• Barbara Boxer

    Former California Senator Barbara Boxer Goes to Work as a Foreign Agent

    Barbara Boxer Registers To Lobby For Chinese Firm Blacklisted Over Surveillance Of Uyghurs

    Former California Sen. Barbara Boxer has registered as a foreign agent for Hikvision USA, the American subsidiary of a Chinese surveillance company that has been blacklisted by the U.S. government.

    Boxer, a Democrat, registered the work through Mercury Public Affairs, the prominent lobbying firm that she joined as a consultant early last year. Boxer’s registration form, filed through the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, says she will be “providing strategic counsel” to Hikvision, which produces surveillance equipment for the Chinese government and Chinese military.

    The Trump administration has cracked down on investments in firms linked to the Chinese government, including Hikvision and Huawei. The Commerce Department added Hikvision to a trade blacklist on Oct. 8 , 2019, for “repression, mass arbitrary detention and high-technology surveillance” of Muslim Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang province.

    Hikvision, in which the Chinese government holds a 42% stake, also produces many of the cameras used to monitor U.S. military bases, streets and homes, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal on Nov. 12, 2017

    Nice work, if you can get it and hold your nose.

    Shame on Barbara Boxer!

  • Barbara Boxer,  Catholic Church,  Obamacare

    Sen Barbara Boxer Video: Insurance Rights TRUMP Religious Rights

    All, I can say is wow!

    It is all about the government and ObamaCare mandates for Boxer and Al Sharpton. Do as WE say, because we (the government) know what is best for you.

    Maybe Senator Boxer would like to tell me where the right to buy health insurance is located in the Constitution?

    Oh yeah, the religious one is in the first amendment, remember Senator?

    Yet, Democrat U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid will provide cover for pro-life, Catholic Senators who want to vote NO on the Blunt amendment.

  • Barbara Boxer

    California Man Pleads Guilty to Threatening Senator Barbara Boxer

    California U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer answering a question during election 2010

    Is California Senator Barbara Boxer worth going to jail? 

    Probably NOT, but this moron could not control his temper and off he goes.

    A San Rafael man accused of threatening to kill U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer pleaded guilty as charged Monday, a county prosecutor said.

    Kevin Joseph O’Connell, 47, admitted to charges of criminal threats and threatening a public official, said Deputy District Attorney Aicha Mievis.

    O’Connell accepted an offer from Judge Terrence Boren to plead guilty if the charges were reduced to misdemeanors, Mievis said.

    O’Connell faces up to a year in jail when he is sentenced Nov. 9.

    O’Connell was arrested in July after leaving a threatening voice mail at the senator’s office in San Francisco. San Rafael police said O’Connell was upset over supposed harassment by public safety officers and tensions with his neighbor, not about Boxer’s politics.

    “It was a cry for help,” said O’Connell’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Bonnie Marmor.

    O’Connell could have faced up to three years in prison if convicted of the felony charges. He remains in custody at the Marin County Jail.

    Remember folks, you can disagree with the POLS. But, stick to the issues or you will end up like this guy – in JAIL.

  • Barbara Boxer,  Michele Bachmann,  Mitt Romney,  Polling,  President 2012,  Rick Perry,  Ron Paul

    President 2012 Poll Watch: Romney 48% Vs. Obama 46%, Perry 47% Vs. Obama 47%

    According to the latest Gallup Poll.

    President Barack Obama is closely matched against each of four possible Republican opponents when registered voters are asked whom they would support if the 2012 presidential election were held today. Mitt Romney leads Obama by two percentage points, 48% to 46%, Rick Perry and Obama are tied at 47%, and Obama edges out Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann by two and four points, respectively.

    These prospective election ballots — measured Aug. 17-18, well over a year before the Nov. 6, 2012, election — indicate that the race for president at this point is generally competitive, with voters fairly evenly divided in their preference for giving Obama a second term or electing a Republican candidate. Even though the four Republican candidates tested have varying degrees of name recognition, they all fare roughly the same.

    Gallup’s generic presidential ballot — measured six times this year — shows a close race between Obama and a generic “Republican presidential candidate,” although there have been survey-to-survey variations on this measure, with the Republican candidate leading in June and July.

