Those efforts were appreciated. Nancy Pelosi, the once and likely next House speaker, made a special visit to New York City to personally thank him and other donors for their efforts in helping Democrats retake the majority.
What’s Mike Bloomberg’s end game here? His high-profile role has raised speculation that he’s contemplating a 2020 presidential run. At 76, he’s announced he’ll make a decision about 2020 sometime in January or February. It’s no secret that he wanted to run in 2016, but took a pass after realizing it would be impossible to win as an independent.
With his eye still on the Oval Office, he’s switched parties -- for the third time in 18 years. Bloomberg’s now gone from being a Democrat to a Republican to an Independent and back to a Democrat. This lack of allegiance to any party will most likely not play well with Democratic base voters, who want to know that candidates are true believers. “Democrats will see him as using their party as his own means to an end, as he did with the Republican Party. It’s all about him,” said Joe Borelli, a Republican City Council member from Staten Island.
With the businessman’s net worth at around $45 billion, he would be able to fully fund his campaign without having to raise money. While Bloomberg has given heavily to Democrats and left-leaning groups, since 2013 he’s also donated to Republicans such as Rep. Peter King and Sens. John McCain, Susan Collins and Pat Toomey. Complicating the situation is that he’s also donated to potential 2020 Democratic rivals such as Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. His donation history will send, at best, a mixed message to Democratic voters, and at worst, will reinforce his lack of allegiance to a party or a set of political ideas.
Bloomberg’s mayoral legacy will be his biggest asset and also his biggest liability. While he’s known as the Competent Mayor, his legacy is not easily summarized in a sound bite or remembered as exciting. “In a city used to big-personality mayors, Bloomberg was low key,” said Eric Ulrich, a moderate Republican City Council member from Queens who has been backed by Bloomberg. He added, “Bloomberg has successfully run the largest city in America, which qualifies him to be president. Between his record, his resume and his money, he should not be dismissed.”
However, it’s hard to see how Bloomberg’s moderate message will play in a primary likely to be a race to see who is the most progressive candidate. He spent much of his 12 years as mayor in a “war on the progressives.” In 2011, he forcibly removed Occupy Wall Street protesters -- whose cause has morphed into the Resist movement -- from lower Manhattan. He recently questioned the #MeToo accusations against his friend Charlie Rose, who was ousted from CBS and PBS after reports of years of sexual misconduct, by saying, “Is it true? … We have a system where you have presumption of innocence.”
As a former banker, Bloomberg’s spent years defending Wall Street and big banks and criticizing the stringent Dodd-Frank regulations, which may not go over well with Sen. Elizabeth Warren and her supporters. He pushed for education reform and charter schools, which caused the city’s teachers’ union to actively campaign for “anyone but Bloomberg.” During his administration, homelessness increased -- due to generous government benefits, he said, a belief that prompted the mayor to advocate for one-way bus tickets for the homeless to go to elsewhere.
His law-and-order record, especially stop-and-frisk policies, were despised by minorities who felt unfairly targeted. Though Bloomberg was continuing Rudy Giuliani’s approach on this front, he doubled down on it by increasing frisks from 100,000 per year to almost 700,000. While the practice did get 7,000 illegal guns off the street, it inflamed police and community relations and was part of the reason Black Lives Matter was formed.
It’s unclear if Bloomberg could even win a Democratic primary in New York City where Queens and Bronx voters recently elected avowed socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress. (In 2016, Bernie Sanders got more than 40 percent of the vote in Brooklyn.) Over his three elections in New York, Bloomberg spent a whopping $240 million to fend off Democratic challengers. “He has so many enemies in the Democratic Party in New York City it’s hard to see him winning a primary,” said a longtime progressive Democratic consultant.
Outside of his home base, Bloomberg may be best known for his health-conscious nanny-state policies, which became fodder for late-night talk shows. He prohibited smoking inside commercial establishments, pushed restaurants to ban trans-fat offerings, forced chain restaurants to post calorie counts and tried to eliminate the sale of sugary soda drinks larger than 16 ounces. “His record was a he-knew-best approach. It lacked common sense, free will and personal responsibility,” said Borelli.
“It’s hard to imagine Bloomberg campaigning at the Iowa State Fair, where there will be massive amounts of unhealthy foods with trans-fats and sugary soft drinks everywhere,” said the Democratic consultant. “He’s never been a man of the people. This is not going to go well.”
