• Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-02-06

    • Saying it received an "onslaught of personal attacks," a Colorado nonprofit announced in a news release today that it was canceling a scheduled May appearance in Glendale by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

      Palin, the former Alaskan governor and possible 2012 Republican presidential candidate, was to be the keynote speaker at the May 2 Patriots & Warriors Gala at the Infinity Park Event Center in Glendale.

      The event, sponsored by the Sharon K. Pacheco Foundation, was announced to the media on Friday. The group said today the event had been canceled because of "safety concerns resulting from an onslaught of negative feedback received by the organization."

      ++++++

      Now, Sarah Palin has an open date for the NBC Presidential debate at the Reagan Presidential library.

      Will she participate?

      (tags: sarah_palin)
    • The fate-turning spectacle of the Iowa caucuses will unfold a year from today – or even sooner – but where are the big names?

      A string of prospects have visited Iowa in the past few weeks, dropping hints about their plans. Yet the three Republicans at the top of national presidential preference polls have left few clues in Iowa.

      What's up with Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee? Despite their public silence, forces are in motion that could shape an Iowa strategy for Romney and lay the groundwork for a Palin campaign here. But Iowa and national strategists see few signs pointing to a sequel to Huckabee's 2008 campaign.

      ++++++++

      Mike Huckabee is not going to run….

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-02-01

    • As of March 2010, 11.2 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the United States, virtually unchanged from a year earlier, according to new estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. This stability in 2010 follows a two-year decline from the peak of 12 million in 2007 to 11.1 million in 2009 that was the first significant reversal in a two-decade pattern of growth. Unauthorized immigrants were 3.7% of the nation's population in 2010.

      +++++++

      Read it all

      I will have a further post on this report tomorrow

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-31

    • The White House expects Jon Huntsman, the U.S. Ambassador to China, to resign his post this spring to explore a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, top Democrats said.

      GOP allies of Huntsman have already begun laying plans for a quick-start campaign should the former Utah governor decide to enter the ill-defined Republican field.

      ++++++

      Read it all

      I don't really see another rich Mormon doing very well running for President – especially since he has been part of the Obama Administration.

      Looks like the political consultants have found another cash cow who covets the White House

    • Leaders of more than 70 Tea Party groups in Indiana gathered last weekend to sign a proclamation saying they would all support one candidate — as yet undetermined — in a primary challenge to Senator Richard G. Lugar, the Republican who has represented the state since 1977.
      ++++++

      Read it all

      If Tea Party activists can agree on one GOP/Tea Party challenger to Sen. Lugar he is gone.

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-30

    • Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as "the president who lost Iran," which during his term went from being a major strategic ally of the United States to being the revolutionary Islamic Republic. Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who "lost" Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and during whose tenure America's alliances in the Middle East crumbled.

      ++++++

      And, Tunisia and Turkey

    • The Working Group on Egypt , which includes Michele Dunne, Robert Kagan, Elliott Abrams and Ellen Bork as well Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch and Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress, has put out a statement with some smart advice for Obama to pursue the following goals:

      a call for free and fair elections for president and for parliament to be held as soon as possible.

      amend the Egyptian Constitution to allow opposition candidates to register to run for the presidency.

      immediately lift the state of emergency, release political prisoners, and allow for freedom of media and assembly

      allow domestic election monitors to operate throughout the country, without fear of arrest or violence.

      immediately invite international monitors to enter the country and monitor the process leading to elections, reporting on the government's compliance with these measures to the international community

      publicly declare that Mr. Mubarak will agree not to run for re-election.

      ++

      Yes

    • The Bee's editorial praised legislation by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner aimed at ending the so-called never-ending sales tax holiday granted to out-of-state Internet merchants.

      The editorial cites an out-dated Board of Equalization analysis suggesting that the legislation might bring $150 million into state coffers. For perspective, compare this number to the estimated $42.2 billion in sales and use taxes Californians paid last year or the $25.4 billion deficit the state is currently facing.

      One small problem: California isn't likely to see any of those $150 million. Instead Skinner's bill would cost jobs, hurt government revenue and drag taxpayers into costly litigation.

      ++++++++

      Absolutely true.

      The Amazon tax would contribute little to California's economy except grief.

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-28

    • Meanwhile, politicians fiddle at the edges of the tax system. Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, for instance, has re-introduced legislation to tax Internet sales, seeking a way around the federal rule that Internet sellers without a physical presence in a state cannot be compelled to collect sales taxes.