    This a poor poll for President Obama’s re-election efforts. Just about any GOP Presidential candidate, including Ron Paul are within striking distance.

    Plus, this poses a dilemma of sorts because who does the LEFT attack when any of the candidates that are running for the GOP nomination are in a good position to beat you.

    President Obama is at the moment in a rough parity position when registered voters are asked whether they would vote for him in election matchups against four potential Republican candidates. Romney fares slightly better than the other GOP candidates, and Bachmann slightly worse, but these are not large differences. Gallup research shows that these types of election measures at this stage in the campaign are not highly stable, and one can expect changes in the relative positioning of Obama and various GOP candidates in the months ahead.

  • Barbara Boxer,  Mitt Romney,  Polling,  President 2012

    President 2012 Iowa Poll Watch: Romney 42% Vs. Obama 39%

    electoral college President 2012 North Carolina Poll Watch: Obama and Romney Tied at 45%
    A statewide poll conducted July 5th through July 7th shows former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in a statistical dead heat with President Barack Obama in a survey of 629 likely Iowa voters in the 2012 general election.
    Romney had 42 percent compared to 39 percent for Obama with 19 percent undecided. Meanwhile, Obama had 47 percent support among Iowans when put head-to-head against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, who had 42 percent while 11 percent were undecided.
    The survey was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research, an independent firm. The overall survey, conducted for the Every Child Matters Education Fund, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percent.

    This is the third key battleground state in the past few days where Romney has either been tied with or leads the incumbent President. The other two were Florida and North Carolina.

    See the graphic above which lists the number of electoral college votes possesed by each state. 270 votes are necessary to win.

    President Obama had better hope this is a momentary fall for him in the polls and that he will be able to turn it around with campaigning because so far he has been underperforming by every pundits expectrations in the states he needs to win.

    As for Mitt Rmney, he will be preparing ads saying he is the GOP nominee that has the best chance to beat Obama – and so far he is correct.

  • Barbara Boxer,  Democrats,  Federal Budget,  GOP

    Video: California Senator Barbara Boxer Says GOP Should Be Thanking Democrats for Budget Cuts

    Click on the image above for the video

    Come on, Barbara, who are you kidding? The Dems could have passed this budget last year but did not because of the political fall out and the November elections.

    By the way, notice how Boxer is changing the subject away from budget cuts to abortion and collective bargaining rights/unions.

    If the GOP does not hold the line now, even with a shutdown of the government for a while, there will never be any worthwhile budget discipline.

    Hold the line Republicans, take the political heat and make the cuts.

  • Barbara Boxer,  Carly Fiorina

    Video: Sen. Barbara Boxer Beclowns Herself Over PBS Funding – “A Vendetta Against Elmo”

    Come on California. You cannot tell me that Carly Fiorina would not have made a better Senator than this idiot.

    Sen. Barbara Boxer posited a new theory about what lies behind GOP cuts to the budget. The Republican Party hates Elmo, she suggested in a floor speech Tuesday.

    “I believe they use deficit reduction as an excuse to carry out political vendettas,” she said, speaking about GOP cuts to health care, the EPA and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which she noted is funded by the government at a much lower percentage than the BBC in Britain.

    “Now they want to zero it out,” she said. “A vendetta, against Elmo.”

  • Barbara Boxer,  California Republican Party

    Poll Watch: Senator Barbara Boxer Continues Unpopular

    California U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer answering a question during election 2010

    The latest PPP Poll is quite revealing.

    There’s no such post election bounce for Barbara Boxer. She continues to have more voters (47%) disapproving of her than approve (45%). That was the case throughout her entire 2010 campaign and she got reelected by double digits anyway. You can take that as a sign that the entire GOP is hopeless in California or simply that the party needs to start nominating much stronger candidates but at any rate what they’re doing now is not good enough to even hold an unpopular Senator to a single digit win.

    Obviously, the California GOP needs to rebrand itself and recruit new and younger candidates for the future. It may take quite a while though – if ever.

