Month: October 2016

Buried in the deluge of leaked Clinton campaign e-mails is this, “Bloomberg aide suggested the former NYC mayor wanted to be Hillary Clinton’s secretary of state“:

“A former aide to Michael Bloomberg suggested the former mayor was hoping to be secretary of state in a Hillary Clinton administration, according to hacked emails released Saturday by WikiLeaks. In an email exchange between Bloomberg aide Howard Wolfson and Clinton ally Neera Tanden … who runs the liberal think tank the Center for American Progress, said she was relieved and asked if there was a foreign policy position that Bloomberg would consider under a possible Clinton administration. “Is there something Mike Bloomberg would want to do in his life in an Admin?” she wrote. “Is like Ambassador to China way too small?” Wolson responded candidly: “Secty of state Which ain’t gonna happen,” he wrote …”

I suspect this more Wolfson thinking out loud as opposed to something Bloomberg himself brought up.  Being Mayor of New York City is a big deal, even though it’s not top of the political food chain.  In a way Secretary of State would be a step down because the job is subordinate to the President.  As Mayor,  he was constrained by the Governor and State Legislature, but was able to say pretty much whatever he pleased, something no President would allow.

Laura Ingraham is looking to place blame for what seems likely will be Donald Trump losing in November:

“The vast majority of Republicans want Donald Trump to be president …”

No. In an overcrowded GOP field, Trump received a plurality of around 35% of those Republicans who bothered to show up and vote in the early primaries.

“… The Republican Party is led by people who have more in common with the Clintons than with the GOP base. Their fundamental problem is that they are closer to Hillary on most issues than they are to Republican voters …”

In that they are elitists who look down upon average people, sure.

“… instead of having an honest discussion as to whether the GOP should be a globalist party or a nationalist party, everything dissolves into personal attacks …”

Is the GOP eating their own?  Yep.  That happens to some extent all the time and does not address the fundamental flaw of the Trump campaign which is this: While Hillary is a terrible person who would make a terrible president, so is Trump.

Both Hillary and Trump are ideological progressives so there’s not much difference there.  Trump also did not put together much of a campaign, seeming to rely mostly on free media attention and Twitter.

Most import of all is that Trump himself did not spend enough time talking about serious issues, going with vague statements about “Making America great again” and how he could run the government “better” instead.  Trump spoke more about the (alleged) size of his dick than he did on things people truly care about such as how his economic plan would help people save for retirement.  The GOP leadership establishment did not make Trump do this, it was because of an inherent flaw in the candidate himself.  If Trump goes now in flames the blame will be on him.

In the latest dump of hacked e-mails from the Clinton campaign, we find no love for the SAFE Act:

“Hillary Clinton’s staff prevented her from turning on the praise for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s SAFE Act when the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence honored her at a dinner last year and Cuomo was one of her invited guests. The Clinton staff’s concerns are laid out in one of the hacked campaign emails available on Wikileaks … Clinton’s point person on gun policy, Corey Corciari, agreed with the need to tread lightly on the SAFE Act … “Don’t see a need to fully embrace the SAFE Act. There are some controversial items in there,” Corciari said, without being specific. “We can highlight the pieces that fit within our agenda.” …”

This revelation isn’t a surprise.  Democrats have long known that gun control is a stinker, especially Bill Clinton. It just brings up the question again as to why Cuomo went full retard on the issue. He had to have known, like Hillary’s staff did, that it would be bad for his presidential ambitions. I have never been able to find a concrete answer as to why he did it. The late Bill Nojay told me he heard 6-7 different reasons as to Cuomo’s motivation. My theory has been that Bloomberg sold him on the idea, not caring about Cuomo’s political ambitions, and some members of the legislature went along with it as payback knowing it would blow up in Cuomo’s face which it did.

The Clinton campaign hasn’t commented on the leaks and I don’t expect them to. It will be interesting if any of the gun control groups do as it shows their political impotence.

As a follow-up to this post a couple weeks ago, we now know what Adam Haber’s definition of “common sense” gun control is:

“… The gun control plan revives a long-sought and at-times dormant issue raised by Senate Democrats: the microstamping of bullets, a bill that has been opposed by Senate Republicans over the years and was not included in the otherwise all-inclusive SAFE Act. At the same time, Haber is backing a bill known as Nicholas’s Law that would requite the storage of a firearm in a locked safe. And Haber wants to block those on the federal no-fly list from receiving a license for a firearm …”

Did Haber think these things up himself or did he get help from someone?

“… As State Senator, I will always choose the safety of our children and communities over pandering to extremists like the NRA and corporate gun lobby …”

“Corporate gun lobby” is a phrase Leah Gunn Barrett like to use so I’ll guess her or another rep. from NYAGV wrote up his agenda and press statement.

CD-19 Candidate Zephyr Teachout has released this ad:

I like this a lot, not for her politics (which are to the left of Bernie Sanders), but the attitude. When attacked, Teachout simply laughs off her opponent’s charges.

Republicans could learn a lot from this.

Anna Throne-Holst is going all-in for gun control. Her campaign held a “forum on gun violence” over the weekend:

I don’t think her tactic is very effective. I doubt Lee Zeldin does either as he has been ignoring her for the past few months on the issue. If it was a fundraiser or voter registration drive Throne-Holst might have accomplished something, but this forum looks like it was an opportunity for people who weren’t going to vote for Zeldin in the first place to vent their displeasure at him for not supporting their agenda.