      However, it may be unconstitutional – New York has a similar law that's now being tested in the courts – and even if implemented would generate only a relatively tiny amount of money.

      If California is to truly tame its budget beast, its politicians and voters must bite the bullet and realign its tax system with the 21st century economy.

      Increasing tax rates or trying to tax Internet sales are at best short-term, feel-good remedies for California's endemic fiscal crisis, and such tinkering won't suffice in the long run.

      +++++++

      The State of California needs to cut social welfare and university spending.

    • Instead, the signs are that the Egyptian authorities have taken a very careful and well-planned method to screen off Internet addresses at every level, from users inside the country trying to get out and from the rest of the world trying to get in.

      “It looks like they’re taking action at two levels,” Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro told me. “First at the DNS level, so any attempt to resolve any address in .eg will fail — but also, in case you’re trying to get directly to an address, they are also using the Border Gateway Protocol, the system through which ISPs advertise their Internet protocol addresses to the network. Many ISPs have basically stopped advertising any internet addresses at all.”

      Essentially, we’re talking about a system that no longer knows where anything is. Outsiders can’t find Egyptian websites, and insiders can’t find anything at all.

      ++++++

      Read it all

      (tags: Egypt internet)
  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-27

    • More Americans than forecast filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance payments last week, indicating it will take time for the labor market to mend.

      Applications for jobless benefits increased by 51,000 to 454,000 in the week ended Jan. 22, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists forecast 405,000 claims, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. The number of people on unemployment benefit rolls rose, while those collecting extended payments fell.

      ++++++

      Not a good sign for "Winning the Future" as per President Obama

      (tags: Obamanomics)
    • A week after Republicans announced plans to investigate waivers granted to organizations for healthcare reform provisions, President Obama’s health department made public new waivers for more than more than 500 groups.

      The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is granting temporary waivers to organizations that would not be able to meet the reform law’s new requirement for annual coverage limits.

      As of last week, HHS had granted waivers to 222 organizations covering 1.5 million individuals. Though the number of groups receiving waivers has now more than tripled, the number of individuals covered by the waivers increased just 600,000 to 2.1 million.

      The law gives HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius the flexibility to grant waivers to avoid disruption in the insurance market, but Republicans say the waivers are either gifts to Democratic allies or proof that the reform law isn’t working. However, a large number of businesses, in addition to unions, have received waivers.

      (tags: Obamacare)
  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-26

    • Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained new documents from the United States Air Force detailing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s use of United States Air Force aircraft in 2010. According to the documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Pelosi used Air Force aircraft for 43 flights from January 1 to October 1, 2010. According to documents previously uncovered by Judicial Watch, by comparison, Nancy Pelosi logged 47 flights in the prior nine-month period, April 1, 2009, to January 1, 2010.

      ++++++

      Read it all

      It only gets worse.

      (tags: nancy_pelosi)
    • An Education Intelligence Agency analysis of NEA’s financial disclosure report for the 2009-10 fiscal year reveals the national union contributed more than $13 million to a wide variety of advocacy groups and charities. The total was about half the amount disbursed in the previous year, though more than in 2007-08.

      The expenditures fall into broad categories of community outreach grants, charitable contributions, and payments for services rendered. In this list, EIA has deliberately omitted spending such as media buys, or payments to pollsters or consultants that have no obvious ideological component. The grants range from $2.125 million to a California ballot initiative campaign, down to smaller grants to organizations such as People for the American Way, Media Matters and Netroots Nation.

      +++++++

      Read it all

      List includes the teacher's union in with Big Labor = the organized American Left

      (tags: NEA)
    • Behind closed doors, California Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez has proposed removing Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords from the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) until she recovers from injuries sustained after being shot in the head on Jan. 8 in Tucson, The Daily Caller has learned.

      The proposal sparked an outrage, according to those in the room — including from those in Sanchez’s own party.

      “It’s not appropriate,” Texas Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes told The Daily Caller, adding that there was outrage among some members in the room when Sanchez made the suggestion. “It’s bad for morale during her recovery period.”

      +++++++

      Read it all

      Yeah, right.

      Good the Dems squelched this political opportunism by Loretta Sanchez

    • It’s clear that both parties have decided that a period of divided government twelve months before a presidential election is the wrong time to make big moves on entitlements and the deficit. Better to wait, jockey for position, and hope that the correlation of forces after 2012 will be more favorable to their preferred solutions. And it’s clear, too, that they’ve decided (with honorable exceptions) that it’s too risky to even begin building support for the unpopular cuts or tax increases ahead. The bet, on both sides, is that there’s still time to work with, and that the other party will blink, or at least give ground, before the real crunch arrives.

