• Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: October 2, 2012

    Obama Says debate prep is a dragThese are my links for October 1st through October 2nd:

    • Obama calls debate prep ‘a drag’– President Obama played some hookey from his intense debate preparation early this week in Las Vegas, visiting a campaign field office in nearby Henderson and chatting with volunteers for his re-election effort.Campaign traveling press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters later that the president viewed visiting with voters and volunteers as important during his time in Nevada, a crucial swing state in Novemeber.”Obviously, as you know, he just went and took a break, and went to a local campaign office to rally and excite volunteers and our campaign staff, because at the same time, we’re focused on early vote and we’re focused on getting people out to vote as soon as they have the opportunity to,” Psaki said. “So there’s a balance we’re striking here as well while we’re in Nevada.””It’s very nice. Although basically they’re keeping me indoors all the time. It’s a drag. They’re making me do my homework,” Obama joked with volunteer Andrea Stinger.
    • Gov. Jerry Brown hands illegal immigrants less than they had hoped– This year’s legislative battle over immigration seemed to come to a draw when Gov. Jerry Brown signed one key bill but vetoed another.Immigration rights advocates, however, said Monday that the political give-and-take was largely an illusion. They lost.The bill that Brown signed, which lets some young immigrants have driver’s licenses, allows nothing beyond what is permitted under a new federal program granting a two-year reprieve from deportation.But the bill that Brown vetoed — the Trust Act — was among the most closely watched pieces of immigration legislation in the country. It would have barred local law enforcement officials from cooperating with federal authorities in detaining suspected illegal immigrants, except in the cases of serious or violent crime.

      Brown said he was open to working on the legislation further to fix its faults. But immigrant rights groups remained suspicious about his intentions, questioning why he had not raised concerns sooner.

      “Gov. Brown waited until the eleventh hour to veto the most … impactful bill that would bring tremendous relief for the immigrant community,” said Carlos Amador of Dream Team Los Angeles. “But he decided to sign a symbolic and hollow bill that doesn’t bring anything more than what we already had … to apply for a driver’s license.”

      Brown’s actions amounted to a setback for illegal immigrants, said Yale law professor Michael Wishnie.

      “I’m signing this bill that’s unnecessary … and that somehow balances out” the Trust Act? “It doesn’t add up,” Wishnie said.

    • California Proposition 37 Poll finds strong — but shaky — support for labeling genetically engineered food– An overwhelming majority of California voters favor Proposition 37, which would require new labels on genetically engineered foods, according to a poll released today. But support is likely to erode in the next month as Californians are exposed to more ads against the measure, says the study by agricultural economists at Oklahoma State University.The poll, which was paid for by a university endowment, found that 76.8 percent of California voters said they plan to vote “yes” on Proposition 37 to require more labeling of food. But almost half of those people (46 percent) switched to a “no” vote when asked if they would still support the measure if it increased food prices. Support also diminished after poll respondents were shown an ad urging they vote against Proposition 37.It’s likely Californians will see and hear a lot more ads against Proposition 37 than for it in the weeks before the Nov. 6 election. Opponents have raised $34.5 million, mostly from companies that make pesticides and genetically engineered seeds — including Monsanto, DuPont and Bayer — as well as major soda and snack food companies including Pepsi, Coke, Nestle and General Mills. Supporters have raised $4.6 million, mostly from alternative health website Mercola.com, organic food companies, and natural products such as Dr. Bronners soap.
    • Driver licenses for undocumented Californians get lukewarm response– A law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown late Sunday night qualifying hundreds of thousands of undocumented Californians for drivers’ licenses found a lukewarm response from the young immigrants it is supposed to benefit.”We’re tired of being used — as Dreamers, as immigrant youth — as a political football,” said Carlos Amador, who said the bill was symbolic and does little that is not long-standing policy at the state Department of Motor Vehicles.The bill, AB 2189, was one of the last of hundreds Brown signed before his midnight Sunday deadline and made national news within hours. It links California to a new Obama administration “deferred action” deportation relief policy granting work permits to illegal immigrants no older than 30 who came to the United States as children.The California bill makes clear that anyone approved for an Obama administration work permit can now get a state driver’s license.

      “President Obama has recognized the unique status of these students, and making them eligible to apply for driver’s licenses is an obvious next step,” said Brown spokesman Gil Duran, in a written release Monday.

      Some 400,000 Californians could be eligible for the federal work permits, but experts and activists said they probably didn’t need the new legislation to get a license.

      “They almost positively could have gotten driver’s licenses regardless,” said Angela Chan of the San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus. “In California, you
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      need a Social Security number (to get a license), and with deferred action you can get a Social Security number.”

      Many of the activists are upset that Brown appealed to immigrant and Latino communities with a passable but seemingly unnecessary license bill while simultaneously vetoing more controversial legislation, such as two bills proposed by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, that would have expanded the labor rights of domestic workers and restricted deportations of people arrested for minor crimes.

      “Good for you on the driver’s licenses,” said Ammiano, but “lip service is not what we want. We want real policy.”

    • Barack Obama’s big vulnerbility: His Policies– In pundit circles, the hot talking point of the past couple of months is that President Obama may be spared defeat because things have been bad for so long that Americans may view the country’s parlous condition as “the new normal.”This is an honest effort to make sense of polling data that are hard to reconcile with what we know about voters in the past and their attitudes toward sitting presidents during economic woes.No president has been re-elected with unemployment above 7.4 percent; the unemployment rate is now 8.1 percent. No president has been re-elected with a significant majority of Americans saying the country is on the wrong track; that number’s between three-fifths and two-thirds of all Americans. No president’s been re-elected with the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index below 90; it’s hovering around 70.
    • The truth about Obamacare in Mississippi– When the Supreme Court ruled on the Obama administration’s health care reform law a few months ago, the court upheld the right of the states to decline Medicaid expansion.States throughout the nation are now looking at the enormous and growing percentage of their budgets already consumed by Medicaid expenses, and many simply cannot fathom shouldering the additional burden of even more Medicaid spending. Mississippi is certainly among those states opposed to expanding the program.Beyond differences in philosophies on the role of government, beyond Obamacare’s superficial approach to righting the issues in America’s health care system and beyond this law’s inability to put Americans to work in jobs with decent wages and health care benefits, one fact is certain: Government programs come with a price.People tend to forget that government has no dollar that it has not gained through taxation or borrowing. Even the Obama administration cannot pay for its massive health care law without raiding funding from other programs and levying taxes against the American people. After all, the bills for these expansions will come due, and the money has to come from somewhere.

