• Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: January 23, 2013

    Hillary Clinton

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

    • Clinton set for long-awaited Libya testimony, as senator urges ‘top-to-bottom review’ – More than four months after the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in eastern Libya, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will deliver long-awaited testimony on the historic security failure.The secretary, after missing prior sessions before Congress due to illness, is set to take lawmakers’ questions Wednesday before a House and Senate committee. As Clinton prepares to leave the department after a busy four years, the hearing is a chance to address what is arguably the biggest controversy of her tenure.
    • Rothenberg: The 2016 Presidential Race Begins Today – After recent work on congressional deals, Biden looks like a more serious contender in 2016, if he chooses to run.For many, Clinton, who started as the solid favorite for the Democratic nomination only to have Obama snatch it from her, is the prohibitive favorite for her party’s nomination if she wants it. At this point, we just don’t know if she will want it. Maybe the former first lady doesn’t even know yet.

      Biden, who will turn 71 toward the end of this year, was mocked often during Obama’s first term, but the former Delaware senator’s role in negotiating a deal to avert the fiscal cliff and his lead role in trying to come up with gun legislation that could be both effective and enacted suddenly makes him look like a more serious contender in 2016, if he chooses to run.

      After Clinton and Biden, the list becomes more speculative. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley are seen as ambitious and interested. Former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer probably should be on the list as well.

    • Health Insurance Brokers Prepare Clients For Obamacare Sticker Shock – A California insurance broker, who sells health plans to individuals and small businesses, told me that she’s prepping her clients for a sticker shock. Her local carriers are hinting to her that premiums may triple this fall, when the plans unveil how they’ll billet the full brunt of Obamacare’s new regulations and mandates.California is hardly alone. Around the country, insurers are fixing to raise rates by double digits. They’re privately briefing politicians in Washington on what’s in store. Those briefings are leaving a lot of folks up and down Pennsylvania Avenue jumpy.

      What’s gives? President Obama, after all, said he’d prevent these sorts of prices. His new health law gave state regulators the power to block premium increases. It even created a federal agency to oversee insurance rates. But these bureaucrats are spectators to the price hikes. They’re mere wallflowers. Even in the bluest of states.

      Their silence is the best evidence of who is culpable for the increases. It’s the policymakers. It’s Obamacare. The President is accepting the premium hikes as an allowable consequence of his healthcare policies.

    • Behind the Curtain: Joe Biden ‘intoxicated’ by 2016 run – Joe Biden summoned more than 200 Democratic insiders to the vice presidential residence Sunday night to chat about the 2012 triumph — but many walked away convinced his rising 2016 ambitions were the real intent of the long, intimate night.“I took a look at who was there,” said longtime New Hampshire state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, “and said to myself, ‘There’s no question he’s thinking about the future.’ ”

      He’s right. Biden, according to a number of advisers and Democrats who have spoken to him in recent months, wants to run, or at least be well positioned to run, if and when he decides to pull the trigger.

      Biden has expressed a clear sense of urgency, convinced the Democratic field will be defined quickly — and that it might very well come down to a private chat with Hillary Clinton about who should finish what Barack Obama started.

    • Clinton to face Congress on Libya assault – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton faces tough questions in her long-awaited congressional testimony concerning the assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.Clinton is the sole witness Wednesday at back-to-back hearings before the Senate and House foreign policy panels on the September raid, an independent panel’s review that harshly criticized the State Department and the steps the Obama administration is taking to beef up security at U.S. facilities worldwide.

      Clinton had been scheduled to testify before Congress last month, but an illness, a concussion and a blood clot near her brain forced her to postpone her appearance.

    • Red-State Democrats’ Re-Election Playbook – President Obama won’t have to face voters again, but a handful of Democratic senators from conservative states will, and the president’s agenda, newly stamped with a liberal imprimatur at the inauguration, could prove tricky for them to navigate.How they go about doing that will require distancing themselves from the national Democratic Party and keeping their political antennae attuned to possible stumbling blocks in the Senate–what Democratic strategist Jim Manley calls a “yin and a yang equation.”

      “The yin is differentiation; the yang is also trying to avoid the minefield that the Republicans are going to lay for you on the floor of the Senate,” he said.

    • Flap’s Blog @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2013-01-22 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s Blog @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2013-01-22 #tcot
    • My Daily Twitter Digest for 2013-01-22 – Locum Tenens (Temporary) Dentist – Gregory Cole, D.D.S. – My Daily Twitter Digest for 2013-01-22
    • The Mickelson Vote – Lefty offends the lefties – California golfer Phil “Lefty” Mickelson says he will no longer publicly criticize the government for taking most of his paycheck. That’s a shame. But even if it’s now socially unacceptable for high achievers to suggest they should keep the fruits of their labor, that doesn’t mean they will keep supplying that labor.After a brilliant round Sunday at a tournament in La Quinta, California, Mr. Mickelson hinted that new tax burdens might drive him out of the state, out of professional golf, and perhaps even out of the country. “There are going to be some drastic changes for me because I happen to be in that zone that has been targeted both federally and by the state, and it doesn’t work for me right now,” he said. “So I’m going to have to make some changes.”
    • Harry Reid Threatens GOP with Nuclear Option On Senate Filibuster – Harry Reid Threatens GOP with Nuclear Option On Senate Filibuster Rules #tcot
    • Hillary Clinton 2008 campaign now debt-free – More than four years after Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic nomination for president, Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign is finally debt-free, new reports filed by the campaign show.Clinton’s campaign committee paid off about $25 million in debt and now has a surplus of $204,832. The campaign retired its debt just as Clinton is preparing to step down from her job as secretary of state. Clinton supporters are pushing her to run for the presidency again in 2016.
    • Phil Mickelson, taxes, and the Laffer curve | AEIdeas – RT @JimPethokoukis: ICYMI: Phil Mickelson, taxes, and the Laffer curve
    • Tiger Woods Says High Tax Rates Made Him Leave California – During a press conference Tuesday, golf legend Tiger Woods said he moved to Florida in 1996 because of California’s high tax rates. The comments came after fellow golfer Phil Mickelson hinted Sunday that he might leave the Golden State — or perhaps even move out of the U.S. completely — because of income tax increases.“I moved out of here back in ’96 for that reason,” Woods told reporters at the Torrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla, Calif.
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: Dentist Robert Garelick Charged with Drunk Drilling – Dentist Robert Garelick Charged with Drunk Drilling
    • Medscape: Medscape Access – Big Xylitol Trial Finds Scant Benefits in Adult Caries #tcot
    • Video: Work Out With Your Pet? – Locum Tenens (Temporary) Dentist – Video: Work Out With Your Pet?
    • Glendale City Council To Consider Gun Show Ban « CBS Los Angeles – Glendale City Council To Consider Gun Show Ban
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Daily Extraction: January 22, 2013 – The Daily Extraction: January 22, 2013
    • Honda v. Khanna: Could Silicon Valley be ground zero for 2014 House Asian-American battle royale? | Politics Blog | an SFGate.com blog – Honda v. Khanna: Could Silicon Valley be ground zero for 2014 House Asian-American battle royale?
    • Sandy Koufax to advise Los Angeles Dodgers, be at spring training – ESPN Los Angeles – Excellent! RT @ESPNlosangeles: Koufax to advise Dodgers, be at spring training
    • Ryan: Obama ‘Shadowboxing a Straw Man’ – Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan knocked President Barack Obama for “shadowbox[ing] a straw man” in his inaugural address. Speaking Tuesday morning on the Laura Ingraham Radio Show to guest host Raymond Arroyo, Ryan responded to Obama’s statement that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security “do not make us a nation of takers, they free us to take the risks that make this country great.”Ryan called Obama’s insinuation that he and other reform-minded Republicans consider recipients of these benefits “takers” a “switcheroo.”

