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Searching WikiLeaks

November 7, 2016 by

I spent some time this afternoon searching The Podesta Files at WikiLeaks. John Podesta is the chairman of the Hillary Clinton campaign, a former counselor to Barack Obama, Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton, and former head of the Center for American Progress. The Podesta Files are the product of a hack of Podesta’s various email accounts.

The Podesta Files are an inside look into the Clinton political machine and make for interesting reading. For example, the search term “gun control” shows 236 emails that discussed it. Other variants of that search term such as “gun violence” and “gun safety resulted in 344 and 120 emails respectively. Even Ladd Everitt, formerly of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (sic), is mentioned in one of the emails.

One exchange that really caught my eye – and I haven’t done extensive searching yet – was between Podesta and a Robert Wolf of 32Advisors. Mr. Wolf’s firm is a strategic intelligence and advisory firm. Mr. Wolf was named one of the 100 Most Important People in Finance for 2013 by Worth Magazine. He is the former Chairman and CEO of  the Wall Street firm UBS Americas. He also served on a number of advisory boards and councils in the Obama Administration. To put it bluntly, Mr. Wolf is a mover and shaker, a high flyer and rainbow rider, and the consummate insider.

From an email dated October 7, 2015 in which Podesta and Wolf are arranging a meeting:

From:john.podesta@gmail.com
To: rwolf@32advisors.com
Date: 2015-10-07 19:40
Subject:


Supposed to do a presentation in 5 minutes. Free after 8:30 but on a train.
Probably could do a few minutes at 6:30. Either work for you?
On Oct 7, 2015 5:34 PM, “Robert Wolf” wrote:

> How you looking now or tonight
>
> On Oct 7, 2015, at 12:16 PM, John Podesta wrote:
>
> Call me at 2:00 if it still works. 202-999-0738.
> On Oct 6, 2015 6:40 PM, “Robert Wolf” wrote:
>
>> John-
>>
>> Appreciate you coming back to me as I know how jammed you are. Great day
>> for the Secretary yesterday –especially gun control & Benghazi response. As
>> an fyi- my wife Carol works at Sandy Hook Promise with the woman Nicole who
>> the Secretary introduced.
>>
>> Best times for me tomorrow are 930am, 2pm or 5pm. May be best for me to
>> call you.
>>
>> Agenda:
>>
>> 1. Meeting w the Secretary & best way to interact directly with
>> her (seldom of course).
>>
>> 2. Best way forward to integrate & interact with the team
>> (economics, business, surrogate, debate…).
>>
>> 3. VP Biden update.
>>
>> Speak soon,
>>
>> RW

The Nicole mentioned is Nicole Hockley who is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Sandy Hook Promise. Mr. Wolf’s wife Carol is the Senior Development Manager. I presume that means her job is to secure funding for this gun prohibitionist organization.

What intrigues me about this email stream is the linkage between gun prohibitionists, their organizations, and those in (or formerly in) high finance. We all know about Michael Bloomberg but this email string shows it goes deeper than just him.

As a totally irrelevant aside, I found my first cousin Joe Paduda mentioned in a couple of Podesta’s emails from 2008. Joe runs a health care consultancy in New York and runs in the Democratic health care circles. Every family has to have a black sheep, I guess.

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This Should Infuriate Everyone

November 1, 2016 by 7 Comments

The Department of Veterans Affairs has a policy of reporting those veterans who require help managing their finances to the FBI’s NICS System. Those reported are placed upon the prohibited persons list and will get a decline if they should try to buy a firearm from a FFL. This program has been going on for awhile and impacts those that have a fiduciary manage their finances.

But what if you are a veteran managing your own finances? How can anyone assume that you are mentally deficient and thus should be denied your Second Amendment rights?


Attorney Joshua Prince is now representing a veteran who does indeed manage his or her own finances but was turned down when he or she tried to purchase a firearm. I’ll let Mr. Prince fill in the blanks. (The highlighting is mine.)