Borelli added: “If there were no primaries, he would be a great candidate in a general election. But [Democrats] will use his record against him. He was hated by the unions, especially the teachers’ union. He didn’t create affordable housing or push for criminal justice reform. He’s hated by minority voters because of stop and frisk. He doesn’t have the right record to run on in a Democratic primary.”
Adele Malpass is a national political reporter for RealClearPolitics. She was formerly chairwoman of the Manhattan Republican Party and money politics reporter for CNBC.
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2) Are Aircraft Carriers Still Relevant?
Another take on the A2/AD vs. carrier debate
By Ben Ho Wan Beng
The debate over the centrality of the aircraft carrier in fleet structure continues unabated over 70 years since it came of age during World War II. The discourse over the decades – and this picked up steam in recent years – has been that anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) weaponry like submarines and missiles, or even drone swarms in the future, will dethrone the “Queen of the Waves” from her exalted position.
Much of the debate focuses on how dangerous these threats are to the carrier. There is some basis to these arguments based on historical examples, but the main limitation is that these threats have not been truly proven in real-world combat. And of course, nobody has ever attacked a flat-top of any nation since World War II. Therefore, the literature on the so-called “carrier-killers” is based largely on informed speculation. Moreover, there are credible counters to them, as
Dr. Robert Farley, a regular voice in the carrier debate as well as a frequent contributor to
The Diplomat, correctly pointed out in
an article on the
Foxtrot Alpha defense blog. Another, more nuanced, look at this issue is perhaps in order.
Deterrent Value
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Leaving aside the likely real-world effectiveness of carrier-killers, what is perhaps most ominous about them is that they could indirectly reduce the flat-top’s combat effectiveness via their deterrent effect. During a high-intensity conflict, for instance, the carrier could be deployed much more cautiously (or even not at all) given the potential threat of these weapons. While the effectiveness of carrier-killers may be operationally unproven, they could create a sense of uncertainty in the other party.
This uncertainty, coupled with the symbolism and high cost of the carrier, could profoundly influence national leaders and military commanders on how best to deploy the platform. To illustrate, the last unit of the American Nimitz-class carrier, USS George H.W. Bush, has a princely $6 billion price tag, while India’s two flat-tops and Japan’s so-called “helicopter destroyers” are similarly in the multibillion-dollar ballpark. In addition to its astronomical cost, the large size of the carrier makes its symbolism for its owner almost phallic. The Nimitz has a displacement of about 100,000 tons while “small-deck” carriers like those of India are in the 40,000-ton range.
At this juncture, let us revisit the Pacific War. During this conflict, William Halsey of the U.S. Navy was the archetypal aggressive and offensive-minded carrier admiral. His polar opposite, Raymond Spruance, was restrained and more adverse to risk. Hence, the big question is: In a future conflict involving carriers, would the leadership be in the mold of Spruance, the “Quiet Warrior”? Or would a “Bull” Halsey hold sway? The risk of losing a capital asset could play on the minds of the leadership, and it might take an existential threat to the homeland for carriers to be sent into a nonpermissive environment. Hence, it is likely that leaders, whether military or political, would deploy the vessel in a manner more akin to Spruance than Halsey.
It is worth noting that there has not been a direct clash-of-arms between great powers since World War II. Moreover, there has not been a major campaign at sea for over 30 years since the Falklands War. With very few reference points, any future conventional maritime campaign is likely to be cautious, with the side having the more valuable assets taking more probing actions.
Deterrence favors the A2/AD-centric nation in such circumstances.
Though carriers have not been in a high-end fight since 1944, there is evidence of them being deployed more cautiously in combat during the Cold War. In the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, India’s carrier, the Vikrant, was sent to the permissive Bay of Bengal and not to the more contested northern Arabian Sea. Similarly, during the 1982 Falklands campaign, the Royal Navy kept its two carriers farther from the area of operations than usual for fear of reprisals from Argentine airpower. It also bears notice that these two episodes occurred before the coming of age of precision-guided munitions and what the Russians termed as the reconnaissance-strike complex.
Moreover, in this current age where the “battle of the narratives” predominates, the enemy need not sink the carrier to secure a major political victory; this could be attained by merely hitting it (which may or may not cause significant damage). That said, even limited damage to the carrier force could be spun into a political victory for the adversary. Think China or Russia and their far-reaching information warfare (IW) edifices. To illustrate, the adversary’s IW machinery could amplify on social and other mediums a hit on a destroyer escorting the flat-top. The invincibility of the much-vaulted carrier task group could then be downplayed
Whither the Carrier?
