Archive for February, 2011
Posted by Flap in Twitter
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These are my links for February 25th from 13:49 to 14:32:
- Bashing Fox News? Call it free advertising for the network – Those who call it "fake news" may wish to reconsider giving Fox News Channel free advertising: FNC and Cablevision have announced a new multi-year carriage agreement, continuing Fox's presence in homes throughout New York, New Jersey, and my native Connecticut. This news comes despite constant attacks from the Left, primarily in the form of Media Matters, who consistently claims that Fox News is a kind of partisan propaganda outlet that needs to be exposed. Could it be that Media Matters' and other critics' constant drumtaps against Fox are helping to make it stronger?
In fact, Fox is still going strong. For nine years straight, the network has been on top of the pile. It's raking in more and more cash. During its coverage of the Egyptian uprising, Fox beat out MSNBC and CNN combined, the latter of which having had the historical advantage of being the international network. (Many networks risked a great deal to get in on the story, as CNN's Anderson Cooper, CBS's Lara Logan, and Fox News's Greg Palkot were all attacked during their coverage.)
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Fox News continues to weather the attacks of the LEFT with even greater ratings success.
Bring it on = Roger Ailes
- Two more leftwing front groups exposed = Common Cause and Alliance for Justice Go After the Koch Brothers – The Post's Feb. 24 story did not explain that the letter had been the brainchild of AFJ. (It didn't provide any reference to Common Cause, which had been manning a nearly identical campaign.) But there it was: the same storyline about the Koch brothers and the attendance of Justice Thomas and Scalia at a Koch event. Moreover, the head of AFJ repeated the Koch storyline to The Post. "Nan Aron, director of the liberal group Alliance for Justice, said that if these rules were extended to the Supreme Court, none of the justices could attend 'overtly political meetings or events' like those sponsored by the Kochs." The Post report never identified her as head of AFJ, the author of the letter.
And so we have the second liberal front group in this scheme, AFJ. AFJ didn't identify itself on the letter to Congress, and I wouldn't have known it was behind the latest round of "get-the-Kochs" except for my work on Citizens United and Morrison's forthright answers.
In a subsequent post I'll look at what AFJ is and who funds them. But if you've been paying attention, you probably know all that, right?
- Gingrich: If Palin Took Obama Actions, There Would Be Calls for Impeachment – In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV Friday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said President Barack Obama’s decision not to fully enforce the Defense of Marriage law has sparked a constitutional crisis as he has directly violated his constitutional duties by arbitrarily suspending a law.
Gingrich for the first time raised the specter of Obama’s removal from office, noting that, if a “President Sarah Palin” had taken a similar action, there would have been immediate calls for her impeachment.
Obama Attorney General Eric Holder said on Wednesday that the administration will not defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act in the courts, which has banned recognition of same-sex marriage for 15 years. President Clinton signed the act into law in 1996.
Obama’s decision to forego a legal defense of the law has caused a firestorm of anger from conservative groups.
Gingrich slammed Obama for his decision, telling Newsmax that he is not a “one-person Supreme Court” and his decision sets a “very dangerous precedent” that must not be allowed to stand.
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Indeed there would be.
Obama is not a one man Supreme Court and cannot FLEE from his responsibilities to enforce the laws
Tags: Alliance_for_Justice, Charles_Koch, Citizens_United, Common_Cause, David_Koch, Fox_News, Roger_Ailes
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Posted by Flap in Cosmetics
The above video is in response to this one which attempted to scare the bejesus out of folks using cosmetics.
Scaremongering about toxins in and toxins out raises my BS meter.
Many of the chemicals in cosmetics are already regulated and I know people are not dropping off because of their deodorant and/or lipstick. the original video is just another Big Government, Nanny State, anti-science diatribe by the pro-regulate everything crowd.
Tags: Cosmetics
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These are my links for February 25th from 10:40 to 10:50:
- The Untold Story of Scott Walker’s Longstanding History with Labor – Governor Scott Walker may be a new marvel to cable news, but he is certainly no stranger to Wisconsin politics. Scott K. Walker, son of a Baptist preacher, began his political career in the early 1990s when he ran for an Assembly seat in the State Legislature. Even as a young legislator in his twenties, Walker took a hard-line, penny-wise approach to labor unions. During a debate in 1993, Walker advocated reforming union laws that oversaw local government labor disputes. Little did he know that his career in Milwaukee politics would be tested and weighed by his exchange with those very laws.
After nine years in the State Legislature, Scott Walker campaigned for Milwaukee County Executive – a seat that no Republican in Wisconsin has ever occupied. But Milwaukee County was recently rocked by a massive pension scandal – one that had given away six-figure backdrops to hundreds of public employees. The area was ripe for a new breed of leadership, and Walker’s message of frugality and fiscal reform seemed to reverberate with the voters. In 2002, Milwaukee County elected Scott Walker, the first ever Republican County Executive.