      Mississippi, too, must decide where it would get the money to pay for more and more Medicaid. Do we drain money from public safety and education? Do we tax money out of private revenues and family checking accounts? As governor, I say we reject the expansion and find a better solution.

    • Disgusting… Obama Supporters Begin Phone Call Campaign Attacking Mitt Romney’s Mormon Faith– Obama supporters are making calls attacking Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith and deceiving Christian voters on Barack Obama’s pro-abortion record.Barack Obama is the most anti-Catholic pro-abortion president in US history.
    • Obama ad says Bain investment exploited ‘sweatshop conditions’ in China – The Hill’s Video– President Obama’s campaign released a new commercial Monday challenging Mitt Romney on the issue of Chinese outsourcing, renewing attacks on the Republican nominee’s tenure at Bain Capital while extending a spat between the candidates over their records dealing with China.The new ad — which will air in New Hampshire, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada — highlights Global Tech, a Chinese company invested in by Bain Capital during Romney’s tenure there.
    • Romney Would Permit Obama Waivers for Children of Illegal Immigrants– If he is elected, Mitt Romney would allow the children of illegal immigrants who receive temporary work permits under an executive order issued by President Obama earlier this year to stay in the country, Romney told The Denver Post on Monday.”The people who have received the special visa that the president has put in place, which is a two-year visa, should expect that the visa would continue to be valid. I’m not going to take something that they’ve purchased,” Romney told the Post. “Before those visas have expired we will have the full immigration reform plan that I’ve proposed.”Obama issued a controversial executive order in June that would award work permits to children of illegal immigrants who meet certain requirements, such as graduating from a U.S. high school and obeying the law, allowing them to stay in the country temporarily.This shift in immigration policy has been criticized for bypassing Congress after lawmakers did not pass the DREAM Act, which would have provided young illegal immigrants a path to citizenship by serving in the military or going to college.

      Romney also said he would work with Congress during the first year of his presidency to pass permanent immigration reform, but didn’t offer details. He has previously supported a path to citizenship for students who serve in the military.

    • Speaker Boehner uses Rove-like strategy to hold House majority– he Speaker is limited to donating $10,000 to the state parties, so he often raises the money for the NRCC, which subsequently transmits the donations to the state parties directly. It is then up to the state party to staff, operate and run the victory centers.These centers are small storefronts in strip malls with 20 to 25 volunteers manning phone banks and a coordinator at the helm sending people out door to door with clipboards and walk lists, said a staffer familiar with the operation.The key is the metrics that can be analyzed from the phone calls volunteers make to independent or swing voters, transmitted over Voice Over Internet Protocol phones connected to the massive RNC voter file database in D.C.For example, the volunteer asks if the person will vote for such-and-such congressional candidate; whether he or she approves of the job that President Obama is doing; and if he or she will vote for GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. For each response, the volunteer hits a button on the phone to send the respective answer to the RNC.

      Once the phone banks have collected the information from their outreach calls, the Victory Centers know how to follow up with the individuals contacted.

    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-10-02 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-10-02 #tcot
    • No on California Proposition 37 Say Three Southern California – No on California Proposition 37 Say Three Southern California Newspapers #tcot
    • The Morning Flap: October 1, 2012 – Flap’s Blog – The Morning Flap: October 1, 2012 #tcot
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: July 17, 2012

    These are my links for July 16th through July 17th:

  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: May 23, 2012

    Mitt Romney campaigning in Florida – May 16, 2012

    These are my links for May 22nd through May 23rd:

    • Ten ways you know the Bain attack is bombing– Unless you’ve really drunk the Kool-Aid, you probably have the idea that the President Obama’s campaign has misfired on the Bain attack. How can you tell? Well:1. Democratic critics of the Bain attack are piling up.2. Politico, the ultimate home team paper (root for those to whom you want access), has gone pro-Romney, big time. (h/t David Freddoso)

      3. Chris Matthews is having a meltdown.

      4. The Romney team is sending around headlines with the subject: Not “The Tuesday Headlines President Obama Was Looking For…” And there are lots and lots of them.

    • Cantor says Obama’s ‘hostility’ to Bain discouraging investors– House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) suggested Wednesday that the Obama campaign’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s tenure at private-equity firm Bain Capital could be discouraging others from investing in struggling companies.”I’m thinking it’s when we were talking with the president about politics and wanting to provide an incentive for entrepreneurs and investors to put capital at risk, because that’s what’s hurting right now, we don’t have enough people with confidence to put capital at risk right now, we don’t’ have people who are willing to seek a loan from a bank and take that risk because they hear the hostility coming from the White House,” Cantor said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”
    • Biden: Tea Party stopped us from growing economy– Vice President Joe Biden admitted to a group of supporters in New Hampshire this afternoon that the President would have been able help the economy “much, more” if the Tea Party hadn’t taken the House.Biden showed the audience the Obama campaigns chart of job growth during the President’s first term in office and accused the Tea Party for stalling the recovery, because of the debt limit fight.”Imagine where we’d be if the Tea Party hadn’t taken control of the House of Representatives,” Biden said adding that they were “a group set on obstructionism.”

      “They have one overwhelming goal: prevent President Obama from a second term, with no – apparently no care of the consequences to the economy,” he said. Biden insisted that the president persevered in spite of their obstruction and demonstrated “important progress” that could be measured.

