Well, if it serves the greater good, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss that idea, even if it means the bitter clingers might whine and cry and rend their garments like flannel-clad trailer trash caught up in a doublewide love triangle.
The objection could be raised that Mr. Obama’s relative lack of overt action on gun control initiatives indicates that he is not a stereotypical progressive gun banner. But on May 25, 2011, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air [source B] provided substantial and disturbing information that dispatches this charge. It seems that Mr. Obama has a “point man” in the White House in charge of gun regulation policies named Steve Crowley. Mr. Crowley was profiled in the Washington Post “Lifestyle” section in April. A gun control point man seems rather odd for a president who isn’t planning to pursue gun control policies.
In addition, on March 30, Sarah and Jim Brady of the Brady Center, one of the most prominent anti-gun organizations, met with Obama Press Secretary Jay Carney. Mr. Obama met with them as well, and according to Sarah Brady told them that gun control was “…very much on his agenda.”
Brady quoted Mr. Obama: “I just want you to know that we are working on it. We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”
According to Morrissey, the Huffington Post has reported that the Department of Justice has been holding meetings to plan options for enacting gun controls by bypassing the legislative process though executive orders or regulation making by federal bureaucrats. This method of autocratic rule is nothing new for the Obama administration. [source B]
The cross-border Gunwalker mess is not the only way in which Mr. Obama has pursued an anti-gun foreign policy. According to former UN Ambassador John Bolton, the Obama administration’s apparently incoherent policy is being used to further gun control goals domestically and internationally. Bolton asserts that the Obama administration is arguing that supposedly lax American gun laws are responsible for the problem of drug related violence in Mexico, and that this argument will provide a foundation for United Nations arms treaties. [source E]
The Gunwalker scandal provides only the most recent — and potentially the most damning — evidence of the Obama gun control agenda.
So return to January 2013. What can Americans expect? Mr. Obama will rely on his tried and true methods, continuing the perpetual campaign despite the fact that, for him, the campaign is over. Those methods include:
(1) Public persuasion. This is the first, above the radar, public front. Mr. Obama has always tried to use the bully pulpit of the presidency to convince “the people” that their ruin is actually their salvation. This first step is always closely aligned with:
(2) Legislation. When Democrats controlled the Congress, Mr. Obama was able to push through ObamaCare despite the fact that a clear majority of the public did not, and does not, want it. However, even with control of Congress, he was not able to pass cap and trade, which would have given him absolute control over the daily lives of “the people” — enabling Obama bureaucrats to regulate the very air we breathe. If Mr. Obama has lost control of both houses in 2013, this option would be more or less closed to him, but his veto would prevent back-sliding on portions of his agenda already imposed by various means. If the legislature is closed to him (and even if it is not), Mr. Obama will rely upon:
(3) The administrative state. Where the first several steps fail, Mr. Obama makes an end run around the legislature by means of his appointed, unaccountable czars and innumerable bureaucratic functionaries, constantly growing in number and boldness, who not only have the power to make up the rules as they go, but to harass, obstruct, punish, and harm anyone who might try to stand in their way. Bureaucrats can, on their own initiative, bring economic development and activity to a halt. By ensuring that only like-minded sycophants are in bureaucratic positions, Mr. Obama need not stoop to issuing specific instructions: they know what to do. Mr. Obama would not have appointed them if they did not. They will — independent of other initiatives on other fronts — continue to do everything possible to obtain by fiat what is otherwise unobtainable.
(4) Environmentalists and similar groups. Whatever can’t be obtained through the first three steps can be obtained — and opponents impeded and punished — through the efforts of gun control groups, environmentalists, and other advocacy groups. By means of manipulating the media, threatening and abusive protests, and filing endless lawsuits to obstruct and delay whatever they oppose, the Obama agenda can be furthered. Many of these organizations are openly extreme in their views and tactics — giving Mr. Obama cover, as he will tend to be reluctant to reveal his true beliefs, preferring a stealthily socialistic approach.
(5) The imperial courts. By appointing the “right” kind of judges and/or jurisdiction shopping, predictable rulings are easy to obtain. Whatever mischief bureaucrats aren’t able to secure can often be accomplished through liberal, activist judges. Even if lower court decisions are eventually and inevitably overturned, the process takes years, and any rulings adverse to Mr. Obama’s desires can usually be safely ignored.