In my client’s situation, he handles all of his own finances. The VA does not dispute this. Rather, when I finally got a representative from the VA on the line, she informed us that the VA, on its own initiative, placed him into “supervised direct payment status”. When I inquired as to what “supervised direct payment status” was, the representative stated that it is where the veteran handles his/her own financial affairs but they “watch the veteran’s financial accounts.” While the VA contended that they sent out a letter about this status being imposed on my client, my client never received such a letter and they acknowledged that it does not mention anything about the loss of the veteran’s Second Amendment rights, but that the VA has been imposing such since 2013.

No due process is provided. The representative acknowledged that my client never received a hearing and that the determination that my client was incompetent was made solely by a VA official reviewing his case. She stated that he could have appealed the determination when he received the original letter, but the time has since past to appeal. Remember, this is the letter that my client never received and which makes no mention of the loss of one’s Second Amendment rights…

While they have reluctantly agreed to send my client copies of the putative letter that they allegedly previously sent, they refused to provide his entire file, even at my request. This is the new Veteran Affairs Administration, folks. We now treat our illegal immigrants with more respect and benefits than our own veterans. This is an absolute disgrace and the VA’s policies and procedures need to be immediately reversed. Of course, we’re all aware that such is unlikely if former Secretary Clinton is elected…

This veteran was put on “double, secret probation”, was not informed of it, and now has one of his or her enumerated rights being denied. Regardless of where you stand on gun rights, this veteran served our country. He or she deserves at the bare minimum the due process of law guaranteed under the Constitution. That they are being denied this due process should infuriate everyone.

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We Voted

October 31, 2016 by

The Complementary Spouse and I voted early as usual. We were the 3405th and 3406th persons to vote at our Buncombe County early voting location.

According to the poll worker, over 50,000 people have early voted in Buncombe County. Checking the county Board of Elections’ website, that number has risen to 62,109. Of that number, 29,271 were registered Democrats, 13,951 were registered Republicans, and 18,691 were  unaffiliated. It appears from this, that Democrats are voting heavier in the early voting period than their proportion of the county electorate would suggest. Democrats are 39.7% of the Buncombe County registered voters and 47.1% of the early voters were Democrats. This seems consistent with what is going on in other states.

I was a bit surprised that we were able to just walk right in and vote. I had heard stories of a 45-60 minute wait from many areas. The only campaign workers that we saw were one for Deborah Ross (Democrat for US Senate) and one for Donald Trump.

Early voting in North Carolina still runs through this coming Saturday. It will be interesting to see what the latest revelations about Hillary Clinton and her emails will have on turnout here.

If you want to know where a candidate stands on your gun rights, there are a number of places to look. I’d suggest #Gunvote, the NRA-Political Victory Fund, GOA’s voter guide, and your state level organizations like Grass Roots North Carolina-PVF.

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Support For An AWB Hits Low

October 27, 2016 by 3 Comments

The Gallup released a poll yesterday that should cast doubts in the minds of any politician proposing a new “assault weapons” ban. Barely one-third of those polled would support a law that “would make it illegal to manufacture, sell, or possess semi-automatic guns known as assault rifles.”

Support for any such “assault weapons” ban only amounted to 36% of those polled. By contrast, the number opposing such a ban comprise 61% of those polled by Gallup. This question has been asked for the last 20 years. The high point in support for such a ban was in the year 2000 when 59% of those polled supported such a law.

Support for a ban does divide along partisan lines with Republicans and independents being strongly against such a ban. Just as importantly, only 50% of Democrats support such a ban which is down from 63% as recently as year 2000.

Gun ownership does play a role in the results with those households owning firearms more likely to be against any new ban than those who don’t. Nonetheless, both groups, owners and non-owners alike, have a majority of respondents who are against a new ban.

A longer term question asked by Gallup has to do with whether the laws governing the sale of firearms should be stronger, weaker, or left as is. This question has been asked since 1990. Currently, 55% of those polled believed laws should be made stricter. This is up from 2012 when only 44% agreed that laws should be made stricter but down from a high of 78% in 1990.

