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• Mitt Romney Not Endorsing in New York House Race
  Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom provided a few more details regarding Romney’s thinking: “Mitt Romney is a Republican and he tends to support the Republican candidate in races and when he can't because there are too many differences on the issues, he stays out of the race altogether and that's the course he's following in the New York special election. He doesn't plan to make any endorsement at all.”
  (tags: Mitt_Romney Doug_Hoffman Dede_Scozzafava)
• Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann October Ratings Down 63% vs. 2008
  Countdown with Keith Olberman’s ratings are in the famine range as well, with October year over year ratings down 53% in the cable news target adults 25-54 demo, and down 53% in average viewership. Although I don’t have a trend chart, October is also Olbermann’s lowest rated month so far in 2009 in both 25-54 and average viewers.
  (tags: Keith_Olbermann)
• California Election Digest – Key Races
  • CA-Sen: Everyone has been treating Carly Fiorina as already running for Senate, but she's never officially announced anything. It looks like Nov. 6 is her launch date, though; she has a "very important announcement" scheduled at a Pleasanton event.
  *CA-Gov: Meg Whitman's sputtering campaign got a boost when she nailed down the endorsement of popular GOP moderate Richard Riordan, the former Los Angeles mayor — which might keep her from losing votes to ex-Rep. Tom Campbell on her left. Her other opponent, state Treasurer Steve Poizner, also announced his own endorsement, from American Conservative Union head David Keene. Not that any Californian would have any idea who Keene is, but this seems like a more fruitful endorsement vein to mine, as all three candidates are on the party's moderate side — good for the general, but bad for making it out of the primary dominated by California's rabid base.
  (tags: Meg_Whitman carly_fiorina steve_poizner Chuck_DeVore tom_campbell)
• The Politics of Purges: Alive, Well in California GOP
  Political junkies across the nation are fixated on a once-obscure special election race for a House seat in New York, where Republican presidential hopefuls have interjected themselves into the campaign in a bid to purge a moderate from the GOP.

  As Republicans struggle to remain politically relevant outside the South, the fight reflects a widening battle for the soul of the party between talk radio Tea Bag activists and GOP Beltway establishment types. That feud is mirrored in California, where Republican primary campaigns for governor and Senate shape up as contests to lay claim to the red meat voter bloc and its mantle of conservative populism.

  (tags: California california_gop)

• Dem Rep. Alan Grayson Stands by "K Street Whore" Comment
  Outspoken Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson is under fire from both Republicans and Democrats after a month-old radio interview was posted online in which Grayson is heard calling an adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke a "K Street whore."

  You can hear Grayson making the comment about the Bernanke adviser, who is named Linda Robertson, here. "This lobbyist, this K street whore, is trying to teach me about economics," he said.

  Grayson has been widely criticized for his comment, as Politico and the Associated Press report. Republican Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said Grayson is "out of control," while Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner asked, "Is this news to you that this guy’s one fry short of a Happy Meal?"

  (tags: Alan_Grayson)
• Obamacare: GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe would vote to block Reid's health care bill
  Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe says she would vote with fellow Republicans to block the Democratic health care overhaul if changes are not made to the version Majority Leader Harry Reid outlined this week.

  The Democrats will need 60 votes to get the bill past a threatened Republican filibuster, so Snowe's vote would be crucial if Reid loses any of the chamber's 58 Democrats and two independents.

  Snowe is the only Republican in Congress who has voted for any of the early Democratic versions in either the Senate or House.

  Reid says he has blended two versions in a measure that includes a government-run "public option" to compete with private health insurance plans. States could opt out of the government insurance, but Snowe said Tuesday that's not good enough.

  (tags: Obamacare olympia_snow)
• Arnold Schwarzenegger to Assemblyman Tom Ammiano – FU?
  It was hardly a bill of cosmic import, but Assemblymember Tom Ammiano’s AB 1176 would have helped the Port of San Francisco with some financing issues. It’s the kind of bill that legislators offer on behalf of their cities all the time — and generally, they are non-controversial. This one was the same — no substantive opposition, it passed both houses easily — and normally, the governor would sign it with little fanfare.

  But no: Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill — and sent Ammiano and the legislators a remarkable veto letter. The letter says nothing about the substance of the bill; in fact, the language is really convoluted and it’s hard to figure out what the gov is really saying.
  Well, maybe Arnold is still mad at being told to "kiss my gay ass", but this is a rather puerile way for the governor of California to be spending his time.

  (tags: Arnold_Schwarzenegger Tom_Ammiano)
• Obamacare: Joe Lieberman says " I'll block vote on Harry Reid's plan "
  Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that he’d back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care reform bill.

  Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats and is positioning himself as a fiscal hawk on the issue, said he opposes any health care bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out of the program, as Reid has said the Senate bill will.

  "We're trying to do too much at once," Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now."

  (tags: Obamacare joe_lieberman harry_reid)
• U.S. Official Michael Hoh resigns over Afghan war as Obama Ponders Troop Surge
  When Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service early this year, he was exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts in Afghanistan.
  This week, Hoh is scheduled to meet with Vice President Biden's foreign policy adviser, Antony Blinken, at Blinken's invitation.

  If the United States is to remain in Afghanistan, Hoh said, he would advise a reduction in combat forces.