(6) The international community. As Ambassador Bolton noted, Mr. Obama is a believer in the will of the international community and the UN. International bureaucrats have long sought to impose gun control on the world and America through binding treaties. With nothing to lose, Mr. Obama will almost certainly become much more active on this front.
With a second term, Mr. Obama can be expected to cause unimaginable damage to America apart from the economic disaster he is already wreaking. His agenda will continue to be at least somewhat stealthy. But, unburdened with the necessity of a second campaign, Mr. Obama will almost certainly go for broke on every item on his progressive wish list. Gun control has always been near the very top of every progressive’s wish list, and Mr. Obama is nothing if not a good progressive. Sarah Brady is convinced of it. Despite the fact that the Brady Campaign has often been caught in misrepresentation and lies, Americans would be wise to take her at her word, at least this once.
And here I was told the President’s a Good Man, a patriot who just wants what he thinks is best for the country.
Namely, that it be fundamentally transformed into something else — a place where the Constitution isn’t fetishized, and freedom’s just another word for “just relax. The government will do that for you.”
I hope he fails.
****
related.
Looks like the Corruptocrats in Mexico City have their panties in a bunch and want the relevant parties extradited for trial in Mexico.
Yeah, right, Senor. Not a friggin’ chance.
Although the peospect of sitting in a Mex prison awaiting trial would tend to focus the mind, as they say. But not gonna happen.
Look for the Mexicans to stop honoring US extradition requests, as well. Not that they do now.
#Gunwalker #AskObama Why are you desperately trying to cover up this deadly scandal? Isn’t it time for someone to go ? http://t.co/4dXcs5n
Yeah, right, Señor. Not a friggin’ chance.
You don’t think so? After Teh Won has thrown so many, many “friends” under the bus?
Their “concern” is that of having a firewall fail and the flames spreading “Fast and Furious[ly]” upward. They have bulldozed a fire break at Holder’s office door but it depends for it’s strength on Melson and the Justice Department’s inspector general holding the door closed, from the outside.
I forget the particulars, but wasn’t Obama involved in some sort of Joyce Foundation scumbaggery where they were paying off law journals to place pro-gun-control legal pieces of some sort?
‘That’s racist.’
Yes, Abe, I remember that. A feature, not a bug, to Dems and the mainstream press.
Oops. GeoffB beat me to it.
This President is a kind of Manchurian candidate. And I’m pissed that so many on our side who are now finally acknowledging it spent so much time marginalizing and demonizing those of us who saw it immediately — all while pretending they’ve been here all along.
Fuck them. Their outsized influence on the “right” side of the new media is one of the reasons we’re still being fed the Romneys and the Huntsmans, while being told to support the Castles and Crists.
Better article.
Did you see how Melson spent his holiday?
Holder is toast.
Stanford Law Review and Fordham Univ. Law Review also.
Thanks, Geoff. Good stuff.
Guess the fire break wasn’t quite shovel ready.
Issa/Grassley letter to Holder Yeowtch.
I find that statement to be rather interesting.
Anyone care to wonder why the Symposium might be worried about Bellesiles work? It’s almost as if the Symposium already knew “Arming America” was a fraud passed off as “scholarly research.”
“A CIVIL RIGHTS VICTORY in Chicago. “
“Email Confirms ‘Gunwalker’ Known Throughout Justice Department
“
In the words of V.P. Joe “BiteMe”- “This is a Big F—— Deal !!!”.
geoffb, they all went rouge. Obama knew nothing. He’s Sergeant Schultz in this particular situation.
Many good men will fall on their swords for the boy king, to be replaced with the not so good.
It’s really quite ingenious. I can see the game benefiting the democrats agenda half a dozen ways.
What with Senate confirmations I see many, many, recess appointments and “Acting” becoming the most common title for officers of the US Gov. in that case.
“I see many, many, recess appointments ”
i don’t see the house adjourning before nov. 2012
“Clause 4: Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting. “
He can’t even do “under the radar” right.
[…] Mexico. With the happy coincidence that, should the guns wind up back here in the US, the President could begin his push for comprehensive “sensible” gun […]