    • Colin Powell on Obama: Is the wind shifting again?– The Associated Press reports: Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is declining to renew the endorsement he gave Barack Obama four years ago, when he called Mr. Obama “a transformational figure.” … Mr. Powell told NBC’s “Today” show, “I always keep my powder dry, as they say in the military.” He credits Mr. Obama with stabilizing the financial system and “fixing the auto industry” but said he should have spent more time on the economy. … Mr. Powell, who served under President George W. Bush,also said, “I don’t want to throw my weight behind someone” at this point in the campaign.Conservative foreign-policy gurus will have a hearty guffaw over that one. To be blunt, Powell has no real weight to throw around; it’s hard to fathom that voters are hanging on his decision.
    • GOP discovers that Mitt Romney could win– Top Republicans, long privately skeptical about their presidential prospects, are coming around to a surprising new view — that Mitt Romney may well win the White House this November.Margin-of-error polling, fundraising parity last month, conservative consolidation around Romney and a still-sluggish economy has senior GOP officials increasingly bullish about a nominee many winced over during a difficult primary process.
    • The Emerging Democratic Divide– Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s off-message criticism of the Obama campaign’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s background at Bain Capital gave the campaign an untimely, unwanted headache this week. But more significantly, it exposed a tension that’s developing between the Democratic Party’s centrist wing and its more-outspoken liberal base —one that threatens to fester more openly if President Obama fails to win a second term.Conversations with liberal activists and labor officials reveal an unmistakable hostility toward the pro-business, free-trade, free-market philosophy that was in vogue during the second half of the Clinton administration. Former White House Chief of Staff William Daley, who tried to steer the Obama administration in a more centrist direction, is the subject of particular derision. Discussion of entitlement reforms, at the heart of the GOP governing agenda, is a nonstarter. The fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats are now nearly extinct on Capitol Hill.
    • How the Recovery Went Wrong– President Obama, in speech after speech, proudly makes the following point: Although we inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression, we have generated net new jobs every month, and while we need to do more, we are going in the right direction.Of course, recoveries always go in the right direction —that is, things get better over time. But merely going in the right direction is an incredibly low performance standard. Moreover, since deep recessions are generally followed by more robust recoveries, this should have been one of the strongest recoveries ever.So what went wrong? All the available Keynesian levers for achieving economic growth have been pulled, yet the recovery is one of the weakest since World War II. The problem lies with the way the “stimulus” was carried out, the uncertainty of looming higher taxes, and the antibusiness rhetoric and regulatory strong-arming of this administration.
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-23 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-23
    • First Read – NBC/WSJ poll: Obama, Romney locked in tight contest – RT @ErikaMasonhall: Full NBC/WSJ poll: Obama continues to hold a small – & slightly narrowing – lead over Romney
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: May 22, 2012 – The Morning Flap: May 22, 2012
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Michael Ramirez on Romney and Bain Vs. Obama’s Bane – Michael Ramirez on Romney and Bain Vs. Obama’s Bane
    • Facebook Among the Worst Big U.S. IPO Starts in 5 Years – Deal Journal – WSJ – RT @WSJ: Facebook is on track to be one of the worst large U.S. IPO starts in the past 5 years.
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: May 22, 2012 – The Morning Drill: May 22, 2012
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: May 22, 2012

    Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court John Roberts

    These are my links for May 21st through May 22nd:

    • Targeting John Roberts – The left tries to intimidate the High Court on ObamaCare– You can tell the Supreme Court is getting closer to its historic ObamaCare ruling because the left is making one last attempt to intimidate the Justices. The latest effort includes taunting Chief Justice John Roberts that if the Court overturns any of the law, he’ll forever be defined as a partisan “activist.”Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy recently took the extraordinary step of publicly lobbying the Chief Justice after oral argument but before its ruling. “I trust that he will be a Chief Justice for all of us and that he has a strong institutional sense of the proper role of the judicial branch,” the Democrat declared on the Senate floor. “The conservative activism of recent years has not been good for the Court.”
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Day By Day May 22, 2012 – Choice – Day By Day May 22, 2012 – Choice
    • Men Should Skip Common Prostate Test, Panel Says – WSJ.com – RT @WSJ: Influential health panel recommends against PSA prostate cancer tests for men –
    • Romney and the Right– This November, millions of conservatives will find themselves in the familiar position of holding their noses to vote for a problematic Republican presidential candidate, because the alternative is far worse.Although conservatives don’t exactly have fond memories of the candidacies of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole in 1996 and Senator John McCain in 2008, the almost certain nomination of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has its own sting.In 2010, tea-party energy swept a new generation of conviction conservatives into statehouses, governors’ mansions, and the U.S. Congress. Many on the right held out hope that the big payoff would be putting a principled conservative in the White House.
    • Timing May Be Key in Romney’s VP Announcement– t Romney deliberates on his most important pre-convention political decision, the identity of whomever he selects as a running mate isn’t the only choice he and the vetting team must make.The timing of that vice-presidential unveiling can have a major impact on the race, as the experience of his 2008 predecessor demonstrated fully.
    • Obama Thinks He’s the Fairness Czar– Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, N.J., came across as a moderate, sensible Democrat when he said on “Meet the Press” Sunday that negative political ads are “nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright.”Booker, a Barack Obama surrogate, later tried to walk back his comments. He posted a video in which he explained that he was expressing his frustration with negative campaigning when he spoke out, effectively undermining the president’s re-election narrative. (Booker also referred to the biggest non-story in politics last week, about a political consultant who recommended that a super PAC use Wright in an anti-Obama ad. That ad didn’t get made.)
    • Obama Campaign Does Damage Control After Dems Question Anti-Bain Strategy– The Obama campaign is in full damage-control mode one day after Newark Mayor Cory Booker publicly derided Democrats’ assault on presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney over his record at Bain Capital.Chief Obama strategist David Axelrod today publicly rebuked Booker, a popular and high-profile surrogate for the campaign, saying he was “just wrong.””I love Cory Booker. He’s a great mayor. If I were, if my house was on fire, I’d hope he were my next door neighbor,” Axelrod said on MSNBC, referring to Booker’s rescue of a neighbor last month.

      “I agree with what he said later. I think this was a legitimate area for discussion,” Axelrod said of Booker’s subsequent comments clarifying the issue.

      As for the criticism that the Team Obama’s Bain attack is part of “nauseating” political discourse with which Booker has become “very uncomfortable,” Axelrod said, “on this particular instance he was just wrong.”

    • ABC/WashPost Poll: Obama Still Under 50 – Among Adults – By Jim Geraghty – The Campaign Spot – National Review Online – RT @jimgeraghty: In ABC/WashPost poll, married women swung heavily towards Romney in the past month:
    • Hamid Karzai blows top over Dana Rohrabacher– Afghan President Hamid Karzai says Rep. Dana Rohrabacher will be banned from entering his country until the congressman “changes his tongue” and stops criticizing Afghanistan.“A democratically elected congressman of the United States of America should not be talking of an ethnic divide in Afghanistan, should not be interfering in Afghanistan’s internal affairs, should not be asking the Afghan people to have a federal structure as against what the Afghan constitution has asked for, should not be speaking disrespectfully about the Afghan people or the various ethnic groups in Afghanistan,” Karzai said in an interview with CNN. “If an Afghan did that from Afghanistan, how would you react to him in America?”
    • Medscape: Medscape Access – RT @Medscape: Vitamin D Supplementation and the Allergy Pandemic
    • Sarah Palin: ‘Shame’ Cory Booker backed down– Sarah Palin is applauding Cory Booker’s criticism of the Obama campaign’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital as “candid,” adding that it was a “shame” that the Democratic mayor retreated from his initial remarks that have touched off a firestorm.“It was a shame to see Cory kind of back down from what his answer was, which was so candid,” Palin told Sean Hannity of Fox News on Monday
    • Poll: Obama, Romney in Dead Heat – Steven Shepard – NationalJournal.com – RT @HotlineSteve: .@ABC/@washingtonpost poll shows Obama, Romney tied overall and on handling the economy:
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-22 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-22
    • El Monte school district moving to dismiss employees who have been on paid leave for months– After 10 months of investigation, the local high school district is winding down its inquiries into a dozen employees accused of stealing.Four of the El Monte Union High School District employees no longer work for the district, for undisclosed reasons, and the school board is still figuring out what to do about eight other employees, according to Superintendent Nick Salerno and Thomas Madruga, the district’s attorney.Most the workers in question were on the district’s maintenance/facilities staff.