      “It’s kind of a convenient twist of terms to try and shadowbox a straw man to try to win an argument by default,” Ryan said.

      “No one is suggesting that what we call our ‘earned entitlements’, entitlements you pay for, you know, like payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security, are putting you in a ‘taker’ category,” Ryan continued. “The concern that people like me have been raising is we do not want to encourage a dependency culture. This is why we called for welfare reform. This is welfare reform in 1996 was. This was what the new rounds for welfare reform we’re calling for do, which is to increase social mobility, economic opportunity, self-responsibility, those sort of things.”

      “I understand the president will continue to use straw man arguments, affix views to your political adversaries they do not have in order to try and win an argument by default,” Ryan added.

    • Nebraska governor Dave Heineman OKs Keystone XL route through state – Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman has approved a revised route for the Keystone XL pipeline, one that supporters say will avoid the most ecologically sensitive regions of his state.The action is part of a chain of events that will lead to an eventual decision by President Barack Obama, which has emerged as a crucial test of the president’s pledges to tackle climate change versus his embrace of “all of the above” energy. Heineman sent a letter Tuesday to Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noting his approval of the new route.
    • Reid to Senate Republicans: Filibuster deal in 36 hours or face nuclear option – The Hill’s On The Money – RT @thehill: Administration ‘not opposed’ to GOP debt limit bill
    • Day By Day January 22, 2013 – Link This – Flap’s Blog – Day By Day January 22, 2013 – Link This #tcot
    • Republicans aim to suspend debt limit until May – @ThePlumLineGS The first olive branch form the House:
    • Did Beyoncé Lip-Sync the Star-Spangled Banner? | Inauguration 2013 | Washingtonian – RT @MelissaTweets: <eyeroll> RT @DRUDGE_REPORT: Did Beyoncé Lip-Sync the Star-Spangled Banner?
    • Home – ContraCostaTimes.com – California engineers question high-speed rail oversight – #tcot
    • President Obama dodges ‘hard choices’ on entitlements – President Barack Obama insisted four years ago that the nation must make “hard decisions” to preserve entitlement programs.But on Monday, the “hard choices” he spoke of on health care and the deficit came with a major caveat: He’s not willing to give up much.

      “The commitments we make to each other — through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security — these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us,” Obama told the cheering crowd as he launched his second term. “They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.

      His inaugural address promised an ambitious progressive agenda — and laid bare Obama’s deeply conflicted relationship with entitlement reform.

      He’s done just enough to earn credit for trying harder than any other Democratic president to tackle the issue, but he has yet to throw the full weight of his office or his formidable campaign operation behind it. His best chance will come early in his second term as lawmakers confront a series of budget battles, but Obama appears more ready to spend his political capital on guns, immigration and climate change.

      The president has never precisely defined what hard choices he would be willing to make on Medicare and Social Security. It’s not even clear what he would do if he had the power to remake the programs on his own, without worrying about opposition from Republicans or Democrats.

      And though Obama has talked about shared sacrifice from both parties, he has not gotten to the point in deficit negotiations at which he’s had to pressure rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers to cross their red line on the sacred issues, as House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) did with his own party in raising taxes.

      Unless Obama seizes the opportunity in the next few months, entitlement reform will hang over his second term, lurking like a legacy-killer if he hands off the task to the next president, deficit hawks warn.

    • The California Flap: January 22, 2013 – Flap’s California Blog – The California Flap: January 22, 2013
    • CalPERS nears a record $260 billion in assets – latimes.com – CalPERS nears a record $260 billion in assets
    • California engineers question high-speed rail oversight – ContraCostaTimes.com – California engineers question high-speed rail oversight
    • Tobacco tax hike eyed for 2014 state ballot | news10.net – Tobacco tax hike eyed for 2014 state ballot
    • The Morning Flap: January 22, 2013 – Flap’s Blog – The Morning Flap: January 22, 2013 #tcot
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: January 2, 2013

    Drudge screencap Obama laughing over fiscal cliff deal

    These are my links for December 29th through January 2nd:

  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: October 15, 2012

    The Man Who Fell to Earth

    The Man Who Fell to Earth

    These are my links for October 11th through October 15th:

    • The Unraveling of Affirmative Action– For more than 40 years, the debate over affirmative action in admissions has focused on whether it amounts to unfair and unconstitutional reverse discrimination against whites (and now Asians). The implicit premise for most people on both sides has been that racial preferences bring only benefits and no costs, apart from the possible stigma of being deemed “affirmative-action admits,” to their black and Hispanic recipients. This premise was enough to make the two of us uncritical supporters of racial preferences until we began to examine the underlying facts.Key to nurturing the myth that racial preferences can only help their recipients has been a strong norm among college administrators to play down both the size of preferences they use and the difficulties these students encounter down the road. This concealment has had the unfortunate effect of misleading students and shielding preference policies from close scrutiny.
    • Elizabeth Warren obtained federal fee waivers despite high 6-figure income and 8-figure net worth– Elizabeth Warren has built her progressive rock star image and her campaign by attacking the wealthy factory owners and others who supposedly do not pay their “fair share” and take advantage of loopholes to live off of infrastructure paid for by others.Yet Warren appears to be one of those people who takes advantage.Warren falsely and without any legitimate legal basis claimed to be Cherokee for employment purposes. Warren also chintzed by failing to register for the Massachusetts Bar despite an active practice of law in Cambridge since the mid-1990s, thereby evading Bar registration dues. Howie Carr has a great column today about Warren’s class warfare phoniness.

      Add another example to the long list: Warren obtained fee waivers from at least 50 federal bankruptcy courts so she would not have to pay for access to the federal PACER system, even in years when she had a high 6-figure income and an 8-figure net worth.

    • PPP caught doing advocacy polling on race– PPP, a Democratic polling outfit, has long been viewed by suspicion by not only conservatives but by independent, credible pollsters. Now there is all the more reason to discount its “polling” as shoddy partisanship.I spoke by phone today with Wisconsin voter Dave Summers, who lives in the Madison area. He told me, “I got a survey. I don’t normally answer these calls, but I did [this time]. I started out pretty normal — President, Senate.” However, he said it then got weirder. The automatic survey asked if he had a favorable or unfavorable impression of Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. He said he was greatly disturbed when the automated call then asked, “Do you believe conservative media want white people to think Barack Obama hates them?” He said, “That bugged me.”I called Tom Jensen of PPP. He said that it was his poll. I asked whether this wasn’t a classic advocacy poll designed to get a specific answer. He demurred, “Well, we were asking a series of questions about conservative media.” He said that this call followed the posting on Drudge of the 2007 video in which then-Sen. Barack Obama (D- Ill.) talks about Hurricane Katrina and denying aid to residents. He claimed that since conservative media were trying to make an issue of this (in fact most conservative outlets downplayed or ignored the issue), it was important to see whether that effort (to poison the thinking of white voters, I suppose) was “successful.”

      The questions on conservative media and on white people were asked at the very end of the poll.

    • The 3 states that may decide the election– With less than a month until Election Day, the primary battlefields for the presidential campaign can be found in just three states: Ohio, Florida and Virginia.In these big three, home to a combined 60 electoral votes, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are spending both the most money and the most time. Over the past two weeks, the candidates and their allies have aired the most TV ads in Ohio, Florida and Virginia, in that order. And over the same period, Obama and Romney have held more than three times as many campaign events in the Big Three than they have in the other six swing states combined.
    • In second debate, Obama faces challenges on key issues– Losing ground to Republican Mitt Romney on a host of issues, President Barack Obama faces a serious challenge to put his re-election bid back on track when the two men face off on Tuesday in their second debate.Obama’s passive performance in their first debate two weeks ago and Romney’s subsequent surge have raised expectations for a more fiery encounter at New York’s Hofstra University.The Democratic president’s team has been encouraged by the feisty performance of Vice President Joe Biden last week in his debate against Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan.

      Now, with Romney having virtually erased Obama’s lead in national polls just three weeks before the November 6 election, Obama is hoping to take advantage of the town hall-style format in Tuesday’s debate to make a direct pitch to voters

    • Axelrod Refuses to Say Whether Obama Met with Nat’l Security Team Before Heading to Las Vegas– After David Axelrod’s repeated assurances this morning on Fox News Sunday that “there isn’t anybody on this planet” who feels a greater sense of responsibility for our diplomats than this President, Chris Wallace asked how soon after the Benghazi attacks the President actually met with his national security team.Wallace followed up on Axelrod’s non-answer by asking whether the President managed to squeeze in a meeting with the National Security Council before jetting off to Las Vegas for a campaign rally. Given Axelrod’s inability to produce a straightforward answer to the questions, it’s pretty clear the answer is “no.”Amusing in this exchange is Axelrod’s contention that “anybody” would have said what the administration and Ambassador Rice said after the attack.
    • Axelrod bobs and weaves over Obama’s level of engagement the day of the Benghazi attack – Today on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace pressed David Axelrod on the question of how soon, and in what ways, President Obama tried to get to the bottom of the nature of the attack in Benghazi. As a predicate for the question, Wallace pointed out that on the day of the attack, the State Department and the intelligence community were presenting conflicting views about whether the attack was spontaneous or planned. An engaged president would immediately have tried to sort this matter out so he would know what the U.S. was dealing with.
    • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Digest for 2012-10-14 – Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Digest for 2012-10-14
    • Flap’s Blog @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2012-10-14 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s Blog @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2012-10-14 #tcot
    • My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-10-14 – Locum Tenens (Temporary) Dentist – Gregory Cole, D.D.S. – My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-10-14
    • GetGlue – Your app for TV, Movies, and Sports – I unlocked the FOX MLB: Giants vs. Cardinals sticker on #GetGlue!
    • GetGlue – Your app for TV, Movies, and Sports – Go Cards.. #GetGlue #MajorLeagueBaseballOnFOX
    • NRCC Launches More Than $6 Million Worth of Ads | At the Races – RT @rollcall: NRCC launches $6M worth of TV ads in more than a dozen race, via @jm_dc
    • GetGlue – Your app for TV, Movies, and Sports – I unlocked the Hollywood Extra sticker on #GetGlue! @intel
    • GetGlue – Your app for TV, Movies, and Sports – Brody becomes the terrorist errand boy… #GetGlue @SHO_homeland
    • Wisdom Teeth Turf War Erupts in Utah – Flap’s Blog – Wisdom Teeth Turf War Erupts in Utah #tcot
    • Destinations / The space shuttle Endeavour moves north on Bill Robertson Lane in front of the Coliseum in Los Angeles Sunday, Oct. 14, 2012. In thousands of Earth orbits, the space shuttle Endeavour traveled 123 million miles. But the last few miles of it – The space shuttle Endeavour moves north on Bill Robertson Lane in front of the Coliseum in LA Sunday. via @pinterest
    • Dilbert for October 14, 2012 – Scoot Over – Flap’s California Blog – Dilbert for October 14, 2012 – Scoot Over
    • GetGlue – Your app for TV, Movies, and Sports – Enjoying the Sunday NFL action… #GetGlue #NFLRedZone
    • Many Dentists Violating Child Abuse Reporting Laws? – Flap’s Blog – Many Dentists Violating Child Abuse Reporting Laws? #tcot
    • Sprint reportedly agrees to sell 70 percent stake to Softbank– Sprint Nextel has reportedly reached an agreement to sell 70 percent of the wireless carrier to Japanese mobile carrier Softbank for $20 billion.Both companies’ respective boards have approved the deal, which is expected to be announced tomorrow, sources tell CNBC. Under the deal, Softbank will buy $8 billion in stock directly from Sprint, with another $12 billion purchased from existing stockholders.The tender offer’s price per share is reportedly $7.30, a 27 percent premium over the carrier’s closing stock price Friday of $5.73.