As Executive, Walker’s skirmishes with unions began shortly after he promised he would balance county budgets without raising property taxes. Without counting on these revenue-raising mechanisms, Walker had to lean on the county workforce for program cuts.
In 2003, Detractors accused Walker of ginning up a false fiscal crisis in order to justify slashing budget items. Drumming up false budgetary crises became a perennial charge against Walker, so he didn’t waste opportunities to remind them that unfunded pension liabilities threatened the solvency of their county government.
In 2006, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) – Walker’s nemesis in all budgetary matters – criticized Walker for what they called a “Sky is Falling Tour.” A few months later (ironically), the Greater Milwaukee Committee – a private sector civic organization – released a damaging report recommending a state takeover of Milwaukee County's budget due to their daunting health care and pension costs.
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Read it all
- Oregon Dem Rep. David Wu should step down | For lack of candor, not because of treatment – Now that an explanation for U.S. Rep. David Wu’s sometimes peculiar behavior has emerged, Oregon Democrats are saying that talk of a resignation is premature. The 1st District congressman says he has sought professional care, and supporters claim that seeking treatment should not disqualify a person for public office. They’re right, but that’s not the issue. The real problem is a lack of candor, and for that he should resign.
On Oct. 30, Wu’s staff members demanded that he check into a psychiatric hospital for treatment, according to The (Portland) Oregonian. Wu, who has represented Oregon’s 1st District since 1999, refused. Wu’s staff kept him away from public events in the final days of the campaign, and on Nov. 2 he was easily re-elected to a seventh term. Many of Wu’s top staff members have quit since the election, including his chief of staff, pollster and campaign treasurer.
Wu’s district extends from the northern Oregon Coast to the west side of Portland, and he has not been a frequent visitor to this part of the state. But people in Lane County who recall Wu’s off-key introduction of Barack Obama on the University of Oregon campus in 2008 have some understanding of reports of disjointed public appearances in his district and in Washington, D.C. His behavior in private has reportedly been even more erratic, leading staff members to stage their unsuccessful intervention.
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Rep. Wu needs to resign and concentrate on his health.
- Oregon Rep. David Wu’s situation raises questions about why staff didn’t act sooner – The big question now is whether Wu can survive politically. I suspect that continuing coverage of his eccentricities will leave him no choice but resign or pledge not to run again in 2012.
I'm more interested in the answers to a different set of questions that might provide a greater lesson for us all: Who knew what when? And why didn't they act sooner to help a man whose behavior clearly called out for it?
Eccentricity should not preclude anyone from serving in public office. (If it did, the halls of power would be as empty as Manhattan in "I Am Legend.") Neither should addiction or depression disqualify talented public servants, as long as the conditions are acknowledged and treated. It's a wonder we don't hear more tales of members of Congress cracking from the combined strain of long hours, frequent travel, constant pressure to raise money and, even before the rise of the tea party, increasingly personal attacks from partisan foes.
More people, particularly more in powerful jobs, should feel comfortable openly discussing how they cope with stress; we should all understand that seeing a psychiatrist or taking anti-depressants is a sign of strength and self-awareness, not weakness. (Imagine this campaign victory speech: "I'd like to thank my wife, my children, my volunteers and the guy who invented Zoloft.")
Members of the House and Senate work inside a bubble of supportive staff. Aides handle their daily schedules, their travel arrangements, even their laundry. Wu's increasing agitation could not have escaped his staff's notice. And this was obviously not one bad month, despite Wu's suggestion to that effect on "Good Morning America." Political professionals don't decide to stage an intervention with their boss on the spur of the moment.
Yet his aides stayed with him, in some cases for years. The Democratic establishment tolerated and worked around him, through seven campaigns and an increasing number of whispers and raised eyebrows. From a political perspective, that's understandable. Wu holds a strong Democratic seat and knows how to raise money, particularly from out-of-state donors. You don't mess with that kind of success. Unless you care about the person at the heart of it.
In propping Wu up for so long, in staying quiet about what might lie behind his strange behavior, staff and the party power structure did a disservice to both the congressman and his constituents. Wu should explain his behavior. The people who shielded him for all these years as the pressure mounted should explain theirs, too.
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Speaker at the time, Dem Rep Nancy Pelosi propped up this moron because she needed his vote.
She and the House Dem leadership should be ashamed of themselves
Tags: David_Wu, Nancy_Pelosi, Scott Walker
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Posted by Flap in Animals
According to the latest Kaiser Family foundation Poll.
As you may know, a health reform bill was signed into law early last year. Given what you know about the health reform law, do you have a generally favorable or generally unfavorable opinion of it?
43% Favorable, 48% Unfavorable
2/8-13/11; 1,202 adults, 3% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
This is not a good poll for President Obama and why the GOP will never nominate Mitt Romney, the author of the failed RomneyCare in Massachusetts.
ObamaCare repeal WILL be an issue in the Presidential race next year.