      Several of the 12 employees have been on paid leave since late June or early July of last year. Officials would not reveal exactly how many.

      The school board was briefed about the workers during a closed-session portion of a May 2 board meeting, according to Madruga. And resolutions for the remaining employees could come soon, he said.

      Sources inside the district said the board rejected a proposal that would have let two of the employees come back to work, after facing a few days of unpaid leave as discipline.

      Madruga and Salerno said the charges relate to accusations of theft that were brought to the attention of the district at the end of the last school year.

      Some of the allegations were small, such as taking home the last few sheets of a roll of paper towels, according to Salerno and Madruga.

      But others involved using the district’s lines of credit to acquire personal property.

      “I mean costly equipment, major equipment,” Salerno said.

      Some of the employees were accused of using district finances to buy a motor home.

      Salerno said that district officials learned that a culture of taking things from the district had taken hold among a handful of employees in the district’s maintenance staff.

      He said as far as he knew, the practices had been going on for decades.

      “There seemed to be this small circle who accepted this stuff and thought it was OK,” he said.

    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Washington Dental Service’s CEO James Dwyer Apologizes for Calling Dentists Not Working Hard Enough – Washington Dental Service’s CEO James Dwyer Apologizes for Calling Dentists Not Working Hard Enough
    • Home – SGVTribune.com – Annual Pasadena Marathon comes off without a hitch –
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Obama’s Bain Capital Attacks on Romney Backfiring? – Obama’s Bain Capital Attacks on Romney Backfiring?
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: May 21, 2012 – The Morning Drill: May 21, 2012
    • Annual Pasadena Marathon comes off without a hitch – SGVTribune.com – RT @SGVTribune: Annual Pasadena Marathon comes off without a hitch
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: May 21, 2012 – The Morning Flap: May 21, 2012
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: May 21, 2012

    These are my links for May 18th through May 21st:

    • Romney nearly matches Obama in April money-grabbing– No reported fundraisers for President Obama during this past weekend of G-8 and NATO summits. European leaders have enough trouble passing the beret for Greece.But we did get some new fundraising numbers that reveal a newfound money momentum for Republican Mitt Romney and the grassroots strategy of the Democrat who’d like to win reelection so he could have more flexibility offering missile defense concessions to the Russians.In April, with his  party’s nomination tied up, Romney and the Republican National Committee could focus on money-raising for the general election. They increased his money haul to $40.1 million, suddenly not far behind the $43.6 million that Obama and the Democratic National Committee raised. The incumbent’s total fell about $10 million from the previous month.

      Obama campaign officials naturally chose to distract attention from the drop and emphasize instead the large number of small donors he got, more than 430,000.

      But the decline appeared to confirm rumors and anecdotal evidence that Obama’s large-sum donors were less enthusiastic this time around and holding back the checks or reducing their size. One California Democrat said bundlers, who simply stacked the free-flowing checks in 2008, were now having to convince many to give.

    • Cory Booker walks back criticism of Obama tactics as ‘nauseating’– Newark Mayor Cory Booker released a Web video Sunday emphasizing his support for President Obama and clarifying remarks he made earlier in the day where he criticized the president’s campaign tactics as “nauseating.”“I used the word ‘nauseating’ on Meet the Press because that’s really how I feel, when I see people in my city struggling with real issues,” said Booker in the video. “I get very upset when I see such a level of dialogue that calls us to our lowest common denominators and not the kind of things that can unify us as a nation and move us forward as a nation.”“I also expressed on Meet the Press my profound frustration with the kind of campaigning which I think is becoming too much of the norm in our nation, which is generally negative campaigning,” Booker continued.
      On NBC’s Meet the Press earlier on Sunday, Booker had strongly criticized an Obama campaign ad which attacked presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s tenure at private-equity firm Bain Capital.

      “This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides,” Booker said.

    • Cory Booker commits the classic Washington gaffe – n Washington, there’s an old cliche: A gaffe is when a politician is accidentally honest.
      That’s what happened to Newark (N.J.) Mayor Cory Booker during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Booker, who is widely regarded as a fast riser in Democratic politics, veered badly off message when he defended Bain Capital — the longtime employer of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney — and described the negative tone of the campaign as “nauseating”.
    • Bain Capitalism 101– Watching Obama campaign ads or MSNBC, one could easily come to the conclusion that Bain Capital makes money by destroying the companies it owns. So for voters unsure about the business that Mitt Romney founded but still reluctant to trust the financial analysis offered by community organizers, some perspective might be helpful.The basic Obama-liberal critique goes like this: Bain buys a company, loads it with debt and then sucks out cash before foisting the wounded business upon an unsuspecting buyer or a bankruptcy court. In the risk-taking world of private equity such a scenario can certainly happen, and it’s true that Bain likes management fees and dividends as much as the next partnership
    • How Another Electoral Split Decision Could Divide America – In looking ahead toward the November election, Republican strategists should take proactive steps to avoid a damaging, dangerous conclusion to the presidential race and to prevent the very real chance that Mitt Romney will win the Electoral College even while losing the popular vote badly to Barack Obama.
    • Hillary Clinton will be the 2012 veep candidate – Washington Times– Show of hands: Who here still thinks Vice President Joseph R. Biden will be on the 2012 ticket?Really? All of you? So wrong. The Great One, Sir Barack Hussein Obama, will replace the bumbling, buffoonish Mr. Biden with Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, maybe at the Democratic convention, maybe just before, in a last-ditch effort to win re-election.The wild and crazy move is all the talk outside the Beltway. One state Democratic leader even tells me the bumper stickers are already printed, sitting in a warehouse in (where else?) Little Rock, Ark. Another party bigwig says she is “99.9 percent sure” the increasingly desperate president planned the whole thing from the beginning. (“C’mon, Hill, be Secretary of State for one term and I’ll make you veep the next!”)
    • Obama Pursues Higher Tax Rates, Growth Be Damned– Over the past three years, Obama has pursued the goal of higher tax rates as relentlessly as Captain Ahab pursued the great white whale.Never mind that by some measures the United States, even with the “Bush tax cuts,” already has the most progressive tax system in advanced economies. About 40 percent of federal income tax revenues come from the top 1 percent.And we know from experience that when top rates are increased above Bill Clinton’s 39.6 percent, the intake is always less than projected. Since World War II, federal revenues have never risen much over 20 percent of gross domestic product, whether the top rate was 28 percent or 91 percent.

