Trump Surrogate: Coward Paladino
When he isn’t defaming the petition-gathering efforts of his school board election opponent, or cowardly avoiding a debate for that race, Carl Paladino is acting as a surrogate for his BFF, Donald Trump.
This past week, Coward Paladino – a man struck dumb by an 18 year-old opponent – took shots at John Kasich, a Presidential candidate who has experience serving in Congress, and later as Governor of Ohio.
Carl Paladino on Friday targeted Ohio Gov. John Kasich over a vote he made in Congress 22 years ago to ban 19 types of semiautomatic weapons and large-capacity magazines.
Paladino called Kasich “the Ohio version” of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
“New York gun owners cannot trust John Kasich,” Paladino said during a news conference in Ellicott Square. “He will not be a president that we can trust with our guns.”
Gunsgunsguns. Remember how Obama was coming for people’s guns? Amazingly enough, they’re still waiting, these gun-huggers, for how “registration leads to confiscation”, as it ostensibly does for things like cars.
The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution was set up to allow citizens to arm themselves as part of state militiae. At the time, the United States had no standing army, and militiae were the nation’s only line of defense. In recent years, the 2nd Amendment has oddly lost its historical and legal context, and now people have a right to bear arms for sport and protection. Absolutists – who are legally and historically wrong – believe that any restriction on the type of weapons they’re allowed to possess is an illegal overreach. They seem shocked to discover that government has an interest in not permitting random people to maintain mass-murder-friendly arsenals. Coward Paladino is one of these people who incorrectly believe that any restriction on arms is an illegal overreach. In Heller v. DC, the Supreme Court expressly stated that governments can implement these restrictions, just like restrictions exist on the freedom of speech.
Paladino, who is backing Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump, said Kasich cast a key vote in May 1994 when House members voted to approve the ban by a two-vote margin.
The Public Safety and Recreation Firearms Use Protection Act was part of a larger crime bill signed into law later in 2004 by President Bill Clinton, which has already become a controversial issue in the Democratic primary race for president.
Paladino, who was Cuomo’s Republican opponent in 2010, is decrying Kasich’s role in passing the legislation and contended language from the 1994 bill was copied as part of the New York SAFE ACT gun control law passed in 2013.
“When he was in Congress, he was no supporter of the Second Amendment,” Paladino said inside the Trump campaign’s local headquarters. “Today, when he wants to be president, he wants to go around the state and have you believe that he’s changed his stripes. Zebras don’t change their stripes.”
Not to defend Kasich, or to suggest that he’s a facile absolutist like our cowardly friend in Ellicott Square, but that last line – “Zebras don’t change their strips” is simply not something that Carl Paladino believes. He can’t. Can he?
No, he can’t, because, for 30 years – until 2005, Carl Paladino wasn’t the angry right-wing coward who can’t/won’t debate an 18 year-old; he was a registered Democrat.
In 2004, Carl Paladino gave $500 to Democratic Congressional candidate Eric Massa. In 2003, Carl Paladino gave Democrat Dick Gephardt $1000. In 2004, Trump backer Paladino gave Democrat Louise Slaughter $1000. There’s $8100 for Democrat Brian Higgins through 2009. He gave Democrat Chuck Schumer $3400, including 2009. He gave John Kerry $500 in 2004. He gave Gore/Lieberman $1000 in 2000, and Al Gore $1000 in 1999.
Carl Paladino gave “Friends of Hillary” $4100 in 2005-2006, But this one is my favorite; it’s a thing of beauty. $2300 to Hillary Clinton for President in 2008.
That’s just what’s reported with the FEC in RINO Paladino’s own name. That doesn’t include the huge sums of money Paladino and his various LLCs have donated to state and local Democratic candidates and organizations in past years. He gave Marc Panepinto $250, and Joe Mascia $1666 in 2012.
If recent Democrat Carl Paladino says that a zebra can’t change its strips, query how someone who gave thousands to Brian Higgins, Louise Slaughter, Chuck Schumer, and Hillary Clinton in the last 10 years can be some sort of gun-nut tea party Republican. After all, Hillary Clinton is the same person now – with the same positions and beliefs – that she was in 2008 and 2004.
“Donald Trump doesn’t lie. He tells the truth,” Paladino said. “I’ve known him for that and he takes great pleasure in being known as a truthful man of integrity and character.”
Paladino concluded the news conference saying “You can’t take the guns away from the people.”
The last person who should be lecturing anyone on truth, integrity, and character is Carl Paladino. He quite literally has no shame.