Actually, I have no "big time foes".
Something bad seems to have happened to them.
Each and severally.
Curious, that.
Posted on 10/26/2010 10:07:36 PM PDT by neverdem
Desperately trying to think of something both positive and credible to say about New York State’s accidental US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blurted out that Gillibrand is the Senate’s “hottest” member.
Reid’s remark, made September 20th at a ritzy private Democratic Party fundraiser in Manhattan, was sufficiently unimportant to qualify for massive media coverage.
Unfortunately for Senator Gillibrand, part of the fallout from this particular instance of media pursuit of the trivial has been to make many more aware of her and curious about her record. What they are now beginning to discover about this heretofore largely unknown senator who was appointed by New York’s scandal-tainted governor to fill the remainder of Hillary Clinton’s unexpired term is that her performance in office is not so hot.
Gunners are among those most dismayed by Gillibrand’s performance.
Just months after taking a stand while serving in the House to support keeping in place the Tiahrt Amendments protecting the privacy of gun owners, this self-described “strong supporter of the Second Amendment” flipped-flopped and came out for repeal as a new member of the Senate.
Just weeks after voting as a Member of the House for a pro-gunner bill relating to the District of Columbia, as a new Senator she voted against a nearly identical measure.
Small wonder that University of Virginia Professor of Politics Larry Sabato has said that an analysis of her performance in office does not turn up any evidence of her having much in the way of principles.
This is a woman who could give John Kerry lessons in flip-flopping. Consider Gillibrand’s string of major flip-flops:
• Against gun control while in the House (100% NRA rating) – For gun control as a senator.
• Against gay marriage as a member of the House – For gay marriage since the day her appointment to the Senate was announced.
• For keeping “Don’t Ask; don’t tell” in place while in House – Against as senator.
• Against any form of amnesty for illegal aliens as a member of the House – For as a senator.
• For withholding federal funds from sanctuary cities while in House – Against as senator.
• For making English the official language while in the House – Against as senator.
• For empowering local police to enforce federal immigration laws while in House – Against as senator.
• Against the McCain and Obama endorsed Bush $700 billion TARP bank bailout in a vote in the House, calling it “fundamentally flawed” – For the Obama $787 billion “stimulus” bill four months later as a senator.
You get my drift. You’d have a very tough time turning up any Kirsten Gillibrand principles even if you had a search warrant for them.
And then there’s the matter of her views on the issues that matter most to voters this year.
The Issue, of course, is the financial mess – and Gillibrand played a key role in helping to cause the meltdown.
When that wacky wrecking crew of the Clinton Administration, Chris Dodd in the Senate, Barney Frank in the House and Andrew Cuomo as HUD Secretary were smashing the banking system by foisting destructive sub-prime mortgages on the banks, causing collapses, leading to massive bailouts and triggering financial pain and suffering for millions of Americans, right there in a key supporting role at Cuomo’s side as HUD legal counsel was… Kirsten Gillibrand.
Gillibrand was the person that gang tasked with promoting “new products” for HUD, a euphemism that means forcing banks to provide subprime mortgages to millions who could not afford them.
Now Cuomo is running for governor on the same ticket with Gillibrand. These two are the Bonnie & Clyde of the banking collapse, but unlike Bonnie & Clyde – whom gangster John Dillinger said gave bank robbing a bad name – the team of Gillibrand & Cuomo stuck up not just the banks but all of us.
It’ll be interesting to watch Gillibrand try that old “I feel your pain” line liberal love to use: she and her husband profited really big time by selling short companies heavily into sub-primes. She’s also a defender of ObamaCare and other policies just as unpopular with voters, including job-destroying “cap-and-trade” and the wildly disliked idea of denying workers the right to a secret ballot when deciding whether to unionize, something even George McGovern has denounced as un-American.
Regarding the wisdom of inflicting upon New York and all America a giant Muslim mosque next to Ground Zero, Gillibrand has joined Mayor Bloomberg as a cheerleader for it. Bloomberg’s approval ratings plummeted to a 5-year low when he took up that cause with such self-congratulatory scorn for those of us who do not share his wild enthusiasm for it. Most New York City residents now disapprove of him.
Gillibrand is prone to falsifying her record on issues and even her resume, alleging, for example, that this or that flip-flop was no change and that during the period when she was performing questionable lawyering for Big Tobacco that she’s been caught lying about, she was somehow engaged in “public interest” legal work. She also suffers under the delusion that she could and should be President.
A perfect illustration of why she should not hold any public office is the self-serving cowardice, narcissism and deceit she demonstrated with her behavior regarding the Senate vote last year to curtail granting taxpayer dollars to the notorious corrupt “community activists” group ACORN. Remember that YouTube phenomena last year about the guy and gal who posed as a pimp and a prostitute and dropped by some ACORN offices?
They captured on video ACORN workers advocating and offering assistance in such matters as tax fraud, money laundering, falsifying public records, setting up a brothel, and smuggling girls aged about 14 into the country to use as sex-slaves to help raise money for a congressional campaign?
An ensuing public uproar caused the House and Senate each to vote for measures to strip ACORN of taxpayer dollars. One of only 7 Senators to stick up for ACORN, thereby sticking it to the taxpayers, was Kirsten Gillibrand.
