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According to South Carolina GOP Senator Lindsey Graham.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) urged Republicans who are reportedly waiting until 2016 to run for president to consider getting off the sidelines for 2012.

Graham said Monday that the time was ripe to take on President Obama, and that any candidate with the ambition to be president should run.

“If you really decide to do this, now’s the time,” Graham said, noting speculation that a number of top GOP candidates are waiting until 2016. “If you think you should be president, it’s not about timing, it’s about ability.”

Absolutely correct. Chris Christie, Bobby Jindahl, Sarah Palin. Mitch Daniels, Bob McDonnell should ALL give it a shot.

President Obama WILL have an advantage but the race is really in just a few states. I mean, who cares about California and New York?

Graham is correct here:

Graham said that he didn’t expect Obama to win North Carolina, Virginia or Indiana, as he did in 2008, and speculated that the president might be vulnerable in Wisconsin and Ohio, the latter of which is a traditional bellwether in presidential campaigns.

“Any sitting president probably has some built-in advantages, but this guy’s incredibly exposed,” Graham said.

All a GOP nominee needs to do is win/flip Virginia, Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Game, set, match.

These are my links for February 28th from 10:01 to 11:04:

• Pelosi splits with Reid, dismisses GOP plan to avoid a shutdown – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is showing no enthusiasm for the new proposal from Republicans to avoid a government shutdown, putting her at odds with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

  Pelosi said in a statement that the GOP's plan for a two-week spending bill cuts funding for critical programs.

  +++++++

  But, the Senate Dems are going to roll over and Pelosi is in the minority.

• Wisconsin Democrat Legislator GORDON HINTZ: "YOU ARE F’N DEAD!" | Newsradio 620 – Milwaukee, Wisconsin News, Talk, Sports, Weather | Charlie Sykes – Last week, we heard that State Rep. Gordon Hintz (D-Oshkosh) had been busted in a prostitution sting.

  State Rep. Gordon Hintz was issued a municipal citation in Appleton earlier this month for violating a city sexual misconduct ordinance.

  Appleton police said the citation was issued Feb. 10 in conjunction with an ongoing investigation of Heavenly Touch Massage Parlor, 342 W. Wisconsin Ave., in Appleton. Police searched the business and a nearby residence in the 1300 block of North Division Street Jan. 28, after investigators had staked out the properties for several days after receiving a tip.

  **

  Last Friday…. after the Assembly voted to engross the Budget Repair Bill, Hintz turned to a female colleague, Rep. Michelle Litjens and said: "You are F***king dead!"

  +++++++

  Nice civlity there from the LEFT……

  He is frakking through in politics, baby….

• Unions vs. the Right to Work – Collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty – How ironic that Wisconsin has become ground zero for the battle between taxpayers and public- employee labor unions. Wisconsin was the first state to allow collective bargaining for government workers (in 1959), following a tradition where it was the first to introduce a personal income tax (in 1911, before the introduction of the current form of individual income tax in 1913 by the federal government).

  Labor unions like to portray collective bargaining as a basic civil liberty, akin to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion. For a teachers union, collective bargaining means that suppliers of teacher services to all public school systems in a state—or even across states—can collude with regard to acceptable wages, benefits and working conditions. An analogy for business would be for all providers of airline transportation to assemble to fix ticket prices, capacity and so on. From this perspective, collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty.

  In fact, labor unions were subject to U.S. antitrust laws in the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which was first applied in 1894 to the American Railway Union. However, organized labor managed to obtain exemption from federal antitrust laws in subsequent legislation, notably the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.

  +++++++++

  Read it all

These are my links for February 28th from 09:52 to 09:56:

• Speaker Boehner: House likely to defend Defense of Marraige Act since Justice Dept. won’t – The House is likely to take steps to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in an interview posted Monday.

  Boehner, the leader of the Republican-held House, said he and and his members are considering a number of options to defend DOMA after President Obama ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the 1990s law in court.

  ++++++++

  As they should.

• Dem Rep. david Wu says he was hospitalized in 2008 for reaction to mental-health drug – U.S. Rep. David Wu says he was hospitalized after his 2008 campaign for symptoms that later were diagnosed as a reaction to a common mental health drug.

  The Oregon Democrat said he felt dizzy and confused on Election Day that year, a period of time when his staff and family have said they were unable to find him.

  "It came up that afternoon, and it knocked me off my can," Wu said, referring to the symptoms.

  Wu discussed his mental health Sunday in an interview with The Associated Press at his Portland office, offering more details of his psychiatric treatment since reports first surfaced last month of bizarre behavior.

  +++++

  Read it all.

  Of course, he will NOT resign.

According to South Carolina GOP Senator Lindsey Graham.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) urged Republicans who are reportedly waiting until 2016 to run for president to consider getting off the sidelines for 2012.

Graham said Monday that the time was ripe to take on President Obama, and that any candidate with the ambition to be president should run.

“If you really decide to do this, now’s the time,” Graham said, noting speculation that a number of top GOP candidates are waiting until 2016. “If you think you should be president, it’s not about timing, it’s about ability.”

Absolutely correct. Chris Christie, Bobby Jindahl, Sarah Palin. Mitch Daniels, Bob McDonnell should ALL give it a shot.

President Obama WILL have an advantage but the race is really in just a few states. I mean, who cares about California and New York?

Graham is correct here:

Graham said that he didn’t expect Obama to win North Carolina, Virginia or Indiana, as he did in 2008, and speculated that the president might be vulnerable in Wisconsin and Ohio, the latter of which is a traditional bellwether in presidential campaigns.

“Any sitting president probably has some built-in advantages, but this guy’s incredibly exposed,” Graham said.