      The reason is that when rates get high enough, investors’ animal spirits (John Maynard Keynes’ term) are directed less at increasing productivity and creating wealth and more at avoiding taxes. And without increased productivity, you don’t get robust economic growth — which hurts everyone.

      There’s another problem. High tax rates mean a volatile revenue stream, as California Gov. Jerry Brown is finding out. When times are bad, revenues dry up just when government needs money. California’s budget deficit has zoomed from $9 billion to $16 billion in a few months.

    • Will Harvard Law School Condemn Elizabeth Warren for Pow Wow Chow Plagiarism?– Breitbart reported on Friday that two of Elizabeth Warren’s recipe contributions to the 1984 Pow Wow Chow cookbook edited by her cousin included word for word copies of a 1979 article written for the New York Times News Service by famous French cook Pierre Franey. Sunday morning, attention turned to Harvard Law School, where Ms. Warren has been employed as a professor since 1992.Plagiarism of an academic paper while employed by Harvard Law School, or while employed previously at another law school, would clearly be grounds for her dismissal under Harvard University’s code of conduct for professors. But does plagiarism of a 1984 cookbook when she was 35 years old and employed as a research associate and teacher at the University of Texas Law School constitute grounds for dismissal?
    • Obama super PAC slump continues– The pro-Barack Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action is still struggling to keep up with GOP super PACs preparing to unleash millions of dollars in independent advertisements.Priorities USA Action raised $1.6 million in April, according to federal records released late Sunday. It’s the smallest haul the group has pulled in since the meager $59,000 the group raised in January.
    • Hernandez faces two challengers for 48th District Assembly race– Two challengers are hoping for a chance to unseat incumbent Roger Hernandez, a Democrat who is running for re-election as a representative for the state’s 48th AssemblyDistrict.Hernandez previously represented the 57th District, before the 48th District was created under redistricting.Running against Hernandez is Republican Joe Gardner, a 57-year-old West Covina resident, and Covina resident Mike Meza, 60, who is running with no party affiliation.

      The 48th District,which hasa population of about 460,000, covers Duarte, Azusa, Glendora, Covina, West Covina, Baldwin Park, Irwindale, part of El Monte, and the unincorporated communities Charter Oak, Bassett and Valinda.

      The top two vote-getters in the June 5 primary election will advanceto the November election.

    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-21 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-21
    • Untitled (http://getglue.com/Fullosseousflap/stickers/amc/the_killing_sayonara_hiawatha?s=ts&ref=Fullosseousflap) – I unlocked the The Killing: Sayonara, Hiawatha sticker on @GetGlue!
    • Finished the Pasadena Half Marathon with a PR! YAY! on Twitpic – Finished the Pasadena Half Marathon with a PR! YAY!
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-20 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-20
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-19 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-19
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Is Linda Parks a Republican? – CA-26: Is Linda Parks a Republican?
    • Did Elizabeth Warren Plagiarize Her ‘Pow Wow Chow’ Recipes?– The credibility of Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren took another hit today as Boston radio talk show host Howie Carr released evidence that appears to confirm Ms. Warren may have plagiarized at least three of the five recipes she submitted to the 1984 Pow Wow Chow cookbook edited by her cousin Candy Rowsey.Two of the possibly plagiarized recipes, said in the Pow Wow Chow cookbook to have been passed down through generations of Oklahoma Native American members of the Cherokee tribe, are described in a New York Times News Service story as originating at Le Pavilion, a fabulously expensive French restaurant in Manhattan. The dishes were said to be particular favorites of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Cole Porter.The two recipes, “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat” and “Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing,” appear in an article titled “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat,” written by Pierre Franey of the New York Times News Service that was published in the August 22, 1979 edition of the Virgin Islands Daily News, a copy of which can be seen here.

      Ms. Warren’s 1984 recipe for Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing is a word-for-word copy of Mr. Franey’s 1979 recipe.

    • Youngstown News, Biden snubs are getting old– For the past several months, editors and reporters with The Vindicator have asked the campaign of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to provide us access to the two officeholders if/when they come here.Our ultimate goal was an editorial board meeting, but even a few minutes for a one-on-one interview would be something.With Biden coming to Youngstown, the requests were made again, and politely denied — as they were during the 2008 campaign.

      I was told Biden couldn’t spare three to four minutes even though he ended up staying at M7 Technologies for about 90 minutes after his speech before going to his next campaign stop.

      Consolation prize

      As a consolation prize, the campaign offered me the job of being the local pool reporter.

      I initially declined because the job’s main responsibility is to spend a lot of time covering a secondary event — in this case, Biden’s visit to the Salem Fire Department — and share all the information you obtain with other reporters.

    • California’s legislative analyst says deficit may be even higher – latimes.com – RT @LATPoliticsCA: California’s legislative analyst says deficit may be even bigger
    • Flesh-Eating Bacteria Consumed Man’s Penis After Surgery, Says Lawsuit | Fox News Latino – Really! | RT @GayPatriot: DUDE!!!! –> Flesh-Eating Bacteria Consumed Man’s Penis, Says Lawsuit
    • Jerry Brown to unveil $14-billion water project – latimes.com – Where is the money coming from? | Jerry Brown to unveil $14-billion water project #tcot #catcot
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: May 18, 2012 – The Morning Flap: May 18, 2012
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Mitt Romney Unveils First General Election Television Ad – Mitt Romney Unveils First General Election Television Ad
    • Dental Abuse Seen Driven by Private Equity Investments- Bloomberg – Dental Abuse Seen Driven by Private Equity Investments
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: January 13, 2012

    These are my links for January 12th through January 13th:

    • New Romney Ad Defends Candidate’s Record at Bain – Mitt Romney’s campaign plans to release its latest television ad in South Carolina on Friday, geared to combat the growing attacks — from both Republicans and Democrats — on Mr. Romney’s career at Bain Capital as a corporate buyout specialist.

      In the 30-second spot, a female narrator says, “This is a business Mitt Romney helped start,” as “Staples,” the office supply store giant, flashes on the screen in red letters. “And this one. And this steel mill,” the narrator continues, as “Sports Authority” and “Steel Dynamics” appear, again in red letters.

      Though Mr. Romney’s advisers said they always expected that President Obama and the Democrats would criticize his private sector record of buying and selling companies in the general election if Mr. Romney were to win the nomination, they were taken by surprise to find the attacks coming so early in the primary — and from members of his own party — and have been huddling in recent days, trying to find an effective way to respond to the assault. This television ad, titled “Bright Future,” represents one of their most potent lines of defense.

