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“I think it would be the ultimate act of honesty to dress the Secretary of the Treasury in a clown costume. I have no objection to that at all.”

One of the striking features of the current debate over gun control is how tired the liberals’ ideas are. Chief among their proposals is re-instituting the ban on “assault weapons.” But we’ve already tried that: a ban on “assault weapons”–a meaningless term that finds significance only in the arbitrary definitions of the defunct federal statute–was in effect for ten years, from 1994 to 2004, and no one claims that it did any good. Connecticut, like a number of other states, already bans “assault weapons,” but that availed the kids at Sandy Hook nothing.

Today New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo grabbed headlines by attacking “gun violence” and proposing measures to respond to the Sandy Hook murders. But what were they? The same tired old ideas:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for closing loopholes in a state ban on assault weapons and ammunition magazines that carry more than 10 bullets as part of a wide-ranging gun control package he proposed in his State of the State speech Wednesday.

This is beyond stupid. Rifles, notwithstanding Adam Lanza’s murder spree, are involved in hardly any homicides. More than five times as many Americans are murdered with knives than rifles–all rifles, not just “assault rifles.” More Americans are murdered with blunt objects; more are beaten to death with bare hands. The idea that banning “assault weapons” is the key to a more peaceful America is ludicrous.

Likewise with “ammunition magazines that carry more than 10 bullets.” I own two such magazines; there are countless millions in circulation. A magazine is a simple device, made from sheet metal and a spring; many thousands of Americans could make them in their garages. But let’s suppose that you could magically make all such magazines disappear. All a would-be mass murderer needs to do is pre-load, say, four 10-bullet magazines and carry them with him. People do this all the time. It takes only a second or two to drop an empty magazine from a semiautomatic rifle or pistol and slide a new one in. The idea that lives will be saved by making magazines smaller is pathetic. And yet, this is pretty much what the Democrats have to offer.

There are, actually, things that could be done to reduce the number of mass shootings, although mass shootings are already so rare that success would be hard to measure. (Check the statistics; you are far more likely to be struck by lighting than involved in a mass shooting.) First on the list would be revitalizing the nation’s mental institutions. Ever since the institutions were depopulated in the 1960s, large numbers of crazy people have roamed the streets of America. Most of them are harmless, but many are not. If we were serious about preventing lunatics from committing murders, mass and otherwise, we wouldn’t harass law-abiding gun owners, we would lock up lunatics. But liberals don’t want to do this, because they think it violates the rights of the insane. When the inevitable consequences come home to roost, they blame guns.

Short of institutionalization, there are other measures that might help to make it more difficult for the deranged to obtain firearms. But liberals don’t seem interested in such practical proposals. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that with respect to guns, as with many other issues, the Democrats are interested only in demagoguery, not serious governance.

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis has handed in her resignation, bringing an end to an undistinguished tenure. Solis was the first Hispanic woman to lead a major federal agency, and her departure will leave Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as the only Hispanic in President Obama’s cabinet.

Moreover, Obama has just nominated white males for Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Treasury, and CIA Director. Expect him to use the vastly less important Secretary of Labor post to check multiple diversity boxes.

The Baseball Writers of America have declined to elect anyone to the Baseball Hall of Fame this year. It’s only the second time in four decades that this has occurred.

As expected, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, the two biggest stars eligible this year, were passed over because of the taint of steroids. But there were at least two other players who, in my view, had strong Hall of Fame credentials — Mike Piazza and Craig Biggio.

Piazza has been suspected by some of using steroids, but as far as I know, there is no evidence that he used them. It seems unfair to exclude Piazza based on mere suspicion. This one of the the awful consequences of the steroid era.

I’ve never heard it suggested that Biggio used steroids. His non-selection may have resulted in part from a reluctance, perhaps unconscious, to vote for him while not voting for players who performed much better. That too would be unfair.

There will be three new Hall of Fame inductees, however. Old-timers Jacob Ruppert (who owned the New York Yankees and purchased Babe Ruth), umpire Hank O’Day, and barehanded catcher Deacon White were selected by a special committee. Unfortunately, all three have been dead for the better part of a century. White was born before the Civil War, O’Day during it, and Ruppert just after it ended.

The induction ceremony this summer will have very little resonance except with the descendants of Ruppert, O’Day, and White. The Hall of Fame is losing relevance fairly rapidly.

News reports indicate that President Obama will appoint White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew to replace Tim Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury. The Associated Press applauds Obama’s choice, telling us that Lew is a “pragmatic liberal” who “is well-liked in Washington by both Democrats and Republicans.” What the AP doesn’t tell us is that Lew has made signal contributions to the culture of lies, dishonesty and lack of transparency that characterizes the Obama administration.

When Lew was Obama’s Director of OMB, he testified before Congressional committees on Obama’s budget proposals. Both in that testimony and as a representative of the Obama administration on news programs, Lew propagated one bald-faced lie after another. Like this one:

Our budget will get us, over the next several years, to the point where we can look the American people in the eye and say we’re not adding to the debt anymore; we’re spending money that we have each year, and then we can work on bringing down our national debt.

In fact, President Obama’s budget added at least $600 billion to the deficit every year, even on the rosy assumptions that it incorporated, which is why no member of Congress would vote for it. Lew was just making it up, deliberately lying to the American people. He also claimed that the reason the Democratic Senate hadn’t adopted a budget is that it was being filibustered by Republicans. This falsehood was repeated multiple times on national television, including this exchange:

Again, this was a brazen lie. Budget resolutions cannot be filibustered, and the decision to go four years without adopting a budget has been the Democrats’ alone.

We are entering the worst fiscal crisis since the Civil War. Goofy ideas, like minting a trillion-dollar platinum coin to stave off impending budget disaster, are being floated by people who should know better. It is important, at this critical juncture, that the American people have confidence in the integrity of our currency and in the Department of the Treasury. For Obama to nominate as Secretary a shameless, partisan liar like Jack Lew is a slap in the face to the American people.

Earlier today, Senator Jeff Sessions released a statement on Lew’s nomination that said in part:

Jack Lew must never be Secretary of Treasury. His testimony before the Senate Budget Committee less than two years ago was so outrageous and false that it alone disqualifies…. His original statement, to a national television audience, was as follows:

Our budget will get us, over the next several years, to the point where we can look the American people in the eye and say we’re not adding to the debt anymore; we’re spending money that we have each year, and then we can work on bringing down our national debt.

To “look the American people in the eye” and make such a statement remains the most direct and important false assertion during my entire time in Washington…

It’s time for a Secretary of Treasury to look the American people in the eye and lay out an economic plan for America that will end our debt path that has endangered our future and which will find support among the American people and the world’s financial community. Far from being a positive force towards this essential good, Mr. Lew has given priority to the political interests of the President, in whose White House inner circle he has now served for several years.

The Senate should not confirm Jack Lew. To do so would be to rubber-stamp the worst excesses of the most dishonest administration in memory.

As the June 2013 presidential election in Iran draws near, it appears there is an effort underway to rekindle a national debate about the regime’s legitimacy.