Here is the chart:
Tags: Obamacare, Polling
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Georgia Rep. Paul Broun (R-Athens)
The LEFT is really playing up this question from a Georgia Town Hall MORON.
At Rep. Paul Broun’s town hall meeting on Tuesday, the Athens congressman asked who had driven the farthest to be there and let the winner ask the first question.
We couldn’t hear the question in the back of the packed Oglethorpe County Commission chamber, but whatever it was, it got a big laugh. According to an outraged commenter on the article, the question was, when is someone going to shoot Obama?
Broun’s press secretary, Jessica Morris, confirmed that the question was indeed, who is going to shoot Obama? “Obviously, the question was inappropriate, so Congressman Broun moved on,” she said.
Here is Broun’s response to the MORON:
The thing is, I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president. We’re going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we’ll elect somebody that’s going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.
But, in a typical Saul Alinsky diversion, the LEFT is all over Rep. Broun for not immediately acting horrified enough and condemning/admonishing the MORON for an act of violence against the President.
So, now the Congressman should act as the Secret Service?
I am positive the Secret Service will be dispatched to ferret out the MORON, he will be investigated as a possible threat and he will eventually issue an apology.
Who knows? He may have even been a plant?
But, the LEFT who wish to divert attention away from their Fleebaggers in Indiana and Wisconsin, have had a momentary bit of “Tucson Civility” outrage.
Tags: Paul_Broun
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Game on for the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination so it seems.
Mike Huckabee is bashing the Massachusetts health care plan as a failed experiment — and saying that Mitt Romney should consider apologizing for steering its passage when he was governor.
Although activists and party leaders have said Romney’s health care plan would be a major issue in his expected presidential run, Huckabee’s criticism is one of the most direct attacks that Romney has faced from a potential challenger.
“It could be argued that if RomneyCare were a patient, the prognosis would be dismal,” Huckabee writes in his new book, A Simple Government.
Huckabee, who said yesterday that he is “seriously contemplating” another run for president, also points to the similarities between Romney’s plan in Massachusetts and President Obama’s plan for the nation.
“Ever since the debate over [Obama’s] program began, it’s been compared to RomneyCare, the failed statewide health-care program implemented by none other than my fellow GOP member Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts,” Huckabee writes, under a heading, “The States as Laboratories: When Experiments Fail” “Any critical assessment of this program will show that it failed…and yet the Obama administration decided to emulate it in its pursuit of a national health-care program.”
He claims that while Romney’s attempt to control health care costs was “a noble goal indeed,” it has instead increased costs and diminished care.
“The people of Massachusetts participated in an experiment that blew up in their faces, and now they have to stand in line at the burn clinic,” he writes. “If our goal in health-care reform is better care at lower cost, then we should take a lesson from RomneyCare, which shows that socialized medicine does not work. Period.”
Mike Huckabee has a point about RomneyCare which I criticized years ago prior to its implementation. Others, including Sarah Palin and Mitch Daniels will likely weigh in on the issue as they prepare to run later in the Spring.
RomneyCare is Mitt’s Achilles Heel and is a big government health care solution.
Although I doubt Mike Huckabee will run for President, the animosity between him and Romney is very apparent. I do know the same dislike for Romney exists within the Rudy Giuliani folks from the 2008 campaign. Mitt is not a very likeable campaigner and will do what is necessary to defeat his opponents.
Here is Mitt Romney’s response to Huckabee’s criticism:
Romney has largely defended the plan in Massachusetts — and the goal of getting more residents covered — while still criticizing the federal plan passed by Democrats. His chief argument has been that states should experiment with different approaches to health care, but that Obama’s national plan infringes on states’ rights and should be repealed.
In his updated paperback version of his book, No Apology, Romney also blamed the Democratic-controlled state legislature and Governor Deval Patrick for their implementation of the Massachusetts plan.
“Mitt Romney is proud of what he accomplished for Massachusetts in getting everyone covered,” Romney’s spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, said in response to Huckabee’s criticism. “What’s important now is to return to the states the power to determine their own healthcare solutions by repealing Obamacare. A one-size-fits-all plan for the entire nation just doesn’t work.”
A pretty weak sauce explanation and it will NOT hold up under scrutiny, especially when the television ads start to fly in South Carolina and Florida.
Again from Huckabee as to what Mitt should do about RomneyCare:
“I think it’s not a killer for him,” Huckabee told the Associated Press. “But he has to say either ‘I love it,’ ‘I hate it,’ or, ‘Hey I tried it, it didn’t work and that’s why I would say to you, let’s not do it nationally.’”
“The position he should take is to say: ‘Look, the reason Obamacare won’t work is because we’ve tried it at the state level and we know it won’t work,’” Huckabee added.
I don’t think Mitt Romney will agree.
I, also, don’t think Mitt Romney will come close to winning the GOP Presidential nomination next year.
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