Archive for August, 2011
Former Democratic Wisconsin U.S. Senator Russ Feingold
The prospects for a GOP pick up of retiring Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl’s seat are looking better all of the time.
Democrat Russ Feingold has decided he will not be a candidate for political office next year, taking himself out of the running in 2012 for either U.S. senator or for governor in the event Democrats force a recall election against Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
In an email going out to supporters early Friday morning, Feingold called it a difficult decision but said he wanted to devote his time to teaching full time at Marquette Law School, finishing the book he is writing on the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 attacks and leading the political committee he founded, Progressives United.
“While I may seek elective office again someday, I have decided not to run for public office during 2012,” Feingold said in the email.
Some Democrats were looking to Feingold as perhaps their leading candidate against Walker next year in the event of a successful recall drive. His announcement ends that scenario.
eingold’s lack of interest in running for Senate is not a big surprise.
Since he was defeated in 2010 in his bid for a fourth term, he has sent no obvious signals about a quick return to the legislative body where he served for 18 years.
“After twenty-eight continuous years as an elected official?.?.?.?I have found the past eight months to be an opportunity to look at things from a different perspective,” Feingold said in the email, saying he was “thoroughly enjoying the life of a private citizen.”
His decision leaves the Democratic Senate field wide open, though many Wisconsin Democrats will now regard U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, with her political base in vote-rich Dane County, as the early favorite for the party nomination.
The latest polling is here and Republican Tommy Thompson who is a former Wisconsin Governor has to be viewed as a front-runner in this race.
Tags: Russ Feingold, Tammy Baldwin, Tommy Thompson, Wisconsin
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“Iowa Passion” Sarah Palin at the Iowa State Fair last week
Nobody really knows what Sarah Palin will do but there is a lot of speculation and buzz today.
Sarah Palin’s Sept. 3 event has been relocated from Waukee to Indianola to better accommodate a larger crowd, organizers said.
Palin is the keynote speaker at the Tea Party of America’s “Restoring America” event, which is free and open to the public.
The event was originally scheduled at Hawkeye Antique Acres in Waukee. The event is now scheduled from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the National Balloon Classic field, east of Indianola.
There has been speculation that Palin, a former governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, could use the event as an opportunity to announce whether she plans to run for president in 2012.
“I don’t know if she’s going to announce or not,” said Charlie Gruschow, co-founder of Tea Party of America. “But whether or not she announces, we’re going to have a huge event.”
I think she will run.
With Rick Perry in the race, a multi-candidate field with two other conservatives and one moderate (Mitt Romney) is a “perfect” storm for her.
But, I. also, think that Rudy Giuliani may then run or endorse Rick Perry and tie up the delegates in Florida, East and Far West.
The next few weeks will prove to be a very interesting time.
Tags: President 2012, Rick Perry, Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin
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These are my links for August 18th through August 19th:
- A Textbook Case of Government Waste and Stupidity – With a finite – and as far as most Democrats are concerned, insufficient – supply of taxpayer funds out there, its always interesting to see the choices that politicians with the power to spend the money make.
Take Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, for example. Yes, that Jack Conway, of ‘Aqua Budda’ fame. Conway has been on the warpath against for-profit colleges, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds to mount an investigation against seven academic institutions in the state.
Conway’s investigation recently got a big break. The smoking gun? Owensboro-based Daymar College seems to have overcharged students for textbooks. That’s right; apparently Daymar encouraged students to purchase textbooks in the college bookstore even though they were available more cheaply through other retailers.
For anyone who has been to college this quarter-century, the textbook charges are laughable. Every school, from community colleges all the way up to the ritziest private universities, tries to snooker students into buying their textbooks at the bookstore then they could easily get them for less on Amazon.com.
The real issue is that state officials like Conway are conducting a witch-hunt against for-profit colleges when they should be focusing time and money on rampant fraud within taxpayer-funded public schools.
For-profit colleges are private institutions that students can choose to attend or not to attend. The same cannot be said for public schools, which are racking up institutionalized cheating scandals faster than investigators can keep up with them.
A few examples: Edison College, a public college in Florida, was recently caught forging transcripts en masse to inflate graduation rates. In Atlanta Public Schools, a massive fraud operation was uncovered that implicated hundreds of teachers in over 40 schools and went right on up to the Superintendent. Atlanta is by no means alone; an increasing number of teachers and administrators across the country have been discovered inflating grades and forging test answers in order to keep bad teachers on the rolls until they could collect their pensions.
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Read it all
- Oversight Committee responds to NLRB’s refusal to comply with subpoena – The National Labor Relations Board’s refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena could lead to the disbarment of the NLRB attorneys working on the case against the Boeing Co., House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa wrote in a letter to the labor agency.
“I trust you stand ready to accept the severe consequences of your decision to avoid compliance with the subpoena,” Issa, R-Calif., wrote.
Issa and NLRB have been haggling over the committee’s requests for documentation in the board’s case against the Boeing Co. over its final assembly and delivery plant in North Charleston. The NLRB issued the complaint against Boeing in April, accusing the aerospace giant of opening the S.C. plant to retaliate for worker strikes at its Puget Sound plant in Everett, Wash.
Acting general counsel Lafe Solomon has argued that releasing the requested documents could affect the ongoing hearings in Seattle. He’s also cited attorney-client privilege and a ruling by an NLRB administrative court judge to deny the release of similar documents to Boeing earlier in the case.