      Let’s hope they’re right.

      +++++++

      Read it all.

      Come on. The American people will demand specific policy direction coming into 2012.

      Obama will not receive a free pass nor will the GOP members of the House.

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-25

    • Local protests have to accumulate and spread—and become more disruptive—to create serious pressures on national politicians. An effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England in response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees.

      +++++++

      Read it all

      Piven is calling for organized protests and riots to protest unemployment – like in Europe. Yeah, that will really work to increase the number of jobs.

      It reminds me of the old Communist crap of the 1970's – you know, the Socialist Worker's Party lunacy.

    • Fox News? And do you also call on The Nation, which published "Mobilizing the Jobless," by Frances Fox Piven, the article Glenn Beck brought to the attention of his large audience? Piven called for riots. She wrote:

      An effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England in response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees….

      +++++++

      Read it all

      But, Glenn Beck dared to call her out – oh the humanity!

    • Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday brushed back an expected proposal from President Obama to ban earmarks.

      Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Reid said that the plan is "a lot of pretty talk" and would cede too much power to the executive branch.

      ++++++

      DOA = dead on arrival according to Harry Reid

      It would give "the president more power and he's got enough power already," he said.

      Obama is expected to include a call for an earmark ban in his State of the Union address, which he will deliver Tuesday night. Obama and Reid have long been on opposite sides of the earmark debate, and Reid's comments indicate that the proposal could run aground in the upper chamber.

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-24

    • Oregon, a decidedly liberal state, provides an unequivocal example. In 1993, the Clinton administration gave permission to the Oregon Health Plan, the state’s Medicaid program, to introduce rationing. The system involves a treatment schedule that lists 649 potentially covered procedures. The state pegs the number of procedures the state will cover to the available funds. Patients requiring procedures above the cutoff line are out of luck.

      As of October 2010, only the first 502 treatments were covered. But even that low number doesn’t tell the full story of rationing in Oregon. The Oregon Health Plan also rations covered procedures under certain circumstances. Chemotherapy, for instance, is not provided if it is deemed to have a 5 percent or less chance of extending the patient’s life for five years, meaning that a patient whose life might be extended a year or two with chemo may not receive it.

      ++++++++

      Read it all

      But, Oregon above WILL pay for physician assisted suicide

    • A controversial bill handing President Obama power over privately owned computer systems during a "national cyberemergency," and prohibiting any review by the court system, will return this year.

      Internet companies should not be alarmed by the legislation, first introduced last summer by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), a Senate aide said last week. Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

      "We're not trying to mandate any requirements for the entire Internet, the entire Internet backbone," said Brandon Milhorn, Republican staff director and counsel for the committee.

      +++++++

      Read it all

      Judicial review should be required period.

      Curtailment of the internet could be seen as a First Amendment attack on information dissemination – the electronic press.

    • Welfare benefits for the children of illegal immigrants cost America's largest county more than $600 million last year, according to a local official keeping tabs on the cost.

      Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich released new statistics this week showing social spending for those families in his county rose to $53 million in November, putting the county government on track to spend more than $600 million on related costs for the year — up from $570 million in 2009.

      ++++++

      Read it all.

      Then, there are the costs of public education – look at all of the newly constructed schools in the LAUSD.

      Is there any wonder why California is going broke?

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-23

    • But more germanely, Palin need not run for the presidency in 2012 in the manner commentator and newly elected governor Reagan did not until 1968, and did not successfully until 1980 — all the while establishing a populist conservative persona as hated — and successful — during his near two-decade pre-presidential career as a younger Palin might be in the two decades ahead.

      Palin is scary not so much in 2012, but that she could be around — and be around in an evolving way — for a long time to come.

      (tags: sarah_palin)
    • More specific data from the Tax Foundation and other sources indicate that California's income and sales taxes are particularly high, compared with those of other states, while overall corporate taxes are a bit below average and property taxes fall somewhere in the middle.

      While Proposition 13, enacted in 1978, strictly limits property tax rates, the state's relatively high property values push property tax bills into the upper ranks. In 2009, the Tax Foundation says, California property taxes as a percentage of value on owner-occupied houses were 44th in the country, while the median tax bill of $2,839 was 10th highest, nearly $1,000 above the national average.

      ++++++++

      Read it all.

      The tax burden is a detriment to attracting business to California and why California companies manufacture their products out of the state in China.