      CNET has contacted Sprint for comment and will update this report when we lean more.

      Sprint had previously confirmed that it was in discussions with Softbank regarding a “substantial investment ” by the Japanese mobile carrier.

    • Humor / Alice is mocking you….. – Today’s Dilbert:Alice is mocking you….. via @pinterest
    • ObamaCare is bad for small business– By January 2014, the states and the District must either establish their own health insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), combine with other states to form a regional exchange or have the federal government set up an exchange for them.The District has opted for the first option, and this month it moved ahead with a model unlike anything pursued by any state in the nation, with the exception of Vermont: On Oct. 3, the D.C. Health Exchange Authority’s executive board unanimously approved a plan that would abolish the marketplace as we know it for firms with 50 employees or fewer and force them to obtain health insurance for their workers from the government-run exchange. Companies and associations with 100 employees or fewer would have to do so by 2016.If virtually everyone else is choosing a more cautious approach, I am compelled to ask: Is the District so much smarter than everyone else?
    • Election May Well Come Down to Colorado– Exactly 270 electoral votes are needed to win the presidency. And that win may well come down to Colorado — specifically, Jefferson and Arapahoe counties.Both are at the center of the 7th Congressional District race between incumbent Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat, and challenger Joe Coors, a Republican.If businessman Coors has a good night on Nov. 6, so will Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, likely not only in Colorado but nationwide.
    • Live Broadcast | Red Bull Stratos – RT @NASA Congratulations to Felix Baumgartner and @RedBullStratos on a record-breaking leap from the edge of space!
    • News from The Associated Press – RT @AP #Skydiver Felix #Baumgartner lands safely after 24-mile leap to Earth in bid to break sound barrier: -MM
    • Untitled (http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/oct/14/longtime-gop-senate-moderate-arlen-specter-dies/) – R. I. P. RT @vcstar Longtime GOP Senate moderate Arlen Specter dies
    • @ Flap Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-10-12 – Flap’s California Blog – @ Flap Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-10-12
    • @ Flap Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-10-13 – Flap’s California Blog – @ Flap Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-10-13
    • @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2012-10-13 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2012-10-13 #tcot
    • Day By Day October 13, 2012 – Liar, Liar – Flap’s Blog – Day By Day October 13, 2012 – Liar, Liar #tcot
    • My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-10-13 – Locum Tenens (Temporary) Dentist – Gregory Cole, D.D.S. – My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-10-13
    • My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-10-12 – Locum Tenens (Temporary) Dentist – Gregory Cole, D.D.S. – My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-10-12
    • @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2012-10-12 to 2012-10-12 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2012-10-12 to 2012-10-12 #tcot
    • @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2012-10-11 to 2012-10-11 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2012-10-11 to 2012-10-11 #tcot
    • Why Dems Loved Biden’s Boorish Behavior– The morning after the vice presidential debate, Democrats are delighted. Vice President Joe Biden’s obnoxious display was exactly what was needed to cheer them up after a week of morose speculation about why President Obama was so passive and uninspired at last week’s first presidential debate with Mitt Romney. Indeed, the more Biden giggled, smirked and interrupted Paul Ryan, the better they liked it. While his condescending and bullying behavior contradicted liberal doctrine about conservatives being the ones guilty of polluting the public square with political incivility, it embodied their complete contempt for both Republicans and their ideas. Biden’s nastiness may have re-invigorated a Democratic base that wanted nothing so much as to tell their opponents to shut up, even if it may have also alienated a great many independents. But with the main focus of the election still on the remaining two presidential debates, it’s not clear that President Obama can profit from Biden’s example.The reason for this is not very complicated. The Democrats cheering on Biden’s bullying, while ignoring the fact that he had nothing to offer on the future of entitlements and his disgraceful alibis about Libya, did so because at bottom they really do not feel Republicans or conservatives are worthy of respect or decency. Though they rarely own up to it, they don’t think Republicans are so much wrong as they are bad. By contrast, most Republicans think Democrats are wrong, not evil. Ryan, whose polite behavior was entirely proper but was made to appear passive and even weak when compared to his bloviating opponent, demonstrated this paradigm by patiently trying to explain his positions even when he was constantly interrupted.
    • Political Cartoons / What is so funny, “Slow” Joe Plagiarizing Biden? – What is so funny, “Slow” Joe Plagiarizing Biden? via @pinterest
    • Day By Day October 12, 2012 – Joker – Flap’s Blog – Day By Day October 12, 2012 – Joker #tcot
    • White House defends Biden on Libya– The White House is defending Vice President Biden over his debate statement that “we weren’t told” about requests for more security at a U.S. Consulate in Libya before the Sept. 11 attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others.White House press secretary Jay Carney said Biden was referring to President Obama, the White House and himself, as opposed to the State Department and other parts of the government.Biden “was speaking directly for himself and the president,” Carney said. “He meant the White House.”
    • Poll: Romney Opens 7-Point Lead in Florida– Mitt Romney’s 7-point lead in the TBT/Herald/Mason-Dixon poll is the latest sign of a Florida surge:The survey conducted this week found 51 percent of likely Florida voters supporting Romney, 44 percent backing Obama and 4 percent undecided. That’s a major shift from a month ago when the same poll showed Obama leading 48 percent to 47 percent — and a direct result of what Obama himself called a “bad night” at the first debate.The debate prompted 5 percent of previously undecided voters and 2 percent of Obama backers to move to Romney. Another 2 percent of Obama supporters said they are now undecided because of the debate.
    • Biden’s Benghazi Gaffe Makes Admin Scramble to Duck Responsibility – Was there an embarrassing gaffe in Thursday night’s debate? Vice President Biden gave a bungled and misleading answer about the situation in Benghazi in which he stated that “we” did not know security requests had been made. Biden’s statement is being artfully spun this morning in a way that rescues the vice president from himself at the expense of the State Department and, quite possibly, the truth.
    • Introducing the 2012 Cook Political Report Partisan Voter Index – RT @philipaklein: Here’s a link to the Cook Report’s new partisan voting index of all the congressional districts
    • Romney takes seven-point lead in new Florida poll – RT @cmarinucci: RT @FixAaron: Romney takes seven-point lead in new Florida poll – The Fix
    • Capitol Alert: Molly Munger says Jerry Brown using ‘impostor strategy’ to win votes – Molly Munger Vs. Jerry Brown – says Governor using an “impostor strategy” #tcot #catcot
    • Twitter / dannysullivan: Bored in the dentist’s chair … – Better bored than…RT @dannysullivan: Bored in the dentist’s chair 🙂
    • Montana poll shows Montana senate race a remains tight; Fox leads in attorney general’s race – Montana Sen: Denny Rehberg (R) 43% Vs. Sen. Jon Tester (D) 40% #tcot
    • Poll Watch: California Proposition 37 in Free Fall – Flap’s Blog – Poll Watch: California Proposition 37 in Free Fall #tcot
    • Pre-Debate Poll Watch: Ryan and Biden Both With Lackluster Favorability – Pre-Debate Poll Watch: Ryan and Biden Both With Lackluster Favorability #tcot
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: October 11, 2012