    • Correction: Romney’s Former Firm Bain Didn’t Advise Obama  – A previous story incorrectly reported that Mitt Romney’s former firm, Bain & Co., was part of a team of consulting companies that advised President Barack Obama on a decision to shutter car dealerships during the auto bailout.

      Bain & Co. said it has no connection to the “Bain Consulting” firm referenced in government documents.

    • Rick Perry defends ‘vulture capitalist’ attack on Romney – Speaking to about 30 people at a restaurant north of Columbia, Rick Perry left out his “vulture capitalist” attack on Mitt Romney’s work with Bain Capital. But in an interview with Fox News that came afterward and played on the restaurant’s big-screen TVs, he repeatedly defended his criticism.

      Perry insisted that he was not taking on all venture capitalists, but was specifically assailing Bain Capital, the firm that the former Massachusetts governor co-founded.

      “We’re trying to lure more venture capitalists into my home state every day,” the Texas governor said, “but the idea that you get private equity companies to come in and, you know, take companies apart so they can make quick profits and then people lose their jobs, I don’t think that’s what America’s looking for. I hope that’s not what the Republican Party’s about.”

      When the network’s Martha MacCallum asked Perry whether he believed this argument was working in the state that holds the next GOP presidential primary, he said: “If you go to Gaffney, S.C., or Georgetown, S.C., a couple of cities where Bain Capital did come in and destruct those companies and people lost their jobs, I will tell you it’s still a real sensitive issue in those places.”

    • What Really Happened In Gaffney? – The Left is carrying out a coordinated attack on Mitt Romney’s business career. One sees exactly the same allegations, often phrased identically, whether you look at the Daily Kos, the Associated Press, Slate or Think Progress, or listen to Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry. The centerpiece of the Left’s attack has been Bain’s involvement with two companies that merged to become Holson Burnes Group, Inc. Holson made photo albums, and Burnes made picture frames. In the late 1980s, Holson was in deep trouble because of competition from cheap imports. Bain helped to save the company, then encouraged its merger with Burnes:

      Partly because of the import problem, the Holson family sold out to Bain Capital in 1986; however, the Holson Company, which was still managed by family members, continued to have problems under the Bain umbrella. To return the organization’s competitive edge, Bain called in a series of consulting teams, including one from Price Waterhouse. Among the members of the Price Waterhouse team was Hoffmeister. Bain asked Hoffmeister to join Holson as head of the company in 1988 to effect a turnaround.

    • Yes, Romney Could Lose – I just watched the Bain documentary featured below and being broadcast throughout South Carolina by Newt Gingrich’s SuperPac in full. It’s loaded with out-of-context quotes and heavily biased; it focuses on the specific human suffering of the necessary “creative destruction” of capitalism not its general benefits to the economy. It does so through the voices and stories of ordinary Americans. And, as an emotional bludgeon, it’s devastating.

      But what makes it so dangerous to Romney, it seems to me, is that the Bain Brahmin didn’t just fire thousands of working class people in restructuring and in closing companies. He made a fucking unimaginable fortune doing it. That’s the issue. Other Republicans can speak about the need for free markets in a sluggish economy. But with Romney, we have a singular example of someone who made a quarter of a billion dollars by firing the white middle and working class in droves in ways that do not seem designed to promote growth or efficiency, but merely to enrich Bain.

    • Report: 1% of Americans paid 22% of health care costs in 2009 – Just 1% of Americans accounted for 22% of health care costs in 2009, according to a federal report released Wednesday.

      That’s about $90,000 per person, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. U.S. residents spent $1.26 trillion that year on health care.

      Five percent accounted for 50% of health care costs, about $36,000 each, the report said.

      The report’s findings can be used to predict which consumers are most likely to drive up health care costs and determine the best ways to save money, said Steven Cohen, the report’s lead author.

      While the report showed how a tiny segment of the population can drive health care spending, the findings included good news. In 1996, the top 1% of the population accounted for 28% of health care spending.

      “The actual concentration has dropped,” Cohen said. “That’s a big change.”

      About one in five health care consumers remained in the top 1% of spenders for at least two consecutive years, the report showed. They tended to be white, non-Hispanic women in poor health; the elderly; and users of publicly funded health care.

    • President 2012: Mitt Romney Responds to Bain Capital Attacks = Weak Sauce | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012: Mitt Romney Responds to Bain Capital Attacks = Weak Sauce
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-13 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-13
    • How the Australian Open Is Acing Digital Media – RT @AustralianOpen: Whoop! RT @mashable: How the Australian Open Is Acing Digital Media –
    • National GOP Leader Post-New Hampshire Is Good Bet to Win – In recent Republican presidential nomination campaigns, the results of the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary have often made Republicans nationwide re-evaluate their preferences for the nominee, with the most change occurring in 1980 and 2008. Since 1976 — the first year in the modern nominating era in which there was a competitive Republican contest — the leader after New Hampshire has ultimately won the nomination.
    • Gregory Flap Cole – Google+ – A Twinkie defense for bankruptcy probably won’t work… – A Twinkie defense for bankruptcy probably won’t work unfortunately…Hostess Bankruptcy | Gary Varv
    • Poll Watch: Conservatives Continue to Be the Largest Ideological Block of Americans | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Poll Watch: Conservatives Continue to Be the Largest Ideological Block of Americans
    • The Morning Flap: January 12, 2012 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – The Morning Flap: January 12, 2012
    • President 2012: Politico Teams Up With Facebook in New Method of Election Prediction | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012: Politico Teams Up With Facebook in New Method of Election Prediction
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: January 11, 2012

    These are my links for January 5th through January 11th:

    • Rush Loves Mitt; Hates Newt – Master-talk-master continues finger on the scale for frontrunner on Wednesday’s show.

      Praises the Bay Stater: “Romney gave what may be his best speech ever last night.”

      And/but: El Rushbo bashes Romney — GM/Obama comparison from CBS “This Morning” Wednesday interview.

      Pans Gingrich: “Newt is so ticked off over the negative ad campaign…that right now, he is solely focused on taking Romney out, making sure Romney doesn’t win this thing.”

    • Gregory Flap Cole – Google+ – Iran: What me worry?

      From Michael Ramirez…… – Iran: What me worry?

