brotherhood between Muslims and Jews, between Bears fans and Packer’s fans, and between the Irish and the Irish.  Instead, he plans to do his best to get a good price on some stuff at the souvenir bazaar in Jerusalem, catch a stoning in Jericho, and maybe play some golf on the West Bank.
• Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State, and fashion model for Soviet Fashion Collective #231, has announced her support for gay marriage.  How brave of her to do this.  To come out in support of such a controversial subject, risking such a promising political career, and running counter to her political base in order to make a moral stand is truly inspiring.  My mother always told us where she was the day that President Kennedy was killed, and I always tell my children where I was when the attacks of 9/11 happened.  In just such a manner, my children will be able to tell their children and their children’s children where they were the day that Hillary Clinton proclaimed that she’s in favor of gay marriage.  Let loose the doves!  Let the church bells ring!  Hillary Clinton has finally pronounced her position on gay marriage!

*Personally, if the ban were to pass and if it had an exception for veterans, I would not take advantage of it.  If we aren’t all free, then none of us is free.