Archive for June, 2009
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Moderate Republican Olympia Snowe, a key swing vote in the U.S. Senate, told NBC's Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell reports that she would be open to some public/government insurance option.
"I don't think that a public national plan needs to be constructed that goes head to head with the private insurers," Snowe said, adding, however, that she thinks a fallback plan is necessary in the event private insurers don't provide adequate coverage. "I know some on my side view that as a government option as well."
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Back in March, I took a look at a Portfolio article on Alaska governor Sarah Palin's plan for a natural-gas pipeline. Among the article's criticisms of Palin was that she had effectively shut out the oil companies whose cooperation was necessary for completion of the project.
One of her defenders credited her plan for bringing "three of the four key players into alignment: the U.S. government, the Canadian government, and the state of Alaska," adding, "the fourth player, the producers, are going to have to deal with that reality."
Well, today TransCanada (the pipeline builders) and ExxonMobil (one of the producers) have reached an agreement to work together on an Alaska gas pipeline.
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RNC Chairman Michael Steele faced criticism from Hispanic Republicans, as I wrote last month, in part because the committee hadn't hired a senior Hispanic operative to work on turning around that key constituency.
The Party has now filled the job, an RNC source said, with Manny Rosales, who a former assistant administrator of the Small Business Administration under President George W. Bush who was most recently the director of the Washington office of The Latino Coalition, a right-leaning pro-business Hispanic group. Rosales was born in Nicaragua and had been chairman of the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce while in the private sector.
“I am extremely pleased to announce that Manny Rosales is joining my staff as the new Deputy Director of Coalitions. Manny’s experience in the Hispanic community and his work with small business leaders, veterans and the Catholic community will be exceptionally valuable as the RNC works to communicate our party’s principles and expand the
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Tami Farrell, the newly crowned beauty queen who is replacing the ousted Carrie Prejean as Miss California, apparently holds the same view as her predecessor, Carrie Prejean, that marriage should be between a man and a woman.
Fox News host Neil Cavuto asked Farrell, who is Christian, on his show today:
"[Prejean] went out and said that a marriage is between a man and a woman. Do you share that view?"
Farrell responded in the affirmative with a simple, "Uh huh."
"You do, OK," said Cavuto.
Farrell quickly added: "I don't think that I have the right or anybody has a right to tell somebody who they can or can't love. And I think that this is a civil rights issue. And I think that the right thing to do is let the voters decide."
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Alaska Governor talks to Matt Lauer Friday morning.
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Conan O'Brien's "Tonight Show" reversed its ratings decline and showed growth for the first time Wednesday night. Also, new ratings for O'Brien's first week behind the "Tonight" desk give NBC a record-setting lead over CBS' "Late Show" among adults 18-49.
After seven nights of drops, NBC's "Tonight" may have found its bottom. The talk show rebounded 10% from Monday's performance, climbing to a 3.2 last night in the household ratings.
That was enough to edge out David Letterman's "Late Show," which had bested O'Brien's "Tonight" in the overnights for the first time Tuesday evening. Letterman pulled a 3.1 rating, dropping slightly from the previous night.
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Russia said on Thursday that full dialogue with the United States on missile threats could only begin if Washington dropped its plans to deploy a missile defense system in Europe.
"Only a rejection by the United States of plans to create a … missile defense system in Europe could lay the groundwork for our fully fledged dialogue on questions of cooperation in reacting to potential missile risks," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko told reporters.
He said that Moscow viewed the U.S. missile plans as a way to counter Russia's strategic forces, but he added that Moscow hoped to find a way to reach a compromise with Washington.
U.S. officials say the planned deployment of interceptor missiles and a radar system in Eastern Europe is aimed at preventing potential attacks from countries like Iran.
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Colleges in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh said Wednesday that female students would be banned from wearing jeans and other Western clothes to halt sexual harassment by male classmates.
"Girls who choose to wear jeans will be expelled from the college," Meeta Jamal, principal of the Dayanand girls' college in Kanpur city told AFP. "This is the only way to stop crime against women."