  He also would suggest providing more support for Pakistan, better U.S. communication and propaganda skills to match those of al-Qaeda, and more pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to clean up government corruption — all options being discussed in White House deliberations.

  "We want to have some kind of governance there, and we have some obligation for it not to be a bloodbath," Hoh said. "But you have to draw the line somewhere, and say this is their problem to solve."

  (tags: afghanistan Michael_Hoh)
• A Good time to be a Conservative: The Future of the GOP is Outside the Beltway
  Bien-pensant conservative elites and establishment-friendly Republican big shots yearn for a more moderate, temperate and sophisticated Republican Party. It's not likely to happen. And probably just as well.
  The Gallup poll released Monday shows the public's conservatism at a high-water mark. Some 40 percent of Americans call themselves conservative, compared with 36 percent who self-describe as moderates and 20 percent as liberals.

  The conservative number is as high as it's been in the two decades that Gallup has been asking the question.

  What's more, fully 72 percent of Republicans say they're conservative. Thirty-five percent of independents do so as well — and presumably the percentage of conservatives among independents who might be inclined, where the rules permit it, to vote in GOP primaries would be much higher.

  (tags: conservative GOP)

I don’t quite understand how California Republican Assemblyman Chuck DeVore who is running for the GOP nomination for United States Senate can say that his soon to be announced Republican opponent, Carly Fiorina, is for regulating free speech and the first amendment on the internet? From the info notes on You Tube:

Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina wants to be a U.S. Senator. At a Web 2.0 conference in October 2009 she called for regulation of speech on the Internet, saying that the Internet cannot continue to be the “Wild Wild West.” Fiorina’s proposal for content restrictions on the Web represents an unconstitutional infringement of our First Amendment rights. California State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, the conservative Republican candidate against Sen. Barbara Boxer, disagrees with Fiorina’s proposed regulation of the Internet. As a U.S. Army officer and a state lawmaker, he has sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America — and that includes the First Amendment.

Remember when Flap carried the Web 2.0 conference interview here.

Here is the video:

Here is a transcript of the statements at issue (i dropped some irrelevant parts of her answer):

Question: How do you think the world wide web/internet should be governed or should it be regulated?

Answer: Well, I do think that we’re coming to the point where we need to acknowledge that the world wide web and the internet cannot be forever a sphere apart from the rest of the world.  The world wide web cannot be forever the Wild Wild West where anything goes.  So, for example, I do think that it’s foolish to take the very complex, very onerous tax system that we have today in the physical world and just layer it onto the online world.  I think we have to do—and by the way I’ve thought this since 2000 when I testified before Congress on this point so this isn’t something new—but I think we need to focus on simplifying our tax system but I think we have to now begin to blend the realities of online and offline—that is what’s happening in the world.  I don’t think that we can permit the exploitation of women and children online that we would clearly indicate or believe is illegal and immoral offline.  So yes, I think it is inevitable that the online world will begin to be more and more regulated and more and more similar to the offline world. 

So, is Chuck DeVore just plain lying about what Carly Fiorina said, since it is clear that she was discussing children’s pornography and the exploitation of women?

Or is DeVore simply being a hypocrite in taking a cheap political shot at Carly Fiorina? I mean DeVore himself has co-authored legislation here in California that regulates conduct on the internet, AB 33, which was chaptered into law in 2005. The legislation regards internet predators:

Existing law provides that it is a crime for an adult stranger to contact or communicate with a minor, 12 years of age or younger, who the adult knew or should have known was 12 years of age or younger, to lure him or her away, as specified, for any purpose. Existing law provides that this crime is punishable by a fine, by imprisonment in a county jail, or by both.

This bill would prohibit this conduct when engaged in with a person who is under 14 years of age. This bill would provide that this crime is punishable as an infraction or a misdemeanor, as specified.

Existing law provides that certain property, such as a computer, may be subject to forfeiture if used by a defendant to commit particular offenses, as specified. Existing law further provides the process by which property is forfeited and by which it may be recovered by the owner.

This bill would provide that if the defendant used his or her computer to communicate with the victim in the attempt to lure the victim then that computer is subject to forfeiture.

Moreover, here is some background on the law, AB 33:

According to the author, “The proliferation of the Internet has caused child predators to move from the playground to the World Wide Web in search of unsuspecting children.  Children now encounter ever-increasing dangers and parents, in turn, face a growing challenge to protect their young. 

“Unfortunately, due to greater access to the Internet and a stronger sense of independence, teenagers are the most frequently targeted population for predatory luring.  This bill, therefore, would increase the age of children protected by state law from age 12 to age 14.  Furthermore, this bill would enhance the penalty for child luring in order to further discourage the crime and provide a more appropriate punishment.  The bill also includes provisions that upon conviction would make the defendant’s computer subject to forfeiture.  Removing a known predator’s access to innocent victims is a common-sense approach to preventing further victimization.”

Now, is Chuck DeVore disavowing this regulation of this “Wild Wild West” internet or should internet predators be afforded protected freedom of speech in their attacks on children?

Chuck let me know.

How about this law that you co-authored? Presumably, then you no longer favor it?

Isn’t this, what Carly Fiorina was referring to, Chuck?

I mean, come on now.

Update:

Here is a shortened video clip of exactly what Carly Fiorina said:

Technorati Tags: Carly_Fiorina, Chuck_DeVore