  • Barbara Boxer,  Carly Fiorina

    CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer Outspends Carly Fiorina in Senate Race

    fiorinaboxerb CA Sen Poll Watch: Is Carly Fiorina Beginning to SURGE in the Polls?

    Republican Nominee Carly Fiorina and California Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer

    No surprise here as Barbara Boxer had no Democrat Primary opponent, was a long-time incumbent U.S. Senator and had almost $ 8 million in the bank before her campaign began. Unfortunately, there is a lag in the FEC online reporting internet posting and I do not have a link to each of the candidates’ reports as of yet.

    But, the Los Angeles Times has a fairly good precise.

    In final campaign reports filed with the Federal Election Commission a month after Boxer’s victory, the senator reported raising just over $28 million and spending almost all of it over the course of the campaign. Fiorina raised $22.6 million and spent more than $22 million, including a $1-million personal loan to the campaign that was repaid.

    Fiorina’s tally also included more than $5.5 million that the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive gave to her campaign during the contested GOP primary. Without a primary opponent, Boxer was able to spend most of her money during the general election campaign.

    What is the most interesting fact in the reporting is that Carly Fiorina limited her personal wealth damages to around $5 Million, unlike unsuccessful California GOP Gubernatorial canddidate Meg Whitman who blew over $100 plus Million.

    Boxer’s campaign had believed that one of their biggest threats was Fiorina’s personal wealth, estimated at between $27.7 million and $121 million in reports filed with the secretary of the Senate. Boxer campaign manager Rose Kapolczynski said one of the biggest surprises of the campaign was that Fiorina “never wrote the really big check.” The $1-million loan was made during the general election, but was paid back before the end of the campaign.

    Without major personal spending by Fiorina, Boxer ended up with an advantage over her foe on television despite the more than $8.8 million in outside ads targeting Boxer that her campaign tracked.

    But, Fiorina’s failure to write the “really big check” and to pay herself back $1 Million in loans to the campaign, instead of spending the money on television ad buys will create some angst in Republican circles.

    The LA Times reports that Fiorina, who has substantial personal wealth, padded a $5.5 million loan to herself made during her contested primary with a $1 million loan made during the general election. But the second loan was “paid back before the end of the campaign.” Keep in mind: the National Republican Senatorial Committee poured money into that race in the final weeks, including a $2 million buy in the last days.

    Apparently, Fiorina had a stop limit on what she was personally going to spend on this race, regardless of the polls, etc. I mean, $ 5 plus Million personal expenditure, is enough money for most couples to comfortably live happily ever after in retirement. If anything, Carly was prudent and political blind ambition did not overcome her common sense – unlike Meg Whitman.

    But, pundits will harp that Fiorina should have spent her last dime on the race to beat Boxer – and it would not have made a damn bit of difference. Fiorina lost the race by 10 points ( a million votes) and Whitman who spent many times more on television ads lost by even more. I have discussed the reasons why previously and more television ads may have made some diffference but……probably not.

    With her well-financed treasury, Boxer’s campaign was able to spend about $14 million on television advertising during the general election phase — more than half of it in the Los Angeles media market — compared with the $4.8 million spent on ads by Fiorina’s campaign, the final reports indicated.

    Carly lost Los Angeles County by almost 700,000 votes (62.2% to 32.2%) and whether a concentrated and DIFFERENT television ad campaign would have made a difference is really speculative.

    I do think the national GOP has learned from this California November election disaster though.

    Ultimately, all those groups helped Boxer cement her 10-point margin of victory — raising questions about whether Republican groups will be as willing to pour money into another California Senate race, given that they were unable this year to take advantage of the odds in their favor .

    “I think we are starting to feel like California is an island nation,” said UC San Diego Professor Thad Kousser. “The national groups have gone back and forth on whether to spend money in California because it costs so much more…. This is yet another example of why national Republican money can simply be wasted in California — and you have wasted a lot of it.”

    It is arguable whether a few more $ Millions spent in California would have been BETTER redirected to states like Washington and Nevada where the money would have had a broader reach in smaller media markets with less population. The Washington and Nevada Senate races were certainly closer in outcome than Fiorina Vs. Boxer.