    VP Biden Rope A Dope

    These are my links for October 9th through October 11th:

    • Biden: ‘You Ever See Me Rope-a-Dope?’– Joe Biden, on his way to tonight’s vice presidential debate in Kentucky, asks the press, “You ever see me rope-a-dope?”From the pool report:Vice President Biden arrived at about 10:50 a.m. at New Castle Airport. He climbed out of a gray SUV, greeted some military (see below) and then walked toward the press gathered near the wing.Asked about tonight’s debate he said, “Looking forward to it.”

      Asked about his strategy, whether it was rope-a-dope, he responded:
      “You ever see me rope-a-dope?”

      A bunch of Bidens are joining the VP, including: sons Hunter and Beau, daughter Ashley, sister Valerie. Debate partner Rep. Chris Van Hollen and former Sen. Ted Kaufman are on board, as is Shaleigh Murray, who played moderator Martha Raddatz in debate practice.

    • GOP Turnout Effort Tests Obama Campaign’s Prowess– Republicans are narrowing Democrats’ organizational advantage in critical swing states, but the latter say they are on track to improve upon President Obama’s 2008 early-vote count.Now that the election has moved full-throttle into get-out-the-vote mode, both campaigns are tracking the daily tabulation of absentee ballots requested in key battlegrounds along with the number of early votes already cast. In half of the most critical swing states — Colorado, Florida and North Carolina — Republicans have requested more absentee ballots than have their counterparts. And in Nevada, the two sides are nearly even.
    • ObamaCare: Health Care Direction Awaits Verdict of Presidential Race– Joyce Beck, who runs a small hospital and network of medical clinics in rural Nebraska, is reluctant to plan for the future until voters decide between President Obama and Mitt Romney. The candidates’ sharply divergent proposals for Medicare, Medicaid and coverage of the uninsured have created too much uncertainty, she explained.“We are all on hold, waiting to see what the election brings,” said Ms. Beck, chief executive of Thayer County Health Services in Hebron, Neb.When Americans go to the polls next month, they will cast a vote not just for president but for one of two profoundly different visions for the future of the country’s health care system. With an Obama victory on Nov. 6, the president’s signature health care law — including the contentious requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance or pay a tax penalty — will almost certainly come into full force, becoming the largest expansion of the safety net since President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through his Great Society programs almost half a century ago.If Mr. Romney wins and Republicans capture the Senate, much of the law could be repealed — or its financing cut back — and the president’s goal of achieving near-universal coverage could take a back seat to Mr. Romney’s top priority, controlling medical costs.

      Given the starkness of the choice, historians and policy makers believe this election could be the most significant referendum on a piece of social legislation since 1936, when the Republican Alf M. Landon ran against Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal programs. (Nearly eight decades have passed, but the debate sounds strikingly familiar: Landon described the Social Security Act, passed in 1935, as “the largest tax bill in history” and called for its repeal.)