If the Queen of the Waves could thus be rendered as a “non-kinetic mission kill” of sorts in this manner, this raises questions over the centrality of the platform in a navy’s force structure. All that being said,
military platforms are “black boxes,” to use the term of the esteemed strategist Edward Luttwak, and the efficacy of anti-carrier and carrier-defense systems can only be revealed in the crucible of real-world operations. We think we know what weapon systems our potential adversaries possess, and we think we know how these might be deployed — which means we do not actually know anything. When there are more unknowns than knowns, one should diversify one’s assets and not put all eggs in a single basket, as cliched as it may sound.
All in all, the carrier has played a vital role in naval affairs historically. There is no denying its utility as demonstrated in various combat operations since 1945. However, all of its proven power in the past does not necessarily make it suitable for the navy fleet of the future. Going forward, the throne where the Queen of the Waves is sitting on might have to be shared,
as some observers argue, with the missile-armed platform in view of geopolitical and military developments around the world. The relationship between the carrier and the missile shooter will be one of symbiosis, these observers maintain, with each platform mutually supporting one another. In other words, the situation is such that there are arguably two firsts among equals in terms of naval platforms. How will this prediction pan out and will the mighty carrier really be dethroned?
Given that the answers to these questions may involve substantial blood and treasure, hopefully, we will never get to find out.
Ben Ho Wan Beng is an Associate Research Fellow with the Military Studies Programme at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. He writes primarily on naval affairs, and has published widely on maritime aviation and aircraft carriers. This article is adapted from remarks he delivered at the panel titled “Debate: The Continuing Relevance of the Aircraft Carrier” during the “Maritime Security Challenges 2018: Pacific Seapower” symposium held last month in Victoria, Canada.
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3) In Democratic circles, anti-Semitism is becoming normal
I am of two minds about where our country’s new flirtation with socialism is heading
As people scramble to explain the sudden resurgence of socialism not only on America’s college campuses but also in the corridors of political power, it is worth noting the concomitant resurgence of anti-Semitism in those redoubts. The coincidence is not, as the Marxists like to say, an accident. The truth is that unfettered socialism, though based primarily on a demand for the abolition of private property, always comes riding on a current of anti-Semitism. Picking apart the conceptual reasons for this link is a complex business that I will leave aside here. But it is worth noting how impeccable a provenance the union enjoys. Consider this observation:
What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money. . . . Emancipation from huckstering and money, consequently from practical, real Judaism, would be the self-emancipation of our time [and would] make the Jew impossible. . . . In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.
Louis Farrakhan in his ‘Jews are
termites’ mode? Nope. That’s old Karl himself in his classic
anti-Semitic effusion of 1843, ‘On the Jewish Question.’
It’s worth keeping Marx’s views in mind as you ponder the rise of figures like Ilhan Omar, the young and comely Somali refugee who just took Keith Ellison’s House seat in Minnesota. Like many new Democrats, Omar was nurtured by the far-left Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. ‘Israel has hypnotized the world,’ Omar
said on Twitter, ‘may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.’
Then there is the man she replaced, Keith Ellison, now the Attorney General-elect of Minnesota. ‘We can’t allow another country to treat us like we’re their ATM,’ Ellison
said of Israel. ‘That country has mobilized its Diaspora in America to do its bidding in America.’
And let’s not forget the Democrat ‘It Girl’ herself,
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has gone back and forth on the question of whether Israel has a right to exist at all but has been as never-varying as Dewar’s Scotch in referring to Israel’s ‘
occupation’ of Palestine.
The efflorescence of anti-Semitism is always a bad sign in a culture, not least because it harbingers a spirit of thuggish intolerance and breakdown of faith in society’s mediating civil institutions. The old saw of being ‘anti-Israel, not anti-Jew’ does not quite ring true here, as the lefties’ language echoes the anti-Semitic tropes of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
I am of two minds about where our country’s new flirtation with socialism is heading. Perhaps it is a predictable by-product of affluence, a toxic gas emitted by the mighty engine of the free market. Much of the rhetoric and histrionics might be put down to the enforced childishness wrought the breakdown of our educational institutions. It is clear, for example, that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez generally has no idea of what she is talking about. It’s not, probably, a lack of native intelligence. It’s just that, when it comes to political and historical realities, her mind is an impressionable tabula rasa.
But even if educational deficit helps to explain the resurgence of socialism, I am not sure that would be consoling. I have increasing sympathy for those who, casting their eye over the vicious and intractable opposition to the inherited processes of our political dispensation, see the potential for a great unravelling, what the political commentator James Piereson called a ‘
shattered consensus.’