This is just speculation on my part but I think if you were to run correlations of these numbers with the amount of money spent by Bloomberg’s organizations and other allied gun prohibitionist groups pushing “universal background checks” you would find a strong correlation. It does illustrate that the forces on the side of gun rights need to do a better job explaining that the “gun show loophole” (sic) is just a myth and that Bloomberg’s background checks cover a lot more than mere sales.

It should be pointed out that rights and the free exercise thereof should never be predicated on support in the polls. Public opinion is both fluid and fickle whereas rights should be solid and enduring. Polling is better reserved for determining which side is doing a better job of getting their message across than for making changes in laws.

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Picture Of The Day

October 25, 2016 by 5 Comments

From the AP

The stoic-faced woman being led away in handcuffs is former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane (D-PA). She was sentenced today in a Montgomery County, PA courtroom after being convicted in August on two felony counts of perjury and the misdemeanor crimes of conspiracy, official oppression, and false swearing. Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy imposed a sentence of 10-23 months in prison and eight years of probation.

From the NY Post/AP:

“This case is about ego – the ego of a politician consumed with her image from Day One,” Demchick-Alloy said. “This case is about retaliation and revenge against perceived enemies who this defendant … felt had embarrassed her in the press.”


Kane, the first woman and first Democrat elected as the state’s top prosecutor, was handcuffed in court and led out a side door. She will remain in custody until she posts $75,000 cash bail, higher than she had previously posted.


After she posts bond, she will remain free while she appeals her conviction.


She had been a stay-at-home mother, and former assistant county prosecutor, before using her husband’s trucking fortune to run for statewide office in 2012. She quickly became a rising star in the state Democratic Party before her office devolved into turmoil as career prosecutors came and went.


Kane and her husband are now estranged and share custody of their teenage boys.


“Your children are the ultimate … collateral damages. They are casualties of your actions,” the judge said. “But you did that, not this court. ”

It was not only her now estranged husband’s fortune that she used to get elected. Michael Bloomberg also donated approximately $600,000 to get her elected and she reciprocated by refusing to defend state law’s on gun rights as well as “revising” concealed carry reciprocity agreements with a number of states.

I do feel for her kids but I have no sympathy for her. She brought this upon herself and now she must pay the price.

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It Pays To Have Friends

October 24, 2016 by 6 Comments

It pays to have friends. I am very fortunate to be friends with David Yamane ( of the great blog Gun Culture 2.0). He was recently in Kentucky touring the Bourbon Trail. Seeing his posts about the trip on Facebook, I messaged him to see if he might find me a bottle of Old Fitzgerald Bottled in Bond.

As you can see, David came through for me. I had tried to find it when I was in Kentucky earlier this year at the NRA Annual Meeting to no avail. From what I understand, most of the production of bourbon that had been going to the Old Fitzgerald brand is now being saved for Larceny bourbon.

Having read Bernie Lubbers’ book Bourbon Whiskey: Our Native Spirit, I have been paying attention to bourbons that are bottled in bond. This tells me that the bourbon is at least four years old, it was distilled in a single season at a single distillery, and that it is 100 proof. As Bernie writes, “In short, the good stuff.”

Old Fitzgerald BIB is a wheated bourbon from Heaven Hill. It was originally a Stitzel-Weller brand and the tall chimney at that distillery still says “Old Fitzgerald”. While not a top shelf bourbon, it is still considered one of the best values in the wheated bourbon category. I can’t wait to give it a try.

Again, my thanks to David for finding this for me.

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From NSSF’s #Gunvote

October 21, 2016 by

The National Shooting Sports Foundation’s #Gunvote has released a new video after Hillary Clinton’s “reinterpretation” of the Heller decision.

From their Government Relations Update email:

During
the last Presidential Debate of the 2016 Election season on Wednesday
night, Hillary Clinton was asked by moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News
to explain her statement from a year ago that “The Supreme Court is
wrong on the Second Amendment.” Specifically, Wallace asked her to
explain her problem with the reasoning of landmark Heller decision.