A growing number of colleges in Uttar Pradesh have decided to outlaw jeans, shorts, tight blouses and miniskirts on campus in an attempt to crack down on "Eve-teasing" — as sexual harassment is known in India.
But many of the students, who are aged between 17 and 20, said the new rules punished innocent females rather than tackling the men who treated women badly.
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As the health care debate heats up, the American Medical Association is letting Congress know that it will oppose creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan, which President Obama and many other Democrats see as an essential element of legislation to remake the health care system.
The opposition, which comes as Mr. Obama prepares to address the powerful doctors’ group on Monday in Chicago, could be a major hurdle for advocates of a public insurance plan. The A.M.A., with about 250,000 members, is America’s largest physician organization.
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President Obama turned the page on 100 days in office with an iffy boast about job creation and claims of fiscal prudence that are hard to square with his spending.
Obama spoke with abundant confidence about his chances for achieving the big-ticket items on his agenda despite economic calamity:
– His assertion that his proposed budget "will cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term" is an eyeball-roller for many economists, given the uncharted terrain of trillion-dollar deficits the government is negotiating.
– He promised vast savings from increased spending on preventive health care in the face of doubts that such an effort, however laudable it might be for public welfare, can pay for itself, let alone yield huge savings.
– He pitched a remedy for Social Security's long-term crisis that analysts say won't fix half the problem.
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The jury may still be out but there is evidence that the two countries – two members of the Axis of Evil are working together.
Iran and North Korea are working together to develop ballistic missiles and have made significant progress, the head of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said on Thursday.
“It really is an international effort going on out there to develop ballistic missile capability between these countries,” Army Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly told a forum on Capitol Hill.
Iran and North Korea each is at odds with much of the international community over their nuclear programs, and North Korea has tested an atomic bomb. Each has demonstrated a capability to launch missiles with more than one stage, critical to more advanced systems.
They are sharing know-how on avionics, propulsion and materials, among other things, O’Reilly said.
“We’ve seen it for years and it continues,” he said of such cooperation between North Korea and Iran, whose Shahab missiles are widely reported to be based on North Korean designs.
Their ability to fire missiles with a stable ignition and launch a second stage represents “a significant step forward” for both of them, O’Reilly said.
Asked which country was further ahead in missile development, he said it could be described as a “horse race” with no clear leader.
Other experts said Iran had demonstrated greater expertise with test-firing of a solid-fuel rocket with a stated range of some 1,200 miles — enough to reach Israel, U.S. bases in the Gulf or southeastern Europe.
Solid-propellant missiles offer many advantages over those with liquid fuel. They are easier to store, harder to detect and may be launched without a fueling process readily observable by spy satellites.
Iran’s use of solid-fuel missiles demonstrated “a quantum leap in capabilities” over those shown by North Korea, Uzi Rubin, the former head of Israel’s Missile Defense Organization, told Reuters in an interview.
“Basically, this is big-power league,” he said, adding that the jury was still out, as far he was concerned, on whether the two had integrated their ballistic missile programs.
And, President Obama continues to want to cut the missle defense program?
EPIC FAIL
Technorati Tags: Iran, North Korea
Tags: Iran, North Korea
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Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and his wife Cindy (R) greets Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (3rd R) and her family after arriving at the airport in Minneapolis, Minnesota September 3, 2008
Tags: David Letterman, Sarah Palin
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Here comes the Obama socialism.
The Obama administration says executive compensation must be better managed to prevent the sort of risk-taking that jeopardizes the economy.
Gene Sperling, who advises Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, said Thursday the administration does not want to impose caps on executive pay. But he also laid out for the House Financial Services Committee a list of guidelines calling on publicly-held companies to link compensation to long-term performance, not short-term gains.
Sperling said in prepared testimony that the administration believes compensation practices “must be better aligned with long-term value and prudent risk management at all firms, and not just for the financial services industry.”
Remember what socialism is?