Issa wrote that privileged matters disclosed to a congressional committee are not assumed to be public and that if they are public, the disclosure might not affect the outcome of the case. He also said attorney-client privilege does not apply to Congress, citing a federal court ruling.
Issa also calls the argument based on the judge’s ruling “absurd.”
“Quite simply, the idea that the investigative powers of Congress are bound by nonconstitutional, common-law rules of the judiciary conflicts with the separation of powers doctrine as well as the constitutional authority granted to each house of Congress to determine its own rules,” Issa wrote. “As I have previously articulated, the NLRB has no valid basis for continuing to withhold the documents the committee has requested.”
- @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-08-19 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-08-19 #tcot #catcot
- Lawsuit Alleges Rick Santorum’s Website Built With ‘Counterfeit’ Font | techPresident – President 2012: Lawsuit Alleges Rick Santorum's Website Built With 'Counterfeit' Font
- Flap’s Links and Comments for August 18th on 14:07 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s Links and Comments for August 18th on 14:07 #tcot #catcot
- President 2012: Obama Fan Sending Flap GOP Obama Getaway Postcards | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012: Obama Fan Sending Flap GOP Obama Getaway Postcards #tcot #catcot
Tags: #catcot, #tcot, Boeing, Government_Waste, NLRB, Pinboard Links, Textbooks
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Day By Day by Chris
Chris, the President is either letting his arrogance or immaturity get the best of him here. He probably thinks he can sway the masses with his teleprompter and that his disastrous economic policies do not matter.
Obama thinks wrongly.
The American economy is mired in a recession and high unemployment. Unfortunately, this will not turn around until Obama is tossed out of office in January 2013.
The Obama experiment with a poorly vetted POL with no executive experience is over.
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Tags: Barack Obama, Day By Day
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These are my links for August 18th from 14:07 to 20:57:
- Warren Buffett’s derided wisdom – LA Times Smoking Crack Again – Investors might hang on Warren Buffett's every word when it comes to financial advice, but Republicans are less than enthusiastic about the Oracle of Omaha's opinions on taxation. After the billionaire chairman of investment firm Berkshire Hathaway wrote an op-ed in the New York Times complaining that the mega-rich are undertaxed in comparison to the middle class, conservatives urged him to voluntarily send more of his own money to the Internal Revenue Service and leave others alone. Not only are they willfully missing Buffett's point, they're seemingly oblivious to the fact that in many ways his tax ideas mirror those of Ronald Reagan.
Hard to believe as it may seem, it has been a quarter of a century since the last comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. tax code. Under the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was signed by President Reagan, the number of tax brackets was reduced, loopholes were closed, the top tax rate was lowered and capital gains were taxed at the same rate as ordinary income. Yet in the years since, Congress has steadily drilled loopholes back into the code while lowering the tax burden for wealthy people who make money through investments rather than labor. That was the source of Buffett's complaint.
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But, what did Reagan do in 1981?
The LA Times Editorial writers either wish to ignore history or simply have been smoking LEFT WING Crack for way too long.
- President 2012: Lawsuit Alleges Rick Santorum’s Website Built With ‘Counterfeit’ Font – The company's complaint calls out Raise Digital for taking fonts from their Fedra font family and modifying them so they could be used on Santorum's website. Designers often use a method available through a technology called Cascading Style Sheets to host a font on their client's web server and provide it to each visitor — but generally, they make sure to get license to use that font on the web first. The complaint, which goes out of its way to say that the Santorum campaign isn't involved, alleges that Raise Digital — or whomever Raise Digital hired to do the design work — didn't have that license.
Then things get technical: The suit says the font that appeared on Santorum's website was a modified version of one of theirs — tweaked so that it would work on the web — and that the resulting product was "counterfeit."
I asked Gabe Levine, a San Francisco-based intellectual property lawyer who represents new media companies, if what Typotheque alleges Raise Digital did would be a rookie mistake.
"I'd say it's pretty rookie, yeah," he said. Later in the conversation, he added, "When one of my competent developer clients uses a font, they make damn well sure they have a right to use it."
Raise Digital's founder, Justin Hart — who we know from his work for Chuck DeVore's aborted campaign last year to become the Republican nominee for one of California's U.S. Senate seats — declined to comment.
The suit seeks $2 million in damages.
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You have to have the rights…..
- Government will stop deporting some illegal immigrants, allow them to work – San Jose Mercury News – RT @politicoroger: WH must figure polls can't go lower:will stop deporting some illegal immigrants, allow them to work"
- WI-Sen Poll Watch: GOP Pick Up in 2012? | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – WI-Sen Poll Watch: GOP Pick Up in 2012? #tcot #catcot
- Flap’s Dentistry Blog: Cows, Running and Enjoying the Sport of Running – Cows, Running and Enjoying the Sport of Running
- Flap’s Links and Comments for August 18th on 09:02 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s Links and Comments for August 18th on 09:02 #tcot #catcot
Tags: #catcot, #tcot, Buffett, Pinboard Links, Raise_Digital, Reagan, Santorum, Taxes
1 Comment »
Guess some folks are sensitive about the President going up to Martha Vineyard on vacation and being called on it.
So, they sent me about ten of these post cards with different messages.
OK and the point is?
Tell the President to get back to Washington, call Congress back into session and do the people’s business.
Don’t you understand Americans are hurting out there?
The President needs to do his job and not vacation.
Tags: Barack Obama, President 2012
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