    • California gas prices are a warning– California’s record gasoline prices and long service station lines are a warning to all of us about what green energy can do to our pocketbooks.On Monday, California gasoline cost $4.67 per gallon, compared with the $3.81 U.S. average. California’s environmental standards are the most stringent in the country, and Californians are paying the price.The price spike started with an August fire in Chevron’s Richmond refinery. Then, two other refineries, operated by Tesoro and Exxon Mobil, went down for maintenance. Because California requires different blends of gasoline from other states, and pipelines across the Rockies are limited, gasoline can’t be shipped in from elsewhere.On Sunday, in an attempt to lower gasoline prices, Gov. Jerry Brown suspended the environmental regulations that kept California prices above those in the rest of the United States.
    • Hating Breitbart – The Documentary in Select Theaters Soon – Hating Breitbart – The Documentary in Select Theaters Soon #tcot
    • Rove: The Dividends of Romney’s Debate Victory– How big an impact did Mitt Romney’s performance in last week’s debate have? Huge. Mr. Romney not only won the night, he changed the arc of the election—and perhaps its outcome. Surveys have him leading the RealClearPolitics average of polls for the first time since securing the GOP nomination in mid-April.Prior to Oct. 3, Mr. Romney trailed President Barack Obama by an average of 3.1 points in national polls tallied by RealClearPolitics. Since the debate, Mr. Romney now leads Mr. Obama in the RCP average by a point, 48.2% to 47.2%, and the bounce is likely to grow. By comparison, Sen. John Kerry was widely seen to have bested President George W. Bush in the first 2004 debate (held on Sept. 30 of that year), but he never led in the RCP average in October.In seven of the past nine presidential debate series, the challenger has gained more in the polls than the incumbent (or the candidate of the party in power). The first debate generally frames the series and establishes whether the bounce will be large or modest. Mr. Romney’s bounce is significant.
    • Greek Unemployment Rises Above 25 per cent– The unemployment rate in Greece rose to 25.1 percent in July, from 24.8 percent the month before, as the financial crisis continued to destroy jobs.Greece’s statistical authority says in a statement Thursday that 1.26 million Greeks were jobless in July, with more than 1,000 jobs lost every day over the past year.In the worst-affected 15-24 age group, unemployment was 54.2 percent.In July 2008, a year before Greece’s acute financial crisis broke, there were only about 364,000 registered unemployed.

      Greece is surviving on international bailout loans, granted on condition of harsh austerity measures to curtail the country’s large budget deficits. The economy is set to enter a sixth year of recession in 2013.

    • CBS 5 Poll: Romney Gains 8 Points On Faltering Obama In California– The effects of President Barack Obama’s falter in the first debate with Mitt Romney are not just being felt in battleground states, according to KPIX-TV CBS 5?s latest tracking poll of California which shows Romney slicing eight points off Obama’s lead.Obama had led by 22 points in the CBS 5 tracking poll released four weeks ago. Obama now leads by only 14 points, an 8-point improvement for Romney. At the same time, the poll found U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s support for her re-election bid remained largely unchanged, month-on-month, suggesting that the erosion in Democratic support is not across-the-board, but contained to Obama. Unclear is whether the Obama erosion is fleeting or long-lasting.
    • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-10-11 – Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-10-11
    • Poll: Most troubled by Libya claim – Kevin Robillard – POLITICO.com – RT @politico Poll: 46 percent of voters disapprove of how Obama is handling Libya: #tcot
    • AP IMPACT: Cartels flood US with cheap meth – Another Obama failure RT @AP Mexican meth pours into US cities, negates effort to curb US drug production: #tcot
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-10-11 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-10-11 #tcot
    • “The Lid”: UPDATE: Video of Lara Logan’s Obama is Lying Speech – RT @yidwithlid: @ali Video of Lara Logan’s Obama is Lying to Us About the Middle East Speech
    • Good Oral Hygiene Prevents Tooth Loss | Josie Dovidio, DDS – RT @SimiDentist: Learn how to keep your teeth into your golden years.
    • Vice President Debate Moderator Martha Raddatz Has Ties to Obama – Vice President Debate Moderator Martha Raddatz Has Ties to Obama #tcot
    • Video: The Obama White House Disinformation Campaign On Libya – Flap’s Blog – Video: The Obama White House Disinformation Campaign On Libya #tcot
    • Capitol Alert: Molly Munger opens separate committee to attack Prop. 30 – Tax increases are both going to fail RT @CapitolAlert: Molly Munger opens separate committee to attack Prop. 30
    • Bill Clinton works Las Vegas crowd, criticizing Romney for Obama – latimes.com – Bubba Bill Clinton mocks Mitt Romney in order to save Obama’s ass in Las Vegas #tcot
    • 11 Of Lance Armstrong’s Teammates Testified Against Him To The USADA– The USADA is releasing a full report of evidence that Lance Armstrong was doping during his cycling career.Eleven of Armstrong’s former teammates testified against the seven-time Tour de France winner saying he used performance enhancing drugs.The teammates who testified against Armstrong were: Frankie Andreu, Michael Barry, Tom Danielson, Tyler Hamilton, George Hincapie, Floyd Landis, Levi Leipheimer, Stephen Swart, Christian Vande Velde, Jonathan Vaughters, and David Zabriskie.
    • Lawyer who filed complaint has ties to multiple anti-ALEC groups– The lawyer who filed an IRS whistleblower complaint against the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) on behalf of a shadowy organization known as “Clergy Voice” has ties to Common Cause, the liberal government watchdog group and renowned ALEC foe.Marcus Owens, former director of the Exempt Organizations Division of the IRS from 1990 to 2000, filed a whistleblower complaint in July against ALEC, alleging the group was violating IRS tax law.“ALEC has deliberately and repeatedly failed to comply with some of the most fundamental federal tax requirements applicable to public charities,” Owens wrote in his complaint against the influential free-market group. “The information in this submission also suggests, quite strongly, that the conduct of ALEC and certain of its representatives violates other civil and criminal tax laws and may violate other federal and state criminal statutes as well.”As reported by the Free Beacon, the “grassroots” movement against ALEC is a well-coordinated campaign orchestrated by well-funded and often secretive progressive groups.
    • Frank Schubert and the Fight Against Gay Marriage – NYTimes.com – One Man Guides the Fight Against Gay Marriage: Frank Schubert #tcot
    • Wynn On Obama: “I’ll Be Damned If I Want To Have Him Lecture Me” | RealClearPolitics – Las Vegas’ Steve Wynn On Obama: “I’ll Be Damned If I Want To Have Him Lecture Me”
      #tcot
    • Review & Outlook: Big Bird, Small President – WSJ.com – Big Bird, Small President – As of fiscal 2011, Sesame Workshop had assets of $289 million #tcot
    • Pelosi offers debate advice to Biden – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room – This ought to be good! | Pelosi offers debate advice to Biden #tcot
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: October 10, 2012 – The Morning Drill: October 10, 2012
    • Barack Obama, VP debate moderator wedding guest– President Barack Obama was a guest at the 1991 wedding of ABC senior foreign correspondent and vice presidential debate moderator Martha Raddatz, The Daily Caller has learned. Obama and groom Julius Genachowski, whom Obama would later tap to head the Federal Communications Commission, were Harvard Law School classmates at the time and members of the Harvard Law Review.After TheDC made preliminary inquiries Monday to confirm Obama’s attendance at the wedding, ABC leaked a pre-emptive statement to liberal-leaning news outlets including Politico and The Daily Beast Tuesday, revealing what may have been internal network pressure felt just days before Raddatz was scheduled to moderate the one and only vice-presidential debate Thursday night.
    • Day By Day October 10, 2012 – Close Enough for Government – Flap’s Blog – Day By Day October 10, 2012 – Close Enough for Government #tcot
    • Obama Campaign Stands By Big Bird Ad – NationalJournal.com – RT @nationaljournal Obama campaign appears to be standing by its Big Bird ad. #tcot
    • Suffolk pollster: We’re not polling Florida, Virginia, or North Carolina anymore, because Romney’s going to win them « Hot Air – RT @TabithaHale Suffolk pollster: We’re not polling FL, Virginia, or NC anymore, because Romney’s going to win them
    • Jack Welch: I Was Right About That Strange Jobs Report– Imagine a country where challenging the ruling authorities—questioning, say, a piece of data released by central headquarters—would result in mobs of administration sympathizers claiming you should feel “embarrassed” and labeling you a fool, or worse.Soviet Russia perhaps? Communist China? Nope, that would be the United States right now, when a person (like me, for instance) suggests that a certain government datum (like the September unemployment rate of 7.8%) doesn’t make sense.Unfortunately for those who would like me to pipe down, the 7.8% unemployment figure released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) last week is downright implausible. And that’s why I made a stink about it.Before I explain why the number is questionable, though, a few words about where I’m coming from. Contrary to some of the sound-and-fury last week, I do not work for the Mitt Romney campaign. I am definitely not a surrogate. My wife, Suzy, is not associated with the campaign, either. She worked at Bain Consulting (not Bain Capital) right after business school, in 1988 and 1989, and had no contact with Mr. Romney.