    As I have said before, I don’t think too many Republican donors are going to waste their time and money with any California statewide races anytime soon.

  • Barbara Boxer,  Carly Fiorina

    CA-Sen: How Barbara Boxer Defeated Carly Fiorina

    California U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer and Governor-Elect Jerry Brown, November 2, 2010

    One answer: Los Angeles County

    Look at the California election map:

    And, then the results from Los Angeles County.

    Republican Carly Fiorina performed well in many California counties but the almost 600,000 vote deficit in Los Angeles County spelled her doom.

    Why?

    Demographics for one, since Los Angeles city and its outlying cities have large ethnic Hispanic, Jewish, African American and Asian populations who overwhelmingly register and vote Democratic. President Obama is very popular with these communities and he was very visible in campaigning for the long term incumbent.

    Both sides said that in the end, Boxer also got a significant boost from President Obama, who came out to campaign for her and was featured in television and radio ads in the closing weeks of the campaign.

    While Obama’s approval ratings have dipped well below 50% in other parts of the country, 54% of voters in California approved of how the president is doing his job.

    “In the rest of the country it was 1994 all over again, in California it was 2008 all over again,” said UC San Diego political science professor Thad Kousser. “This is a state where the president still has some support, where it seems like the Democrats turned out in large numbers, and it wasn’t quite the same threatening electoral conditions that we’ve seen elsewhere.”

    Also, the number of union member households is especially large – and the LA unions turn out their voters to the polls.

    With the sprawling LA landscape, the campaign tool of choice is, of course, television and Barbara Boxer won on that front as well.

    They had roared into the fall campaign with a significant financial advantage — allowing them to air television ads for more than a week unchallenged by Fiorina. In mid-September, they launched the first of a series of scorching ads detailing the layoffs and outsourcing during her tenure at HP, as well as the millions of dollars in compensation she received.

    Boxer’s campaign manager, Rose Kapolczynski, said at that juncture, many voters still did not know much about Fiorina: “That was an opportunity to define her,” she said.

    Within a few weeks, polling showed that Fiorina had slumped by eight points.

    Boxer’s pollster Mark Mellman said Fiorina’s business experience initially impressed voters but “when people understood what she really did at HP, it was devastating to her.”

    “If there is a mortal sin in this economy, it is exporting jobs,” he said.

    And, Carly Fiorina never did try to defend her record at HP “on air.” This was a critical mistake and although Fiorina had written a book “Tough Choices” which defended her career and record at HP the ads featuring former laid off and outsourced employees with NO defense were devastating. These ads took the “wind” out of her campaign, especially in TV susceptible Los Angeles. Boxer’s TV and radio ads droned on and on.

    When Boxer, right after Labor Day, started to define Fiorina as a greedy, corporate executive who was insensitive to her employees, Fiorina should have fielded her own ads with “real” HP employees and with Californians whose lives were negatively affected by Barbara Boxer policies.

    But, Marty Wilson and his staff elected to go in a different direction.

    But Fiorina campaign manager Marty Wilson said the campaign decided early on to focus on defining Boxer as an ineffective and partisan incumbent who had been in office too long, to the detriment of Californians. Fiorina’s ads glossed over her corporate record to focus on her pledge to find common ground in Washington.

    “We could not win the election if we played on Barbara Boxer’s turf, which would have been to get into a big, long, lengthy discussion about why corporate CEOs have to make the decisions that they make. It was not a winning argument for us,” Wilson said. Neither, however, was the strategy they pursued.

    “At the end of the day, the simple answer is we didn’t get enough votes,” Wilson said.

    I think Marty ignored a cardinal rule of politics in this case (and I do know Marty and he and I may argue this point – by the way, they know how I feel). When someone hits you with negative ads (especially on California television), you must respond immediately or the voters just might to start to believe them. Obviously, LA County voters did.

    The inability of the campaign to respond quickly and respond in kind “on air” in Los Angeles, cost them whatever chance they had to win this race. Independent TV ad expenditures later in the campaign after Fiorina had already been defined as “out for herself” were not heard by the voters.

    It was already too late.