      From Michael Ramirez……Michael Ramirez Cartoon

    • Savings from ‘3 strikes’ reform may be smaller than claimed | California Watch – Savings from California ‘3 strikes’ reform may be smaller than claimed
    • Flap’s California Morning Collection: January 11, 2012 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Morning Collection: January 11, 2012
    • Will Mindful Eating Help Curb Obesity? | Smiles For A Lifetime – Temporary (Locum Tenens) Dentistry – Will Mindful Eating Help Curb Obesity?
    • Journalists’ campaign trail secrets revealed – The Washington Post – Journalists’ campaign-trail secrets revealed
    • The Bain Capital Bonfire – About the best that can be said about the Republican attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital is that President Obama is going to do the same thing eventually, so GOP primary voters might as well know what’s coming. Yet that hardly absolves Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and others for their crude and damaging caricatures of modern business and capitalism.

      Bain’s business model is little more than “rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company,” says Mr. Gingrich, whose previous insights into free enterprise include years of defending the taxpayer-fed business of corn ethanol.

      A super PAC supporting the former House Speaker plans to spend $3.4 million in TV ads in South Carolina portraying Mr. Romney as Gordon Gekko without the social conscience. The financing for these ads will come from a billionaire who made his money in the casino business, which Mr. Gingrich apparently considers morally superior to investing in companies in the hope of making a profit.

      Mr. Perry, who has no problem using taxpayer financing to back his political allies in Texas, chimes in that “I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips, whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out. Because his company Bain Capital, with all the jobs that they killed, I’m sure he was worried he’d run out of pink slips.”

    • President 2012: Conservatives Scrambling to Block Romney | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012: Conservatives Scrambling to Block Romney
    • (500) http://flapsblog.com/2012/01/11/day-by-day-janaury-11-2012-reality-show/ – Day By Day Janaury 11, 2012 – Reality Show
    • Riehl World View: Romney Has Lied, Maligned And Danced Away For Years, It’s Time He Paid For It – GOP will pay | RT @DanRiehl Romney Has Lied, Maligned And Danced Away For Years, It’s Time He Paid For It
    • (404) http://t.co/DqN – RT @jpodhoretz: Romney may win the easiest nomination victory ever–even though he’s as weak a candidate as we’ve seen: …
    • In Florida, Obama Trails Mitt By 3, Leads Rick By 2 – By Jim Geraghty – The Campaign Spot – National Review Online – Closer than you would expect RT @jimgeraghty In Florida, Obama Trails Mitt By 3, Leads Rick By 2 #tcot
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-11 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-11
    • Log In – The New York Times – Log In – The New York Times
    • Log In – The New York Times – Log In – The New York Times
    • Log In – The New York Times – As Romney Advances, Private Equity Becomes Part of the Debate
    • As Romney Advances, Private Equity Becomes Part of the Debate – A working paper released in September shows that private equity-owned companies shed slightly more jobs than similar companies, though the difference was quite small. In total, they shed about 1 percent more jobs.

      The study — by Steven J. Davis of the University of Chicago; John C. Haltiwanger of the University of Maryland; Josh Lerner of Harvard, and Ron S. Jarmin and Javier Miranda of the Census Bureau — looked at about 3,200 buyouts conducted between 1980 and 2005.

      It found that companies bought by private equity firms let go a larger proportion of workers than similar firms, shrinking their work forces about 6 percent more over a five-year window. But companies bought by private equity firms also tend to open more new branches, offices and factories and hire more new staff members, partly offsetting the job losses.

      Some economists also argue that private equity takeovers make good economic sense in the long term, even if they result in more layoffs in the short term, by making companies more efficient.

    • Gingrich’s Own Close Tie to Buyout Industry – Newt Gingrich has ramped up his attacks on Mitt Romney as a heartless leveraged buyout executive for his years at Bain Capital, asking reporters in Manchester on Monday, “Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money? Or is that, somehow, a little bit of a flawed system?”

      But Mr. Gingrich was himself on an advisory board for a major investment firm that had a similar business model, Forstmann Little, a pioneering private equity firm co-founded in 1978 by Theodore J. Forstmann that was, along with Mr. Romney’s Bain Capital and Henry R. Kravis’s Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts, among the leading private equity firms during the 1980s and 1990s.

      Forstmann Little earned billions of dollars in profits from its investments in companies including General Instrument and Gulfstream Aerospace. But the firm shut down most of its operations a decade ago after suffering losses from ill-timed bets on high-flying telecommunications companies at the height of that industry’s bubble.

      Mr. Gingrich’s involvement with the firm could complicate his attacks on Mr. Romney.

      Still, to be fair, Mr. Forstman bristled at some of the more aggressive tactics of his rivals, and once described them as “barbarians at the gate.” That phrase was used as the title of a bestselling book that detailed Mr. Forstmann’s buyout battle with Mr. Kravis for RJR Nabisco, a contest K.K.R. eventually won.

    • President 2012: Mitt Romney Wins New Hampshire But…. | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012: Mitt Romney Wins New Hampshire But….
    • Film Attacking Romney Leaked Early – Film Attacking Romney Leaked Early – 0n to South Carolina #tcot
    • (500) http://flapsblog.com/?s=Romney+and+Kennedy&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter – Romney And Kennedy | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog:

      Annotations:

    • (500) http://flapsblog.com/2012/01/10/president-2012-when-mitt-romney-came-to-town-or-will-come-crashing-down/ – President 2012: When Mitt Romney Came to Town or Will Come Crashing Down?
    • The Wait Is Over: All Time Warner Cable Customers With HBO Can Now Use HBO GO/MAX GO « Time Warner Cable Untangled – RT @jeffTWC: The Wait Is Over: All Time Warner Cable Customers Can Now Use HBO GO/MAX GO – (Please RT)
    • CA-26: Rep Elton Gallegly to Retire – Tony Strickland, Steve Bennett and Linda Parks to Run | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – CA-26: Rep Elton Gallegly to Retire – Tony Strickland, Steve Bennett and Linda Parks to Run
    • Day By Day January 10, 2012 – Horse | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Day By Day January 10, 2012 – Horse
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-10 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-10
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-09 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-09
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-08 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-08
    • foursquare :: Gregory Flap @ Harrah’s Laughlin – Eating dinner and then football or poker. What debate? (@ Harrah’s Laughlin w/ 2 others)
    • foursquare :: Gregory Flap @ Arizona State line – On the way to Nevada! (@ Arizona State line)
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-07 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-07
    • MapMyRUN – Map New Run – MapMyRUN – Map New Run:

      Annotations:

    • foursquare :: Gregory Flap @ Santa fe, NM – Leaving Santa Fe in the morning. Laughlin and poker here I come. (@ Santa fe, NM)
    • Unemployment Rate Drop Is for Real – now 8.5% – The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 8.5% in December, while a broader measure dropped even further to 15.2% from 15.6% the prior month, both at their lowest levels since February 2009.