Socialism is not a concrete philosophy of fixed doctrine and program; its branches advocate a degree of social interventionism and economic rationalization, sometimes opposing each other. Another dividing feature of the socialist movement is the split between reformists and the revolutionaries on how a socialist economy should be established. Some socialists advocate complete nationalization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange; others advocate state control of capital within the framework of a market economy. Socialists inspired by the Soviet model of economic development have advocated the creation of centrally planned economies directed by a state that owns all the means of production. Others, including Yugoslavian, Hungarian, German and Chinese Communists in the 1970s and 1980s, instituted various forms of market socialism, combining co-operative and state ownership models with the free market exchange and free price system (but not free prices for the means of production).[7]
Social democrats propose selective nationalization of key national industries in mixed economies, with private ownership of property and of profit-making business. Social democrats also promote tax-funded welfare programs and regulation of markets. Many social democrats, particularly in European welfare states, refer to themselves as “socialists”, introducing a degree of ambiguity to the understanding of what the term means.
No matter how Obama spins his program, he wants to nationalize American business and control the means of production while expanding the welfare state.
Is this the hope and change Americans voted for? Or is it a radical program of changing American business by a left-wing extremist?
Technorati Tags: Socialism, Barack Obama
Tags: Barack Obama, Socialism
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David Letterman defends his jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughters in a seven minute segment above, June 10, 2009
As I predicted David Letterman issued a weak and trite non-apology for his inappropriate attacks on Sarah Palin’s 14 year old daughter Willow which he confused with Bristol who is 19.
“We were, as we often do, making jokes about people in the news and we made some jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter [Bristol]… and now they’re upset with me…†Letterman says on tonight’s show. “These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl…. Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes. Did I suggest that it was okay for her 14-year-old daughter to be having promiscuous sex? No.” Saying he hopes he’s “cleared part of this up,” Letterman extended an invitation to Palin to come on the show as a guest.
An invitation to appear on his show is the lamest of reparations and his cover hius ass moments above will continue to spur a call or a boycott of his show sponsors.
A few commenters have asked for a list of The David Letterman Show sponsors and contact information on where to complain.
Here you go:
CBS Contact Form
CBS Telephone: 212 975-4321
Some CBS Executives E-mail addresses:
And, the sponsors.
- TV.com
- CBS Interactive, Inc.
- 235 Second Street
- San Francisco, CA 94105
- Main: 415-344-2000
- support@tv.com
- On The Border Restaurants
Brinker International
6820 LBJ Freeway
Dallas, TX 75240
(972) 980-9917
Contact at:
http://www.ontheborder.com/contact/contact.asp
Phone:1-800-983-4637
- Best Western
Best Western International, Inc.
Customer Relations Department
Telephone: 1-800-528-1238
Fax: 623-780-6199
Email: customerservice@bestwestern.com
Regular Mail: PO Box 10203
Phoenix, AZ 85064
Attn: Customer Service
- Intel – Website contact page: http://www.intel.com/feedback.htm?iid=ftr+contact
Corporate Mailing Address
2200 Mission College Blvd.
Santa Clara, CA 95054-1549
USA
(408) 765-8080
- CBSports.com – Contact page: http://www.cbssports.com/help/contactus/usersspeak
Headquarters
2200 West Cypress Creek Road
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309
Phone: (954) 351-2120
- JohnFreida.com – Contact page: http://www.johnfrieda.com/event.asp?action=entry&EventCode=jfcontact
Consumer Relations Dept
Kao Brands Company
2535 Spring Grove Ave
Cincinnati, OH 45214
Phone – 1-800-521-3189
- DiTech – Not sure if this is Ditech financial , or Ditech networks and don’t know if they are one and the same.
- Lexus – Contact info page This has their corporate address, their phone number and a link to email them – http://www.lexus.com/contact/
- Earn My Degree
WCS
157 Yesler Way Suite 200
Seattle WA
United States 98121
206-812-4653
information@worldclassstrategy.com
- Lifelock
60 E Rio Salado Pkwy
Ste 400
Tempe, AZ 85281
480-682-5100
Contact page has names and email addresses of executives.
http://www.lifelock.com/about-us/about-lifelock/contact-us
- Bowflex –
Nautilus, Inc.