Once
again, the American public saw Mrs. Clinton’s general election strategy
play out of providing lip service to the Second Amendment while soft
peddling what are her true strong gun control sentiments. This time, she
surprised observers by saying, “I disagreed with the way the court
applied the Second Amendment in that case, because what the District of
Columbia was trying to do was to protect toddlers from guns and so they
wanted people with guns to safely store them.” An Associated Press Fact Check termed that claim a “misstatement.” See and share the #GUNVOTE video.

To save you some time, I have embedded the video below.

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Wayne LaPierre | An Urgent Message to the NRA’s 5 Million Members

October 21, 2016 by 1 Comment

In this video message to the NRA’s 5 million members, Wayne LaPierre reflects on the last eight years of the Obama Administration’s impact on gun rights and speculates on what a President Hillary Clinton might do. From my own perspective, I’ve always thought Hillary was more politically astute than Barack Obama and has more ties throughout the Democrat Party to get her will imposed.

As I’ve said before, #NeverTrump =  #NeverGuns. Donald Trump might be a loudmouth asshole but he’s our asshole.

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New NRA Ad Coming To A Battleground State Near You

October 21, 2016 by

The NRA is releasing another ad urging voters to defeat Hillary Clinton. According to the news release below, they will be spending upwards of $5 million airing their message.

I fully expect to see it on the airwaves here in North Carolina shortly. We are one of the few key states that very close and that must be won on the way to 270 electoral votes. Our early voting started yesterday across the state.

From the NRA-ILA:

Fairfax, Va.— The National Rifle Association has launched a new ad using Hillary Clinton’s own words to expose her repeated lies regarding her views on the Second Amendment. The new ad, entitled “Classified,” began airing last night on national cable and on broadcast in key battleground states. The $5 million ad buy will run through Oct. 31.

The ad played out in real time on the debate stage last night when Clinton once again lied to the American people by saying she respects the Second Amendment, but then totally mischaracterized and confirmed her opposition to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. The Heller ruling guaranteed the right of an individual to keep a firearm in the home for self-defense.

“Hillary Clinton cannot tell the truth when it comes to the Second Amendment,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director, NRA-ILA. “It is clear from the debate last night that Hillary Clinton lies about her support of the Second Amendment and believes Americans do not have a right to keep a firearm at home for self-protection. Her argument that the Heller decision was just about protecting toddlers was ridiculous.”

Last night was the second time Clinton has publicly said she opposes Heller. At a recent closed door event, Clinton was recorded sayingthe Supreme Court “is wrong on the Second Amendment.” If elected president, Clinton will nominate at least one anti-gun Supreme Court justice who will vote to overturn the right of a law-abiding citizen to have a firearm in the home for self-protection.

“We cannot trust Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton has lied about her emails, she has lied about Benghazi, and she lies about the Second Amendment. She will say whatever it takes to get elected, but the NRA remains committed to exposing her lies. Defeating Hillary Clinton is critical to protecting the rights of America’s law-abiding gun owners,” concluded Cox.

You can see the 30 second video below:

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Quote Of The Day

October 21, 2016 by

Sporting Classics Daily published an excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt’s Hunting Trips of a Ranchman yesterday. It dealt with the ranchman’s rifles, the rifles that Roosevelt chose, hunting, and marksmanship.

On marksmanship, he said:

To be remarkably successful in killing game, a man must be a good shot; but a good target shot may be a very poor hunter, and a fairly successful hunter may be only a moderate shot. Shooting well with the rifle is the highest kind of skill, for the rifle is the queen of weapons; and it is a difficult art to learn.

As this presidential election season is coming to a close, one must wonder how a Teddy Roosevelt, hunter and shooter, would fare nowadays. I imagine his campaign stops would be marred by protests ranging from PETA with naked models painted like a leopard to the dour Demanding Mommies with their orange t-shirts. Then some sanctimonious twit from the mainstream media would then be accusing Teddy of advocating bullying when he gleefully shouted, “Bully!”, at the protesters.

If you’d like to read more of Teddy Roosevelt, the link above is to a free Kindle edition of his book.