      While the unemployment rate has been falling in part due to people leaving the labor force, a large portion of this month’s number appears to come from people finding jobs.

      The unemployment rate is calculated based on people who are without jobs, who are available to work and who have actively sought work in the prior four weeks. The “actively looking for work” definition is fairly broad, including people who contacted an employer, employment agency, job center or friends; sent out resumes or filled out applications; or answered or placed ads, among other things. The rate is calculated by dividing that number by the total number of people in the labor force.

      In December, the household survey showed the number of people employed rose by 176,000, as the population increased by 143,000 over the month. So even though the labor force — the number of people working or looking for work — fell by 50,000, job growth is outpacing the increase in the population.

    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-06 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-06
    • Brown Seeks 7% California Spending Boost- Bloomberg – Brown Seeks 7% California Spending Boost
    • Brown Seeks 7% California Spending Boost – Governor Jerry Brown proposed $92.6 billion in spending for the year starting in July, an increase of about 7 percent, which will count on voters approving $7 billion of higher taxes in November.

      The spending plan foresees a deficit of $9.2 billion through the next 18 months. Almost half of that is in the current fiscal year, he said. He called for $4.2 billion in cuts, mostly to welfare and programs for the poor. If the tax increase isn’t passed, Brown’s plan would cut another $4.8 billion in support for public schools and community colleges.

      California is Standard & Poor’s lowest-rated state, at A-, six levels below AAA. Moody’s Investment Service grades it A1, four steps below the top rating, tied with Illinois (STOIL1) for the worst credit rating among states.

    • Small Business: Doctors going broke – Doctors in America are harboring an embarrassing secret: Many of them are going broke.

      This quiet reality, which is spreading nationwide, is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists.

      Industry watchers say the trend is worrisome. Half of all doctors in the nation operate a private practice. So if a cash crunch forces the death of an independent practice, it robs a community of a vital health care resource.

      “A lot of independent practices are starting to see serious financial issues,” said Marc Lion, CEO of Lion & Company CPAs, LLC, which advises independent doctor practices about their finances.

      Doctors list shrinking insurance reimbursements, changing regulations, rising business and drug costs among the factors preventing them from keeping their practices afloat. But some experts counter that doctors’ lack of business acumen is also to blame.

    • Employers close door on smokers – More job-seekers are facing an added requirement: no smoking — at work or anytime.

      As bans on smoking sweep the USA, an increasing number of employers — primarily hospitals — are also imposing bans on smokers. They won’t hire applicants whose urine tests positive for nicotine use, whether cigarettes, smokeless tobacco or even patches.

      Such tobacco-free hiring policies, designed to promote health and reduce insurance premiums, took effect this month at the Baylor Health Care System in Texas and will apply at the Hollywood Casino in Toledo, Ohio, when it opens this year.

    • New Pentagon strategy stresses Asia, cyber, drones – President Barack Obama unveiled a defense strategy on Thursday that would expand the U.S. military presence in Asia but shrink the overall size of the force as the Pentagon seeks to reduce spending by nearly half a trillion dollars after a decade of war.

      The strategy, if carried out, would significantly reshape the world’s largest military from the one that executed President George W. Bush’s “war on terrorism” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

      Cyberwarfare and unmanned drones would continue to grow in priority, as would countering attempts by China and Iran to block U.S. power projection capabilities in areas like the South China Sea and the Strait of Hormuz.

      But the size of the U.S. Army and Marines Corps would shrink. So too might the U.S. nuclear arsenal and the U.S. military footprint in Europe.

    • Obama: the US can no longer fight the world’s battles – The mighty American military machine that has for so long secured the country’s status as the world’s only superpower will have to be drastically reduced, Barack Obama warned yesterday as he set out a radical but more modest new set of priorities for the Pentagon over the next decade.

      After the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that defined the first decade of the 21st century, Mr Obama’s blueprint for the military’s future acknowledged that America will no longer have the resources to conduct two such major operations simultaneously.

      Instead, the US military will lose up to half a million troops and will focus on countering terrorism and meeting the new challenges of an emergent Asia dominated by China. America, the President said, was “turning the page on a decade of war” and now faced “a moment of transition”. The country’s armed forces would in future be leaner but, Mr Obama pointedly warned both friends and foes, sufficient to preserve US military superiority over any rival – “agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats”.

    • Mitt Romney’s the nominee: The Republican primary race is over. – Is there anyone not annoyed by Mitt Romney’s narrow win in the Iowa caucus? Conservatives are disappointed because they recognize that the former Massachusetts governor, who used to be pro-choice and was for Obamacare before it was called that, is only pretending to be one of them. Seventy-five percent of Iowa’s Republican voters wanted someone further to the right. But because their votes were divided among too many weak and weird candidates, the only moderate running in their state came out on top.

      Liberals are bummed because Romney is the strongest potential challenger to President Obama. This shows up clearly in head-to-head polls, which put Romney tied with or slightly ahead of Obama, while other Republican contenders trail by 10 points or more. It was hard for Obama campaign officials to suppress their glee last month when Newt Gingrich, the only even remotely plausible alternative to Romney, briefly ran at the head of the pack. But even they knew this was a momentary aberration. Short of Republicans committing collective suicide by picking someone else, Democrats would like to see Romney win the nomination after a protracted, costly struggle that would deplete his financial resources, sully his image, and drag him further to the right. Today, that scenario looks less likely.

    • Richard Cordray & the Use and Abuse of Executive Power – Some think me a zealous advocate of executive power, and often I am when it comes to national security issues. But I think President Obama has exceeded his powers by making a recess appointment for Richard Cordray (whom I respect and have no problems with as a nominee) to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Any private party can challenge this nomination by refusing to obey any regulation issued by the agency as the act of an unconstitutional officer. As a result, this may be the first time that Richard Epstein and I get to represent someone in court together!
    • Day By Day January 4, 2012 – Bupkis | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Day By Day January 4, 2012 – Bupkis
    • Obama Begins 2012 at 46% Job Approval – Obama Begins 2012 at 46% Job Approval
    • Obama Begins 2012 at 46% Job Approval – Obama Begins 2012 at 46% Job Approval
    • Obama Begins 2012 at 46% Job Approval – RT @gallupnews: Obama Begins 2012 at 46% Job Approval… #Obama #Gallup
    • foursquare :: Gregory Flap @ Alburquerque, NM – On to Santa Fe (@ Alburquerque, NM)
    • (500) http://flapsblog.com/2012/01/05/flap-twitter-updates-for-2012-01-05/ – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-05
    • foursquare :: Gregory Flap @ Grants – Albuquerque here we come (@ Grants)