Global Headquarters
16400 SE Nautilus Drive
Vancouver, WA 98683
1 360 859 2900
PublicRelations@nautilus.com
Contact page- http://www.bowflexrevolution.com/nautilus_incorporated/contactus.jsp?lid=Contact+Us+-+ContactUs
- Mars Candy
Mars North America
100 International Drive
Mount Olive, NJ 07828
Tel:
1 973 691 3536 [Media],
1 800 627 7852 [Consumers]
Fax:1 973 691 3829
http://www.mars.com/global/News+and+Media/Media+Contacts.htm
email – form – http://www.mars.com/global/Contact+us/Media+contacts+North+America.htm
- Capitol One
Capital One Financial Corporation 1
680 Capital One Drive McLean, VA 22102
1/703-720-1000
- LasikPlus
7840 Montgomery Road
Cincinnati OH 45236
Telephone: 513-792-9292
Toll-Free: 800-688-4550
Fax: 513-792-5620
Email: bkise@lca.com
Contact page- http://www.lasikplus.com/ir/contacts.html
- Embassy Suites
Dawn Ray/Nancy Gearin
Embassy Suites Hotels
901-374-5954/ 901-374-6423
dawn.ray@hilton.com
nancy.gearin@hilton.com
Contact page – http://embassysuites1.hilton.com/en_US/es/customersupport/index.do
- EBay
eBay Inc.
2145 Hamilton Avenue
San Jose, CA 95125
Media relations – (408) 376-7458
Contact page – http://news.ebay.com/about.cfm
- ancestry.com
The Generations Network, Inc.
Attn: Customer Solutions,
360 W 4800 N Provo, UT 84604
Phone: 801-705-7000
FAX: 801-705-7001
mediarelations@ancestry.com
Contact page – http://www.myfamilyinc.com/default.aspx?html=contact
- True Credit
TrueCredit
100 Cross Street, Suite 202
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401
866-212-2170 (only contact number I could find)
Have at them, readers.
Hit Letterman where it hurts – in the pocketbook.
And, insist that he be suspended until he offers a heartfelt apology to the Palin family, including an “on-air” appearance by the Alaska Governor and her husband, Todd.
Previous:
Sarah and Todd Palin Respond to David Letterman’s Crude Joke About Their Daughter
Audio: Rudy Giuliani on Sarah Palin
NBC’s Early Today Bags on Sarah Palin for Calling David Letterman Pathetic As Letterman Calls Palin’s Daughter a Prostitute
Video: Letterman Stays Classy – Mocks Sarah Palin’s Daughter as “Knocked Upâ€
Sarah Palin’s Trip to New York – Updating That “SLUTTY†Flight Attendant Look
Technorati Tags: David Letterman, Sarah Palin
Tags: David Letterman, Sarah Palin
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Day By Day by Chris Muir
Watching Fox News Sunday, I caught a panel on which Obama economic advisor Austin Goolsbee conceded that the administration had previously predicted unemployment would top out at around 8%, that it was now up to 9.4%, and that double-digit unemployment was a distinct possibility in the near future. Goolsbee didn’t resort to the administrations’s blather about “saving or creating jobs,” but he did repeat its fustian about how last month’s loss of 345,000 jobs (resulting in a half percentage point jump in the jobless rate) is somehow good news because it beat predictions (I don’t recall him saying whose) of even more dire loss numbers. It made me wonder why, if those predictions either existed or were serious, the Obama administration would have previously predicted that unemployment would top out at 8%?
The economy remains sluggish and needs a stimulus to boost employment. Some economists forecast that the American economy will see little impact from Obama’s stimulus program until next year.
The President should consider an immediate payroll tax suspension for a number of months to provide needed cash immediately for Americans and American business to spend.