All a GOP nominee needs to do is win/flip Virginia, Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Game, set, match.

These are my links for February 28th from 08:46 to 09:15:

• Social media not so hot on the Hill – It raises the question: Are lawmakers putting too much time — or staff resources — into social media?

  Currently, only 8 percent of American adults who use the Internet use Twitter, according to a December 2010 study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

  “The ease at which constituents can communicate with their member has really diluted the quality of communications overall,” said one legislative director quoted in the study. “We get way too many e-mail inputs that forward the congressman some e-mail or YouTube link with ‘Is this true?’ as the only message.”

  But that hasn’t stopped new members such as Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) from embracing as many social media outlets as possible.

  “We have Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook — we’re trying to be in any medium we can,” said his spokeswoman, Stefani Zimmerman. “If it means he’s going to stay up an hour later checking his Facebook, that’s what he’s going to do.”

  +++++++

  Read it all.

  Probably because the Reps and Senators REALLY don't want to hear a critique of their jobs in real time.

  Social media also makes them more accountable to others outside their district who may fund opposition party candidates or a primary challenge.

  The Emperor Has No Clothes with social media.

• Speaker John Boehner rips bid to regulate Internet – House Speaker John A. Boehner lashed out against efforts to regulate Internet traffic before an audience of evangelical Christian media leaders and pointedly responded to President Obama by comparing the challenge of the burgeoning national debt to the Sputnik-era space race.

  In a speech to religious broadcasters that received a sustained ovation at his conclusion, he said free expression is under attack by a power structure in Washington populated with regulators who have never set foot inside a radio station or a television studio.

  “We see this threat in how the FCC is creeping further into the free market by trying to regulate the Internet,” Mr. Boehner said.

  “The last thing we need, in my view, is the FCC serving as Internet traffic controller, and potentially running roughshod over local broadcasters who have been serving their communities with free content for decades,” he said to loud applause from members of the National Religious Broadcasters, a trade group holding its annual convention here.

  +++++++

  Read it all

  The Obama Administration is going into overdrive to regulate more of the economy, including the internet.

• Cuban vs. Bissinger: NBA owner and journalist have Twitter smackdown – What happens when a billionaire entrepreneur and NBA team owner uses Twitter to criticize an outspoken Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist?

  Followers of Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and author and Daily Beast columnist Buzz Bissinger found out Sunday. The result: A profanity-laced, 86-tweet rant by Bissinger that took place over a span of four hours. The two then set up — using Twitter, of course — a face-to-face meeting for Tuesday.

  It started Sunday when Cuban tweeted that Bissinger was "a coward." The tweet was sent in response to Bissinger's Feb. 17 column titled "NBA All-Star Game: White Men Can't Root." The piece doesn't mention Cuban, but argues that there's a race problem between the NBA and its white fans.

  "Are whites losing interest in a game in which the number of white American players not only continues to dwindle, but no longer features a superstar?" Bissinger wrote. "Yes."

  After Cuban's "coward" comment, Bissinger rattled off a couple dozen tweets and responded to users in true Bissinger form (plenty of cursing).

  Cuban eventually returned to Twitter with a comment directed at Bissinger's column: "Yr editor asked you to write about a topic you dont know & had no interest in researching…"

  At this point Daily Beast editor, and former Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz chimed in: "Hey, @mcuban, I asked @buzzbissinger to write *something* about basketball, but he chose the racial topic, knowing it'd be controversial."

  +++++++

  Ha Ha!

  I blocked Mark Cuban early in Twitter adoption.

  As Yoda would say: A JERK he is.

• Chris Christie on Wisconsin, Scott Walker and Collective Bargaining – Asked if Gov. Scott Walker has "gone too far," Christie responded:

  Bob, let me tell you what — what went on in New Jersey. My predecessor, Governor Corzine, stood on the front steps of the Capitol at a public-sector union rally and said, "I'll fight to get you a good contract." And I thought to myself, watching that, who's he fighting with? Once he says that, the fight's over. What I believe in is true adversarial collective bargaining. And so, every state is different. I'm not going to micromanage Wisconsin from Trenton, New Jersey. I know Scott Walker. I like him. And I trust him. And I think he believe he's doing what's in the best interest of Wisconsin, the same way I'm going to do what I think needs to be done for New Jersey, which is, to reform the pension system and roll back health benefits for public-sector workers, to put them more in line with the rest of the population in New Jersey, to put us on a long-term path to fiscal stability.
  But aren't collective bargaining rights inviolate? Christie, a former U.S. attorney reminds us:

  Now listen. All these rights are legislatively created. They didn't come down from tablets at the top of a mountain. And so, political things change and go back and forth. And every state is going to make their own determination on that. Wisconsin is in the middle of making that determination. As you know, Bob, there are plenty of states in America where that right doesn't exist. And so, each state has to make their own determination on that.

  But it's not the legal precision of the answer that is exceptional. What stands out is his utter candor. I frankly can't imagine another politician debunking the notion that public employees have a God-given right to collectively bargain.

  +++++++

  Read it all.

  Agreed

According to the latest Rasmussen Poll.

As Republicans and Democrats in Congress haggle over the budget, most voters would rather have a partial shutdown of the federal government than keep its spending at current levels.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 33% of Likely U.S. Voters would rather have Congress avoid a government shutdown by authorizing spending at the same levels as last year. Fifty-eight percent (58%) says it’s better to have a partial shutdown until Democrats and Republicans can agree on what spending to cut.

I don’t think this is in the cards, since most voters don’t see passage of a budget as an emergency – an emergency worth extreme measures like a government shutdown.

So, there will be NO government shutdown but probably a series of continuing spending resolutions, since the GOP would rather see this issue come up every few months as we head into election season 2012.