Bloomberg is winning. Turns out, money matters in politics. Who knew?
The Golden Rule: Those who have the gold make the rules. Yes, my friends, it’s true. Even in a Constitutional republic or a limited democracy like ours, those who have the gold make the rules.
Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is a prime example of how money matters in politics, how easy it is to buy ballots and purchase politicians.
The New York Post reports that in the past four years Bloomberg has dropped upwards of $72 million on pet causes, like his anti-gun agenda, and elections across the country via his nonprofit gun-control organization, Everytown for Gun Safety, and his political action committee, Independence USA PAC.
The Post was able to break down his donations as follows: $34.6 million spent on winning candidates and causes — and $21.4 million on losers. Plus $16 million spent on causes like climate change and gun control.
In terms of results, Bloomberg’s batting average or winning percentage is an eye-popping .674 (or 67.4 percent). The billionaire media magnate went 31 to 15 on races and ballot initiatives in which he spent more than $10,000 in PAC money.
As it relates to tangible results within the gun debate, Everytown for Gun Safety boasts the following legislative victories and wins against the National Rifle Association.
- Oregon Becomes 18th State to Require Background Checks, Nevada Up Next — This victory, just six months after voters in Washington State passed background checks by ballot measure, makes Oregon the 18th state in the country to require background checks on all handgun sales – and the sixth state to pass background check legislation since Newtown.
- In West Virginia, Governor Ray Tomblin vetoed S.B. 347 – legislation pushed by the NRA that would have dismantled the state’s concealed carry permitting system by allowing people to carry concealed, loaded guns in public with no permit and no training required.
- In Montana, Governor Steve Bullock vetoed two dangerous gun bills – HB 533 and HB 298 – that would have compromised public safety by dismantling the state’s current concealed carry permitting system and enabling people to carry concealed, loaded weapons in public with absolutely no training and no permit. In his veto letter for HB 298, Governor Bullock called permitless carry “an absurd concept that threatens the safety of our communities.”
- In Michigan, Republican Governor Rick Snyder vetoed SB 789 – legislation pushed by the NRA that would have undermined vital protections for domestic violence victims by allowing some of their abusers to carry loaded, concealed handguns.
- In New Hampshire, Governor Maggie Hassan has said she will veto SB 116, legislation that repeals the permit requirement for carrying concealed, loaded handguns in public in the state.
- Guns on Campus. Bills that would have forced colleges and universities to allow people to carry guns on campus have been defeated in 14 states so far: Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
- Guns in Schools. Bills that would have allowed people to carry guns in K-12 schools have been defeated in 15 states so far: Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.
- Permitless Carry. Bills that would have dismantled state concealed carry systems and let people carry concealed handguns in public with no permit and no training have failed in 15 states so far: Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia – and a veto is expected on a permitless carry bill in New Hampshire soon.
- Repealing Background Checks. Legislation was defeated that would have repealed the requirement that all gun buyers in Colorado, and all handgun buyers in Iowa, pass a criminal background check. A similar bill is expected to be defeated in North Carolina soon.
It goes without saying but Bloomberg’s money is moving the needle. He has become a real heavyweight in the war over the Second Amendment. What’s more, the Bloomberg machine is showing no signs of slowing down.
“Mike formed the PAC to stand up for people willing to do the right thing in the face of difficult local politics,” Bloomberg spokesman Marc LaVorgna told the Post.
“We don’t cherry-pick easy races like many groups do,” he added. “We’re proud to have helped make the difference in electing bipartisan leaders around the country.”
Thanks for the important Article, S.H.B. As always you are a true American Patriot.
Well, at least some Patriot Constitutional State legislators are on the right track, even though their efforts are mostly getting shot down. These Totalitarian Traitors have been ‘playing’ us right under our sheeple noses for years. They constantly without pause or hesitation steadily continue to make absolutely Unconstitutional laws slowly but surely degrading the 2nd/A with the only motivation being total and complete civilian disarmament, at least to the level of England, Austrialia, Canada, (not even air rifles over 700fps) and other despotic countries with even more Draconian socialistic environments ,
Enough people are finally realizing that you really can’t win by small incremental victories against gun control anymore. If anyone bothered to keep tabs on new bills being introduced in Congress by various traitors they’d notice that for every apparent anti-gun control victory there are additional new anti-gun bills that crush and render meaningless any small success by the Pro-Gun legal efforts if they get passed.
The only way to WIN in this serious game of social life or death, is NOT to be on the Defensive. This is one of those where if you have not won the entire war yet, you are steadily losing! We must press strongly and proactively on the OFFENSIVE by focusing on an ultimate objective of nothing less than a COMPLETE REPEAL of All gun laws. Yes, that wasn’t a typo/misprint. I know that many of us fall for the dysfunctional ‘mind programming’ that equivocates the Constitution’s true steadfast meaning by saying things like ‘…well, I don’t think that mentally disturbed persons should be ‘allowed’ to have guns, and ex criminals certainly shouldn’t be ‘allowed’ to have them…?”