Technorati Tags: Day By Day, Barack Obama
Tags: Barack Obama, Day By Day
1 Comment »
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“We were, as we often do, making jokes about people in the news and we made some jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter [Bristol]… and now they’re upset with me…†Letterman says on tonight's show. "These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl…. Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes. Did I suggest that it was okay for her 14-year-old daughter to be having promiscuous sex? No." Saying he hopes he's "cleared part of this up," Letterman extended an invitation to Palin to come on the show as a guest.
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4. Everyone just needs to relax. Page, six, paragraph seven of the “Democrat Handbook†clearly states Republican children are fair game. Or is that the “Mainstream Media Handbook†… I get them confused.
3. It’s just been brought to my attention that during the campaign Barack Obama declared Sarah Palin’s children off limits. So, I would just like to say that this will never happen again and I hope the President will accept my apology.
2. Would you believe I was hoping to be Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Person in the World�
1. If what I said was so wrong, why haven’t feminists complained?
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer are double-teaming powerful chairmen and rank-and-file members to save health care reform from a repeat of the Democratic Party infighting that helped kill it in 1994.
In a closed-door session Tuesday, Pelosi assured rank-and-file Democrats that she won’t move forward on a bill without their consent. “We have to hear from you,†one participant quoted Pelosi as saying.
But more-liberal members want a more expansive — and expensive — plan. During the closed-door session Tuesday, Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) told colleagues that any bill should include mental health and dental insurance.
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State Senate leader Darrell Steinberg said Tuesday that Democrats won't allow some of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's most drastic budget proposals to become law.
"We're not going to decimate programs that save people's lives," the Democratic leader declared, setting markers for contentious negotiations with Republicans and the governor in the next several weeks.
With the state facing a daunting $24 billion budget shortfall, the governor has proposed abolishing the state's welfare program, eliminating grants for college students and ending a health care program for children from poor families, among a host of other cuts.
Steinberg, D-Sacramento, also came out against a Schwarzenegger plan to borrow nearly $2 billion from local governments, saying it's unfair as cities and counties are struggling to balance their own books.
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Senate Democrats unveiled a budget plan Tuesday that would stave off the deepest proposed cuts to California's health, welfare and student-aid programs by dipping heavily into the rainy-day fund that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants set aside in case the economy continues to sour.
The governor declared the Democrats' approach to dealing with the state's projected $24-billion deficit "hallucinatory."
With the state facing a looming cash crunch that Schwarzenegger said "literally will result in shutting down government," partisan bickering flared on Tuesday.
Schwarzenegger's budget, unveiled last month, would reduce the state's deficit by cutting heavily across state government. Unless new budget cuts or taxes are implemented, California won't be able to pay all of its bills by the end of July, according to the state controller.
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For, the Obama Justice Department has quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high value detainees captured and held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan, according a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “The administration has decided to change the focus to law enforcement. Here’s the problem. You have foreign fighters who are targeting US troops today – foreign fighters who go to another country to kill Americans. We capture them…and they’re reading them their rights – Mirandizing these foreign fighters,†says Representative Mike Rogers, who recently met with military, intelligence and law enforcement officials on a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan.
Rogers, a former FBI special agent and U.S. Army officer, says the Obama administration has not briefed Congress on the new policy. “I was a little surprised to find it taking place when I showed up because we hadn’t been briefed on it, I didn’t know about it. We’re still trying to get to the bottom
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Here we stand more than a year into a grave economic crisis with a projected budget deficit of 13% of GDP. That's more than twice the size of the next largest deficit since World War II. And this projected deficit is the culmination of a year when the federal government, at taxpayers' expense, acquired enormous stakes in the banking, auto, mortgage, health-care and insurance industries.
With the crisis, the ill-conceived government reactions, and the ensuing economic downturn, the unfunded liabilities of federal programs — such as Social Security, civil-service and military pensions, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, Medicare and Medicaid — are over the $100 trillion mark. With U.S. GDP and federal tax receipts at about $14 trillion and $2.4 trillion respectively, such a debt all but guarantees higher interest rates, massive tax increases, and partial default on government promises.
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