Helmke bows out

On: By: admin

Today is the last day for Paul Helmke at the Brady Campaign.  Despite suffering major defeats in the court and an inability to move an agenda in Congress and most of the states, Helmke insists the antis will win in the end.  A successor has not been named yet.  I don’t think Colin Goddard will be it.  He’s a bit young and I don’t believe he has the management skills necessary to run their operation.

In any event, Paul decides to leave us laughing with these closing remarks:

… “I am not trying to ban all guns,” he said. “I don’t want to take everyone’s guns away. I’m not anti-gun. And I’m constantly having to say Brady doesn’t mean we are going to disarm everybody …” …

Announcements coming soon?

On: By: admin

USA Today reports, “Obama aide: Gun legislation in ‘near future’“:

“… White House spokesman Jay Carney said a special task force has been “working through these complex issues, and we expect to have some more specific announcements in the near future.” …”

Wonder if that “special task force” has anything to do with Project Gunrunner?

“… the real action in Washington this week isn’t the partisan wrangling over the debt ceiling but something — literally — even more incendiary: Operation Fast and Furious, which seems about to explode right in the face of Attorney General Eric Holder — and maybe other administration officials, too … With the Obama administration wedded to the fiction that 90 percent of the guns Mexican cartels use originate here — they don’t — many suspect that “Fast and Furious” was a backdoor attempt to smear domestic gun aficionados as part of its stealth efforts on gun control by executive fiat …”

I still cannot see Obama coming out with a grand scale gun control proposal along the lines of the Clinton AWB.  With his approval ratings heading south, I can understand the need to shore up his base but pandering to the antis isn’t the way to do it.  They have no organized constituency like big labor, no voter base to turn out and no money to throw around.  It makes little sense for him to reach out to fringe groups which cannot give him the political support he needs if he wants to be re-elected next year.

Not going to happen

On: By: admin

Some rumormongering from Fred Dicker, “Obama to ask Cuomo to be 2012 running mate: sources“:

“… Former New York GOP boss William Powers … was effusive in his praise of Cuomo’s successes in the just-ended legislative session, and in his prediction of the freshman governor’s political future … “I don’t think there’s any doubt Obama is going to pick him as his running mate. The president is in trouble and [Vice President Joseph] Biden doesn’t bring anything to his ticket.   “The president will call him up later this year and say, ‘Andrew, you have to do this for the good of the country.’ What’s Andrew going to say, ‘No?’ ” …”

Yes, he’d say No.

Andrew Cuomo’s political stock is rising, Obama’s is sinking.  There’s simply no reason for Cuomo to tie his political fortune to the Obama administration.  If he were to join an Obama ticket he would inherit all of Obama’s negatives.  Assuming he is even interested in running for president, Cuomo could just wait until ’16 or later and run on his own record which thus far has been considerably better than I and most other people expected it would be.

That being said, I don’t see Obama dropping Biden from the ticket unless a major health issue arises.  First off, who would want to run with him?  Obama’s popularity is clearly on the decline.  Second, it wouldn’t help his re-election bid.  The problem with the Obama administration is Obama.  Biden is background noise.

Why MSNBC’s ratings are in the tank

On: By: admin

Why are MSNBC’s ratings in the tank? They give airtime to Mayor Bloomberg’s guns & terrorists PSH.

Principles my ass

On: By: admin

Seen over at MidHudsonNews.com:

“The chairman of the State Conservative Committee said he expects the party to pull its endorsement of State Senator Stephen Saland (R-Poughkeepsie) for his vote in support of gay marriage in New York … “The Conservative Party has to be true to its principles and those principles are supporting marriage between a man and a woman and we can no longer endorse people who don’t respect that or honor that commitment,” [Mike Long] said …”

Putting aside the issue, this statement is laughable.  The last thing Mike Long or the CP does is stand on principle as is evidenced by the people their party has endorsed over the years (remember Rick Lazio?)  They don’t support the RKBA and I cannot recall them ever trying to hold their endorsed officials accountable on it.  They give lip service to cutting taxes, but don’t follow up at election time when giving out endorsements.  They make some noise about abortion, but generally don’t follow up with that at election time either.  They only thing they’ve been pretty consistent on is dumping on homosexuals.  While I don’t doubt that is in fact an issue for them, what Long & Co. are really bent out of shape about is the fact that Saland and a few other Republicans decided to give them a very public middle finger.  For that reason alone Saland deserves a round of applause.

Mistake to say this

On: By: admin

Washington Whispers reports on NRA President David Keene’s goal to knock off Obama next year:

“… “Our major goal is to defeat Obama because if he’s re-elected, he’s going to attempt to change the Supreme Court.  All he needs is one vote and he will rewrite the Second Amendment,” says Keene …”

While this is certainly true, it is equally true that an antigun Republican could do the same thing.  By announcing their intentions this early in the campaign season, they’re essentially acknowledging that any Republican including antigun Mitt Romney will be acceptable to them even if they have terrible public records on the issue.  Any leverage NRA had in a possible GOP primary is now gone as is any they had for influencing the V.P. pick.  This was seriously stupid of Keane to open his mouth.

Recess & recap

On: By: admin

The state legislature has gone into recess.

We continued to make small, positive advances in Albany.  The only gun control bill to come up was microstamping A-1157A and it took much arm twisting to get 77 Yea votes, the slimmest majority for any antigun bill I can recall over the past 20 years.  Big game rifle hunting bills for several counties passed giving us some minor victories.  If we continue at the same pace next year, and have good turnout at lobby day, next year may be the first year in who knows how long that no gun control bills come up.

Leadership shuffle

On: By: admin

It appears that Dean Skelos is going to get booted as Senate Majority Leader before the legislature goes into recess.  His likely replacement is Tom Libous.  From a RKBA standpoint, Libous is much more pro-gun than Skelos so this should not affect microstamping and other legislation.

Defining moment for Scaturro

On: By: admin

Frank Scaturro is planning on making another run against Carolyn McCarthy next year.  The New Hyde Park Patch has this interesting tidbit in a story about his campaign kickoff:

“… One of McCarthy’s big issues has been gun safety.  Scaturro believes in the constitutional right to bear arms and that people have the right to have something for their self defense.  He understands though that the general public doesn’t need machine guns that could cause a lot of damage and is sensitive to gun safety after having been robbed at gunpoint recently …”

I don’t know if this comes from direct quote from his campaign or just the editor writing their interpretation of his position, but this statement is pure BS.

Historically, McCarthy’s opponents have been cannon fodder who didn’t put much effort into their campaigns.  On guns, they were either as bad as McCarthy herself or nearly so and all did their best to avoid the issue.  This makes sense to a degree as McCarthy is a single issue candidate and owns the antigun position.  Now with Scaturro himself being a victim of violent crime I don’t see how he can avoid dealing with the RKBA directly.  He’s either going to have to publicly come out 100% gun rights or 100% gun bigot.

Still there

On: By: admin

The state legislature is still in session arguing over gay “marriage”, rent control and property taxes.  Guns aren’t on the posted agenda, but this is the time when they often try to sneak stuff through.