Donald Trump’s gospel of ‘principled realism,’ his gentle and patriotic version of broad-church, America-first nationalism, offers a healing alternative. The angry Left, which has yet to accept the results of the 2016 election, refuse to take their seats at the table he has set for them. The increasingly violent confrontations with journalists, politicians, and talk show hosts is one troubling sign of that recalcitrance. The normalization of anti-Semitism is another.
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4)Nine days after Election Day, and one machine recount later, it is all but official: Ron DeSantis is Florida's next governor.
The results of the statewide machine recount which rolled by the Thursday 3 p.m. deadline, solidified what most already knew, as DeSantis has already made himself busy with transitioning to power and creating a new government.
In the governor's race, it was an anticlimactic finish to the dramatic machine recount — plagued with technical issues and an avalanche of lawsuits — with almost no change in the margin between DeSantis and his Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum, since this weekend. Still, about 0.41 percentage points separate the two candidates, or just under 34,000 votes.
Just after the results were released, DeSantis sent a statement to reporters declaring victory — once again.
"I remain humbled by your support and the great honor the people of Florida have shown me as I prepare to serve as your next governor," his statement read, striking a more conciliatory tone than the confrontational-approach he used in the campaign.
He said the campaign must now end so it can "give way to governing and bringing people together to secure Florida's future. With the campaign now over, that's where all of my focus will be.
"And, to this end, I invite Mayor Gillum to join me in the days ahead in a conversation about the future of our great state."
Unlike the races for U.S. Senate and commissioner of agriculture, DeSantis' margin of victory is not slim enough to proceed to a manual recount, which requires the race to be within one-fourth of a percentage point.
That means Thursday is the end of the road, and barring a lawsuit that demands a change in procedure, the governor's race's official results will likely be submitted by the counties on Sunday and will likely be officially certified on Tuesday, Nov. 20.
Despite the fact that DeSantis still had about 34,000 more votes than Gillum, over the weekend, the fact that the race's margin slimmed to less than half a percentage point after Election Night triggered an automatic machine recount and left a haze of uncertainty over the results. Those question marks have fueled some last-ditch hope in Gillum's supporters who've been spotted sparring with pro-DeSantis protesters – including U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz – outside the Broward Supervisor of Elections Office, and who've given Gillum hearty receptions at several post-election events.
At these appearances, Gillum has continued to call for every vote to be counted, invoking a chance he could still be victorious while also preparing his supporters to stay engaged if he loses.
"I wanted so bad, and still want so bad, for us to be able to make a combined impact on this state and I'm trusting that we're going to have that opportunity," Gillum told a church filled with supporters in Orlando on Tuesday. "Once we get beyond this election, whatever the outcome may be, we will have to commit ourselves to an improved and a better democracy."
Once the results of the machine recount were submitted Thursday afternoon, Gillum issued an ambiguous statement saying, "It is not over until every legally casted vote is counted."
Meanwhile, DeSantis has posted several quick videos that have depicted him as a governor-elect, as he spoke in front of a velvet backdrop flanked by flags or in the state Capitol building, giving broad updates on the transition.
"We're hard at work and if you want to work for the administration, if you have something to offer, send us your resume," he said at the end of his most recent video, posted Monday.
That day, the team opened their transition office in Tallahassee and began the long work of recruiting new hires for both the governor's office and for the state agencies.
Also on Monday, DeSantis' team announced its first round of hires to fill out the transition's staff since its core leaders were announced. One of the most notable is James Blair, the transition's director of policy, who helped lead House Speaker Richard Corcoran's pseudo-campaign for governor that never materialized. Taylor Budowich, who ran communications for that campaign as well, also has an official DeSantis transition email account, according to records obtained by the Times/Herald.
After first endorsing DeSantis' Republican opponent, Adam Putnam, in the primary, Corcoran joined DeSantis' ranks in the general election and is now helping lead the transition.
His official role, in addition to his former campaign workers joining the efforts, ensures the fiery, outgoing speaker with a reputation for strong-arming policies through the Legislature will play a major role in DeSantis' setup and perhaps in the administration.
Several other recent hires are holdovers from the campaign, such as Dave Vasquez, the press secretary, and Claire Whitehead, who traveled with Casey DeSantis on the campaign trail and has now been hired as the incoming first lady's assistant. Meanwhile, other additions formerly worked for other DeSantis political allies, such as a former advisor to Gov. Jeb Bush, Chris Clark; staff assistant of Sen. Marco Rubio, Amanda Emmons; and a lawyer who used to work for Gov. Rick Scott, Ben Gibson.
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