When I hear otherwise intelligent people say things like this my amazement with this premise grows continuously. I say to them that besides being sharper, more historically educated, and wiser people than our current corrupted legislators could ever replicate, our visionary Framers never had a ‘problem’ with that stretch of flawed moral hubris and skewed relativism. They simply made the 2nd/Amendment bullet proof enough so that it could Not be manipulated (illegally) as the Leftist Despots are so vehemently attempting now, by three clear and precise words. “…SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED” They didn’t qualify this phrase in any way be saying “…except for mentally ill, former criminals, drug addicts, etc. etc.
The Framers were smart enough to know that there was a clear distinction between the fundamental problem with an anti- social/criminally/deranged act and the methodology of the commission of that act. Especially when the physical/material elements of, associated with or used in, the crime were normal natural objects or tools or with useful functions in general society. When people back then (and up until 1968) became ‘out of self control’ as such, reactive ‘punishment’ was implemented and they were temporarily (or sometimes permanently) removed from society depending upon the egregiousness of their situation, for the safety of society or themselves. When they were deemed rehabilitated enough and fit to return to society and re-engage as a law abiding citizen they were let out of prison and their All their rights including gun ownership and voting were restored and there were no background checks and employers didn’t do them as a criteria for hiring!
The formerly mentally disturbed, or substance abusers, or criminals, or ‘whatever’ became ‘law abiding’ citizens again with ALL rights restored! Such was the advanced notion of ‘Crime and Punishment’ and rehabilition. Your rights weren’t lost FOREVER! That’s insanity! And it would make rehabilitation almost impossible? The Founders knew that no ‘laws’ prohibiting possession of any material objects would ever really prevent any human act of any kind once determined motivation took hold of the individual. Absent a gun or a blade or a blunt object…fire was always a ubiquitous and readily available ‘crime tool’, and happens to be the mechanism of one of the most heinous multiple homicides ever committed in the 1920’s if memory serves. And then there was always one’s bare hands, which accounts for as almost as many gun related deaths as well.
Why then, do we have worthless capricious laws that never and would ever provide for anything of value? And the pragmatically visionary Founders certainly didn’t want to create a society with ‘designated factions’ of the populate permanently scarred with a social stigma of ‘Scarlet Letters’ that eternally restricts the American Dream for them? And that was the way it was until the greatest manipulative agenda based FRAUD ever perpetrated on ‘We, The People’ was given birth by our own government’s demon seed. The 1968 Gun Control Act! Which Blew Open the door protecting our rights like a 12 ga. breacher round and released all this rabid registration and confiscation Fascism by ‘those’ that are obsessed with control and restriction.
My associates often say to this “that’s really strange talk coming from a LEO? You of all people shouldn’t disagree with the ‘wrong people’ being prevented from having guns? ” I say back, ‘Well, you might think that if you din’t know the truth about life and history concerning government ‘authority’. Especially in terms of defining what type of people are ‘wrong’ types and who are ‘right types’?
And then I sometimes flash back for an instant to a a really smart straight ‘A’ kid who was a senior at my high school and was really nice to an ugly, ‘Special Education’ (euphamism for ‘retarded’ back in the day but really a mild form of Autism) Sophomore kid like me whom she volunteered to ‘tutor’ after school –with angelic patience because she also happened to be so beautiful that every guy in the school was trying to date her so she had lots of better things to do then waste her time with retarded students like me. Basically she was a nice, decent young lady. She graduated and I lost track of her..
Fast forward 10 years I was a young plainclothes cop and was heading up to my office at the Area district station and froze in my tracks as i passed one the processing cubicles. There she was cuffed to the steel ring in the cinder block wall. I was so freaked that my lips were moving to say something to her but nothing came out. I told the arresting officer that I knew her and wanted to talk privately. I closed the door and took the cuffs off her. She looked shockingly more beautiful than she did in H.S. But had somehow ‘aged’ much more in her eyes. Like the thousand yard stare I’d seen on so many combat Vets. I learned that she- like so many young and gullible kids- inadvertently got sucked in with the wrong crowd in college and got duped into becoming a mule and was busted with minimum felony weight cocaine. I never knew she had no family except a disabled mother and was quite poor compared to the middle class most of the school kids were from in that part of the city.
So not having the financial capacity to hire a good attorney the court appointed lawyer(no doubt butt buds with the Federal prosecutor (Fed bust) ) thought he gave her a Christmas gift deal with two years in the penitentiary. With the ‘right’ attorney this victim-less crime could have been copped to at least no prison time with any kind of serious plea bargaining considering it was her first offense, and maybe even a misdemeanor if the case was weak enough like most were back then.