Leading up to the vote, ACORN’s CEO, “Chief Organizer” Bertha Lewis, denounced the videos as “a scam,” claiming they had been “doctored.” When this was demonstrated to be false, she then hurled unsubstantiated accusations of “racism.” That didn’t work either. Finally, Lewis admitted that the charges against ACORN were “indefensible.”
Still, Gillibrand backed off from offending, let alone punishing, ACORN. She was terrified that if she dared offend ACORN and its friends on the extreme Left, they just might attempt to try to take her out in the 2010 Democratic primary, costing her money and causing her grief even if she beat them.
Bertha Lewis, you see, was a power among left-wing Democrats and also the boss running New York State’s ACORN-front “Working Families Party,” whose line Democrat Gillibrand hoped to run on this November, which she now is.
Misleadingly referring to ACORN as “a charitable organization” and whining that failure to continue to rain taxpayer money down upon ACORN would be “harmful to hard-working New York families,” in lieu of cracking down on the corrupt con artists Gillibrand suggested this alternative as sufficient:
“Ask ACORN leaders for a full investigation.”
That’s it!
Don’t vote to stop throwing more good money after bad.
Don’t ask the Justice Department to investigate.
Don’t ask state or local law enforcement to investigate.
Don’t ask Congress to investigate.
Let’s just ask ACORN to investigate ACORN.
This US Senator who said such a stupid thing defending the indefensible is an Ivy League magna cum laude and a lawyer to boot.
So it’s not that she lacks brains – it’s that she lacks character and convictions and cares a whole lot more about holding office for the sake of holding office than she cares about her country or her self-respect.
Fortunately, the person running against Gillibrand has brains plus character and convictions. Joe DioGuardi, a feisty, highly energetic former congressman, is a certified professional accountant (CPA), who has the numbers down pat and can point to a very long, very solid, record of sounding alarm bells about Washington’s fiscal follies.
DioGuardi is a long-time Second Amendment defender – and, unlike Gillibrand, trustworthy. I know Joe DioGuardi. Joe DioGuardi is a friend of mine (served with him in Congress). And Joe DioGuardi not only is mirror-opposite of Kirsten Gillibrand -- a conservative who understands what’s gone wrong and who will stand up and vote right to fix things.
Check out his book, Unaccountable Congress: It Doesn’t Add Up (Regnery, 1992) and visit the website of Truth In Government, the non-profit organization he founded twenty years ago. DioGuardi deserves great credit – and the appreciation and gratitude of every American who is worried about our country’s current sad state – for taking up at age 70 the very difficult, against-all-odds task of running for the Senate on an unapologetically conservative platform in a state whose voters can more often than not be counted upon to be hostile to the notion of common sense in government.
Wise voters will welcome the clear and compelling difference in both content and character between Joe DioGuardi and that “hot” senator with the not-so-hot record.
If she is so hot..maybe all posts on her should have pictures.
I would think the 9/11 families, and all NYers against building the mosque at Ground Zero would support Joe DioGuardi, and here’s why:
“..wait until it really sinks in with voters in those five NYC boroughs where Gillibrand stands regarding the matter of the wisdom of inflicting upon New York and all America a giant Muslim mosque next to Ground Zero.
She’s joined Mayor Bloomberg as a cheerleader for it. Bloomberg’s approval ratings plummeted to a five-year low when he took up that cause with such self-congratulatory scorn for those of us who do not share his wild enthusiasm for it. Most New York City residents now disapprove of him.
The Ground Zero mosque issue just may play a deciding role in this race.”
excerpt http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/09/senator_kristen_gillibrands_re_1.html
In the debates between DioGuardi and. Gillibrand, Gillibrand said she would attend a possible mosque breaking ceremony at Ground Zero, and DioGuardi said he would NOT.
Gillibrand favors trying 9/11 terrorist mastermind in a civil court, and DioGuardi favors a military tribunal.
Gillibrand says the Tea Party has hurt America.
No, Kirsten, it has hurt LIBERALS who are trying to wreck out country.
Joe DioGuardi absolutely supports the Tea Party; in fact, they backed him.
Gillibrand is a political whore.
another reason why I didn’t renew my NRA membership
Kirsten went to Washington and instantly became Chuck Schumer’s sock puppet.
“Friend of Gunner’s to Big Time Foe”
So, was the ride worth it, gunner? :-)
Must have been some blogpimping involved...
Maybe you can explain that? She now has an 'F' from the NRA since she became a senator. How is the NRA responsible for Gilli's flipping from all the positions that she embraced as a House member?
That’s a pretty funny catch.
Dang, what did gunner ever do to her?
Everybody knows he’s just as sweet as he can be.
The motto of the NRA is freedom. Are we free with cap and trade? Are we free with obamacare? What happens when they decide to do the bullet tax, lead tax, banned hunting on federal land. If obamacare can happen anything can
As a Rep, her individual vote didn’t count for much, and she could afford to be pro-gun on bills where her vote would not make a difference. In the Senate, her vote counts much more, and margins are narrower, so she has to vote the Dem line.
She is a classic example of why the NRA should never support dems. She was a fake blue-dog. The NRA basically enabled her by supporting her in the past. R.I.P., NRA.
(crickets)
He’s a wicked young man.
p.s.
LICK THE FROG!
[what?]
LUCY
Actually, I have no "big time foes".
Something bad seems to have happened to them.
Each and severally.
Curious, that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.