      The Obama campaign and its supporters, including bigwigs like David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs, along with several cable TV anchors, would like you to believe that BLS data are handled like the gold in Fort Knox, with gun-carrying guards watching their every move, and highly trained, white-gloved super-agents counting and recounting hourly.

      Let’s get real. The unemployment data reported each month are gathered over a one-week period by census workers, by phone in 70% of the cases, and the rest through home visits. In sum, they try to contact 60,000 households, asking a list of questions and recording the responses.

    • State Dept reveals new details of Benghazi attack– All was quiet outside the U.S. Consulate as evening fell on Benghazi and President Barack Obama’s envoy to Libya was retiring after a day of diplomatic meetings.There was no indication of the harrowing events that night would bring: assailants storming the compound and setting its buildings aflame, American security agents taking fire across more than a mile of the city, the ambassador and three employees killed and others forced into a daring car escape against traffic.Senior State Department officials on Tuesday revealed for the first time certain details of last month’s tragedy in the former Libyan rebel stronghold, such as the efforts of a quick reaction force that rushed onto the scene and led the evacuation in a fierce gun battle that continued into the streets. The briefing was provided a day before department officials were to testify to a House committee about the most serious attack on a U.S. diplomatic installation since al-Qaida bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania 14 years ago.The account answers some questions and leaves others unanswered. Chief among them is why for several days the Obama administration said the assault stemmed from a protest against an American-made Internet video ridiculing Islam, and whether the consulate had adequate security.
    • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-10-10 – Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-10-10
    • State Department: No video protest at the Benghazi consulate– Prior to the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi late in the evening on Sept. 11, there was no protest outside the compound, a senior State Department official confirmed today, contradicting initial administration statements suggesting that the attack was an opportunistic reaction to unrest caused by an anti-Islam video.In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, two senior State Department officials gave a detailed accounting of the events that lead to the death of Amb. Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The officials said that prior to the massive attack on the Benghazi compound by dozens of militants carrying heavy weaponry, there was no unrest outside the walls of the compound and no protest that anyone inside the compound was aware of.
    • The liberal media loved Obama to death – It was in Denver one week ago that the long-running romance between Barack Obama and the national press — aka the “Slobbering Love Affair,” as Bernard Goldberg put it — hit the wall. The motel bill, unpaid these many long months and ages, at long last came due.
      It had been the real thing, not a commonplace fling with your generic Democrat, but the love of a lifetime, the genuine article, the sum of all dreams: He was not just a Democrat, he was also a liberal. He was not just a liberal, he also biracial, also multinational; also hip, cool, and clever. He was themselves as they wanted to be. Like them, he was gifted at writing and talking (and, as it turned out, not much beyond that), like them, he stood up for Metro America; like them, he viewed the people outside it with a not-very-measured disdain. “I divide people into people who talk like us and people who don’t talk like us,” said David Brooks, speaking for all of them. “You could see him as a New Republic writer … he’s more talented than anyone in my lifetime … he IS pretty dazzling when he walks into a room.”Dazzled indeed, they turned on their old flames, Bill and Hillary Clinton. They dumped John McCain, with whom they had flirted; and when Romney appeared — rich, square, and looking like Dad in a mid-50s sitcom — it was clear the long knives would be out.
    • The LEFT melts down over Obama Debate Performance– Let me suggest something that many conservatives realized after the debate: Obama did not do that badly. For Obama. He was the same listless, droning, exhausted-of-ideas scold we have seen for at least two years now (and maybe three).He was Obama. This is what he is. He is not quick-witted. He is not, as I think I saw Mickey Kaus note, a wonk. He has never been a wonk, a detailed-policy guy.He is a guy who speaks vacuously of hopes and dreams and change and fairness.He always has been.

      The problem, for the liberals, is not Obama. This is what you bought. This is your guy. It wasn’t his A game, but it was something close to his B+ game.

      The problem was Romney, who was commanding, fluent, reasonable, articulate, sharp-witted, warm, occasionally funny, full of ideas, full of facts, full of thoughtful, detailed criticisms of Obama policy (who the hell expected him to bring up, as an afterthought, Dodd-Frank’s failure to specify what a “reasonably qualified” mortgage applicant was, and how that chilled lending? Obama sure didn’t!), and, therefore, ultimately, full of qualification for the job and yes, full of gravitas.