This time she was arrested for prostitution. She became a ‘call girl’ because with a felony ‘record’ nobody would hire her for any livable wage. . And of course it’s even worse today. I had enough job related ‘favor credit’ stored up by then to get her off with the charges dismissed at the preliminary hearing. I promised to get together with her and help her ‘change her life’ but she did another act of kindness for me by saying that ‘she wanted to do that after she got her life together on her own because otherwise it would get complicated– and I realize now that it definitely would have– and she didn’t want to potentially screw up my life like she did her’s.’ I did the usual bit giving her my card and begging her once again to call me if she needed Anything at all. She promised she would… but never did. I found out sadly, a couple years later, what happened to her. And don’t want to think about it anymore. Suffice to say I ran into other cases where Unconstitutional laws helped ruin people’s lives. And ultimately discovered the truth about how the ’68 GCA and other Nazi laws have no purpose in our great Nation but for destroying us into submission for eventual socialist enslavement.
So that’s one of the reasons I promote repealing of ALL the anti 2nd/A background checks, all gun control laws all together and after a crime is committed or a person is incarcerated because they break laws and can’t exist safely in society, that after they pay their dues, their ‘criminal records’ should Not be public record and should only be available for a judge’s scrutiny in the event of a repeat offense for more severe repeat sentencing,
If the person(s) I have these discussions with are religionist, I remind them that “…there, but for the grace of God, Goeth YOU, MOFO!”
Then i say, ” yeah, i also don’t like it when i see a lot of people with dangerous items like Cars, motorcycles, chainsaws, especially if they they have a mental or emotional content habit like drug abusers, alcoholics, idiots, people who have a ‘hobby’ of domestic fighting all the time or common stupid assholes. But when you add it all up, that ultimately includes just about every other god dammed one of us in some form or another! Maybe most if not ALL of us if the statute abusing ‘authorities’ get their way in the with all their future spurious Public Safety bills? Wait until you see the new firearms form 4473s they’ll come out with if Hillary gets in!
Everybody could all shift their mind sets to a unified successful conclusion against our enemies of Freedom if we just comprehend and never forget one basic reality fact of this whole Gun Control issue. It isn’t about ‘controlling’ guns even to a ‘feely good’ level of what many delusional gun owners even perceive as a ‘reasonable’ compromise –and better than doing nothing because it’s at least well intentioned attempt at solving a problem.where there’s a nonexistent ‘gun’ problem in the first place because even gun owners are being brainwashed. Because true problem is ‘violence’ itself in the human psychology. NOT any Constitutionally GUARANTEED personal liberty. So what is it all about then? It’s about two truth and reality revelations.
1.Agenda based totalitarianism. The mission to register and disarm ‘We, The People’ becoming undeniably ostensible.
2. The serious danger of all types of ‘public safety’ prohibitions and initiatory force requirements for enforced laws which never have worked and never will work against a libertarian based society. BUT, THEY HAVE, INDEED, ALWAYS BEEN ABUSED AND CORROSIVE TO OUR BILL OF RIGHTS AND PERSONAL PRIVACY.
Once we ALL finally have the epiphany concerning this. The rest won’t be that difficult.
Let’s all have a Happy New Year and then get back to ‘taking care of business’ We have but only one year left.
Wow. Very well said. I’m concerned, as a 27 year old man, that were losing older men like you every day, and I just don’t see that today’s man has the resolve to stand up and fight like the men of your day. I really hope I’m wrong, because the day is coming. I hope there are people ready to defend the hill along side me.
Yup, bloomburg is a gem. wait untill Trum has the republican nomination locked up and polls show him destroying hillery, or a hillery like drone, I bet Mike will jump in as a third party canidate in an attempt to split the vote and hand it to the demacrates. A kind of ross perote thing. just wait!
I think we have to give Bloomie more credit. He talks about spending millions of his money for gun bills, yet he is constantly raising money for his targets. Apparently his backers have given him enough of their money, that I would wager he hasn”t spent a dime of his own.
Bloomberg’s money would be better spent creating education and employment opportunities in disadvantaged areas of our country, if he really wants to make a difference in gun violence statistics. Taking gun rights away from law abiding citizens is an ass-backwards way of addressing the issue.
Bloomberg and those Like him are the reason the I feel that it should be ILLEGAL for out of State funds to be used to MEDDLE in State or Local Politics…..
Well. That’s not new I guess. We’ve all known that money drives whatever ideological bus you can name.. What’s interesting is the number of votes money seems to buy based on illiteracy and the inability to reason. Seems like the strategy in any campaign is to pander to the dumbest electorate cohort by whatever means available. And, illiteracy is an easy target where lies can be disguised as truth without objectivity or question. That’s what the 15 second sound bite is for; and the fund raising dinners at $3000 per plate; and the huge public speaking fees, etc. You’d think those wealthy folks would be able to think beyond their noses. Ain’t happening.
I don’t much care for Madonna or her stupid idea of music. And, I wasn’t surprised to hear her say that Americans are dumb. At the time, I thought she should just leave and shut up. Now? Maybe she saw something I didn’t see at the time…even if not in the context she might’ve meant it.