Tag: Bloomberg

Categories
education and schooling national politics & policies

The Bloomberg Limit

Bloomberg Votes

Afraid that scandal-​alluring Hillary Clinton may prove too flawed a presidential candidate, some Democrats are talking to billionaire and former three-term New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg about a 2016 presidential run.

Mrs. Clinton’s “slide is accelerating,” writes New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin. “A damaging new poll goes to the Achilles’ heel of her candidacy: People simply don’t trust her.”

Goodwin gushes, instead, at the “intriguing” possibility of Mr. Bloomberg.

“Wall Street wants Michael Bloomberg to run for president,” reports Business Insider, “but the billionaire isn’t budging.”

And for good reason. He can’t win.

It’s not just me saying so; it’s Michael Bloomberg himself. Last year, he told CBS Face the Nation that he’d consider running … “If I thought I could win.”

His honor should know, having spent more of his own money chasing public office than any person in American history.

Why did incumbent Mayor Bloomberg have to spend so much dough? He double-​crossed voters on term limits. Bloomberg promised to oppose city council attempts to weaken the limits, but flipped to grab a third mayoral term for himself.

Voter anger “over his maneuver to undo the city’s term limits law,” reported The Times, became … well, a big problem. “To eke out a narrow re-​election victory over the city’s understated comptroller, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg spent $102 million of his own money, or about $183 per vote,” explained the New York Times in 2009, “… making his bid for a third term the most expensive campaign in municipal history.”

A similar price tag in a presidential race stands at roughly $23 billion. That’s a lot for anyone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Bloomberg Votes

 

Categories
media and media people Second Amendment rights

Rapid-​Response Counterfire

If somebody tries to polemically gun down your rights, button your flak jacket and shoot back.

It may take years — say, if you’re John Locke answering Robert Filmer.

Sometimes you’ve got only seconds.

You’re on a gab show being watched by millions. Somebody says something unwise, illogical and destructive — but possibly persuasive to a certain percentage of viewers. Unless you reply, instantly, with something wise, logical and constructive, you lose your chance.

If it’s dueling YouTube videos, maybe it takes a couple of days to blast the enemy and win a viewership the size of a small city.

The offending “celluloid” I have in mind is a Bloomberg-​funded skit that opens with the caption “Warning: this video depicts scenes of domestic violence.” An armed ex-​boyfriend breaks into a woman’s home and threatens to take their kid. The woman calls the police — minutes away when seconds count. The video implies that the way to “stop gun violence against women” is to get rabid-​ex-​boyfriend-​empowering guns off the streets.

Two days later, Liberty PA had posted a parody-​rebuttal. This time, the prospective victim flourishes a shotgun to scare off the ex. Opening caption: “Warning: this video depicts scenes of self-​defense.” Closing caption: “Stop gun control against women.”

Bull’s‑eye.

The video-​rebuttal didn’t cost much more to make than the quick wit and time of a few alacritous participants. Within a couple days — credit partly yours, O modern technological infrastructure! — it had garnered 72,000 hits.

On Fox’s Red Eye and elsewhere the inanity of the original propaganda piece was pointed out. But it was the Liberty PA video response that really brought the point home.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture

No Labels, No Clue

Some big players at the game of politics misinterpret the nature of today’s general political discontent, and offer only hollow novelty in response.

Take the “No Labels” movement.

A number of big-​name politicians, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, push the idea of a centrist, can-​do spirit, a bi-​partisan effort that will transcend the nastiness of the current Establishment Insider/​Tea Party Outsider split. Their trendy-​sounding “No Labels” label communicates their allegedly co-​operative, spectrum-​transcendent message. Their slogan? “Not Left. Not Right. Forward.”

According to Linda Killian, of Politics Daily, “the message No Labels is espousing is exactly what a majority of Americans, who are fed up with both parties, say they want from their government.”

This seems to fly in the face of what I’ve gleaned of American disgust. And it distorts the actual landscape of power. No Labels “pragmatism” is as mainstream as you can get, as Matt Welch noted in Reason:

Barack Obama and John McCain both ran for president as post-​ideological pragmatists. So did, in their own ways, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. It remains an attractive pose, and will always draw cheers from the indefatigable problem-​solvers drawn to power like cowbirds to cattle.

America’s growing disaffection with politicians springs from the continual betrayals of common sense by both parties — including centrist can-doers. 

“No Labels”? Phooey. Instead: “No Bailouts. No Over-​spending. No Ignoring the Voters.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies term limits too much government

Ears Burning

At the recent World Economic Forum, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned of our government’s flirtations with socialism, that is, a state-​run economy.

Trying not to “gloat,” Putin told the U.S. that “Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence” is a “mistake.” He reminded listeners that state control of the old Soviet economy made the nation “totally uncompetitive.”

Putin then lectured us not to “turn a blind eye to the spirit of free enterprise.”

But why isn’t Putin lecturing Venezuela? That Latin American state’s president, Hugo Chavez, is a classic strong-​arm socialist, marshaling the power of the state, as well as gangs of supporters, to threaten and intimidate his political opponents.

As with any wannabe dictator, Chavez has sought to dismantle term limits. Just 14 months ago, voters rejected his first attempt. But Chavez, having consolidated his hold on the media and other institutions, came right back with another vote to end the limits. This time he won. He can now serve for life.

Only in South America? No. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently voided his own term limits. And he didn’t even bother to allow a public vote on the issue. So, who’s the more anti-​democratic, Chavez or Bloomberg?

When foreign tin-​horn dictators start making as much or more sense than our own politicians, well … it’s long past time for us citizens to make serious changes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
term limits

A Bloombergian, Buzzing Confusion

A politician has changed his mind about term limits.

Over the years, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City has often expressed firm support for the city’s two-​term limit on officials. But lately his comments about term limits have been getting fuzzier.

And now the newspapers report that the mayor openly supports a unilateral revision by the city council to weaken the limits from two terms to three.

The change would have to be unilateral. Bloomberg is a popular mayor, but his own polling shows that most New Yorkers, although they may like him, would dislike any weakening of the term limits law.

New Yorkers passed the two-​term limit in 1993. They confirmed their support in 1996. Bloomberg and city councilors will be showing an extraordinary contempt for the voters if they dictatorially trash term limits to cling to power.

The bad news gets worse, alas.

Ronald Lauder, the billionaire who financed the term-​limits drive in 1993, now says he supports a third term for Bloomberg, and supports bypassing voters.

Lauder contends that in these trying financial times, it is just too risky to let anyone else man the helm. Funny, though, how the city managed to carry on in the wake of 9/​11, letting Mayor Giuliani step down. That was a worse mess.

But then, the mess may be in the eye of the incumbent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.