Tag: Hillary Clinton

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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

 

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media and media people national politics & policies political challengers

Humble Hillary Heads Off

Hillary Clinton, collage, photomontage, illustration, editorial, election, presidential, campaign, poverty, accomplishments, election

Hillary Clinton announced, yesterday, that she wants to be the next president of these United States. She made it official via an Internet video, which starts off with all kinds of normal, regular folks expressing their hopes and plans for 2015.

The small boy singing about “little tiny fishes” steals the show.

After a minute and a half of innocence-​by-​association, Hillary Clinton comes on to say that she, too, has big plans: “I’m running for president.”

Mrs. Clinton continues: “Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.”

She should know, what with her family’s struggles after leaving the White House in 2000 — multiple mortgages on multiple multi-​million-​dollar domiciles. I’m sure we all relate to that.

“Everyday Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion,” she states, “so you can do more than just get by, you can get ahead and stay ahead.”

Apparently, without Hillary at the helm of our Leviathan federal government, all we can do is “just get by.” Barely. Never “get ahead” and “stay ahead.”

“Because when families are strong,” intones Clinton, “America is strong.”

Yes, the woman who wrote It Takes a Village now extols family strength.

“So I’m hitting the road to earn your vote,” she pledges. “Because it’s your time.”

Or so says this Everywoman, a former first lady, U. S. Senator, presidential candidate, Secretary of State, and savvy cattle futures trader.

Hillary Clinton has had a long career in government. It will be interesting to see what she runs on — what she identifies as accomplishments — as opposed to what she runs away from.

Or deletes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Hillary Clinton Campaign

 

 

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national politics & policies political challengers

Another Insider?

Earlier this week, Jeb Bush, former governor of the State of Florida, announced on Facebook that he is “exploring” a 2016 run for the Republican nomination for the presidency. I have mixed feelings, to say the least.

There’s the whole dynastic problem. Another Bush? Or, is Jeb the cost of finding a candidate to beat Hillary … who has her own dynastic baggage?

But the big story, here, is to watch the insiders scramble to keep out the outsiders.

The trouble with both Hillary and Jeb is that they are insiders. They represent where the leadership of both parties wants its representatives and front-​men (and ‑women) to go: to the putative “center.”

By which they really mean: don’t disturb the bailout system in American finance or the Pentagon procurement system for the military-​industrial complex.

While it might be fun to contemplate Bill Clinton as the First Gentleman, or pick at the two issues over which Gov. Bush seems not very conservative at all, the truth is that both have access to a lot of entrenched power and loose money. Both Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton enjoy incumbent-​like advantages.

If the near future does sport a Clinton-​Bush battle for the presidency, we can be sure of only one thing: status quo vs. status quo.

Leaving the real work of reform to those of us at the grassroots, with state and local issues our preoccupation. As long as insiders occupy the White House, our choices will be limited.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture national politics & policies Second Amendment rights

Terrorized?

This week, a major-​party politician said that “we cannot let a minority of people — and that’s what it is, a minority of people — hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority.”

How can simply having a viewpoint — a very American thing to possess, by the way — terrorize anyone?

But of course, this person wasn’t talking about real terrorism. This person — a Democratic Party politician of high standing — was using the T‑word to smear defenders of the Second Amendment.

Yes, it was Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, and former U.S. Secretary of State (an office she has now taken “full responsibility” for holding), who trotted out those words, allegedly to encourage “a more thoughtful” debate about gun control.

Demonizing her opponents as “terrorizing” her comrades is hardly a way to produce the stated result.

Them’s fightin’ words.

I know of no one who defends the Second Amendment and opposes the gun control agenda of the Democratic Party who also supports the terroristic activities of spree murderers. Not one.

We have more complicated reasons to oppose gun control than merely focusing on such violence.

But understanding those reasons would require a “more thoughtful” attitude than besmirching opponents with the word “terror.”

And as for terrorizing, there are few words more frightening coming from an American politician than “we cannot let a minority” exercise their rights — whether to arms or … holding “a viewpoint.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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insider corruption

Incumbency Protection Racket

While discussing the latest IRS scandal — the one about how the IRS has been (is still) stacking the deck against non-​lefty nonprofits seeking tax-​exempt status — the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto mentions another kind of deck-​stacking: campaign financial regulation.

Seems that Hillary Clinton, still running for president, is using her serially disgraced husband’s 501©3 foundation as a launching pad or financial resource for political operations. Taranto wonders whether the IRS “would investigate the Clinton Foundation for evidently acting as a front group for a political campaign” — quickly adding that his question is “facetious” given the fact that “the Obama IRS only goes after little guys.”

Suppose, however, that there were in fact an inquiry into the relationship between Hillary’s incipient campaign and the foundation? The point Taranto wants to make is that whether we’re talking about the IRS code or campaign finance regulation, it’s easier to comply with “complex and burdensome regulations on political speech” when you have resources to splurge on lawyers who can ensure that you’re obeying the letter of the law. Thus, the regulations “give incumbents a huge advantage over upstart challengers.”

Though hardly the only problem with CFR, this bedrock truth about the regulatory regime undermines the claim that such regulations serve only to “level the playing field.” What they really do is make it impossible for an unknown, un-​wealthy but otherwise viable challenger to quickly “level the playing field” by accepting large checks from donors convinced of the challenger’s electability and election-worthiness.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights national politics & policies

Imprisonable Speech

Most of the media is finally examining the lies that the Obama administration told ─ is still telling ─ regarding last September’s terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi.

A matter worth investigating, as are wider questions regarding U.S. involvement in Libya.

But as the deceptions unravel, too few ponder the fate of one Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, ostensibly jailed for parole violations. The terms of his parole had prohibited him from using computers or the Internet without his parole officer’s approval. Obviously, Nakoula did use that technology to produce and distribute his anti-​Islamic video, widely condemned for being cheesy, among other sins.

It was this video that Clinton and others blamed for inciting the attack in Benghazi.

Okay. The man violated parole. But many were eager to see Nakoula punished not because of that violation but because he exercised his freedom of speech in a way that offended people. We have also learned that soon after the attack, then-​Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Charles Woods, father of one of the slain, that the U.S. would make sure that “the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted.”

At the least, Clinton was boneheaded to thus imply that the right to freedom of speech was or should be no safer in the U.S. than in Egypt. And considering all the circumstances here, it’s also fair to ask whether Nakoula would have ended up back in a jail cell sans Benghazi cover-up.

Could it possibly be that he is a political prisoner?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.