      That’s the problem.

      Not Obama. I repeat: This is who Obama is. He has never been this brilliant intellect and keen policy analysts liberals have, in their BubbleWorld, dreamed him as.

    • After Debate, Obama Protection Dam Breaks– President Obama might think sagging polls are his biggest post-debate problem. But it’s really people like Buzz Bissinger, Stacey Dash and Bill Maher showing it’s now acceptable in polite society to attack The One.In an eye-opening piece Monday on the Daily Beast, “Friday Night Lights” author and lifelong Democrat Buzz Bissinger announced he was voting for Romney.The tipping point, he wrote, “was last week’s debate in Denver,” which showed Obama out of energy and out of ideas. Obama is “no longer the chosen one. He is just too cool for school in a country desperate for the infectiousness of rejuvenation.”
    • Angst grows among Obama supporters– First came the nausea. Then came the anxiety.After months of watching Mitt Romney twist in the media glare, a growing number of President Barack Obama’s supporters — though confined for now to a noisy minority of liberals — are peering into the Obama-might-actually-lose abyss for the first time after last week’s disastrous first debate.
    • ‘E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial’ Turns 30 – Speakeasy – WSJ – RT @WSJ “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” was released 30 years ago It remains the 4th most successful U.S. film of all time
    • NASA – NASATV – RT @NASA on @SpaceX #Dragon capture: “Looks like we’ve tamed the Dragon. We’re happy she’s on-board with us.”
    • Rep. Issa closes in on Clinton on Libya– Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is setting his sights on his biggest political target yet: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is treading more carefully than he did with his investigation of Attorney General Eric Holder and the Fast and Furious gun-tracking program, which led to a House vote placing Holder in contempt.Issa has not called on Clinton to testify at a hearing Wednesday morning meant to investigate security lapses at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.Issa’s staff has also praised Clinton for vowing to cooperate with the investigation of how an attack on the consulate left U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other American diplomats dead.

      “After dealing with the Department of Justice’s stonewalling in Operation Fast and Furious, the State Department and Secretary Clinton have been a breath of fresh air,” said Frederick Hill, a spokesman for Issa, in an interview with The Hill. “They pledged their cooperation when we

    • Josh Kraushaar’s post on Election 2012 | Latest updates on Sulia – Pres. Obama himself incorrectly blamed Libya attacks on video 9 days later in Univision forum, AFTER Susan Rice
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-10-10 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-10-10 #tcot
    • RealClearPolitics – Election 2004 – General Election: Bush vs. Kerry – RealClearPolitics – Election 2004 – General Election: Bush vs. Kerry #tcot
    • Obama Steps Into It with Big Bird Campaign Ad – Flap’s Blog – Obama Steps Into It with Big Bird Campaign Ad #tcot
  • Pinboard Links,  The Afternoon Flap

    The Afternoon Flap: September 12, 2012

    U.S. ambassador killed in Libya

    These are my links for September 10th through September 12th:

    • Attack Planned: US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and 3 other Americans killed in protest over film ridiculing Prophet Mohammed– Tuesday night’s deadly assault that killed the American ambassador to Libya and three other Americans was planned by attackers who used protests as a diversion, sources told CNN today.Earlier reports said the Americans were killed when a mob of protesters and gunmen overwhelmed the US Consulate in Benghazi, setting fire to it in outrage over a film that ridicules Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.Libya’s new president apologized Wednesday for the attack, which underlined the lawlessness plaguing a region trying to recover from months of upheaval.
      Ambassador Chris Stevens, 52, died as he and a group of embassy employees went to the consulate to try to evacuate staff as a crowd of hundreds attacked the consulate Tuesday evening, many of them firing machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
      By the end of the assault, much of the building was burned out and trashed. Stevens was the first US ambassador to be killed in the line of duty since 1979.
      A Libyan doctor who treated Stevens said he died of severe asphyxiation, apparently from smoke. In a sign of the chaos of during the attack, Stevens was brought alone by Libyans to the Benghazi Medical Center with no other Americans, and no one at the facility knew who he was, the doctor, Ziad Abu Zeid, told The Associated Press.
      Stevens was practically dead when he arrived close to 1 a.m. on Wednesday, but “we tried to revive him for an hour and a half but with no success,” Abu Zeid said. The ambassador had bleeding in his stomach because of the asphyxiation but no other injuries, he said.
    • Peggy Noonan: Romney not ‘doing himself any favors’– The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan is criticizing Mitt Romney’s response to the death of a U.S. diplomat in Libya, telling Fox News today she doesn’t feel that the Republican presidential nominee “has been doing himself any favors” in the past few hours.“I was thinking as he spoke, I think I belong to the old school of thinking that in times of great drama and heightened crisis, and in times when something violent has happened to your people, I always think discretion is the better way to go,” Noonan said. “When you step forward in the midst of a political environment and start giving statements on something dramatic and violent that has happened, you’re always leaving yourself open to accusations that you are trying to exploit things politically.”In a statement last night, Romney slammed the Obama administration for sympathizing “with those who waged the attacks” rather than condemning the attacks outright. Romney doubled-down on that attack today during a press conference, telling reporters the statement was “akin to apology” and that it was “disgraceful to apologize for American values.”But Romney’s effort to politicize the violence in Libya was met with blowback not just from the Obama administration but from the media. “[Romney’s] doubling down on criticism… is likely to be seen as one of the most craven and ill-advised tactical moves in this entire campaign,” Time magazine’s Mark Halperin wrote on his blog.
    • The Insane MSM Questions Romney Faced at Presser– So if a presidential candidate gives remarks about a foreign-policy crisis, you’d be forgiven for thinking that in the Q&A held immediately afterward, reporters would ask him about . . . foreign policy. But when Mitt Romney took questions today after talking about the situation in Libya and Egypt, the dominant theme of the questions was all about process and politics. Here are the seven questions asked:1.  Reporter brings up that Romney had a “toughly worded statement last night,” and asks, “Do you regret the tone at all given what we know now?”2. “Do you think, though, coming so soon after the events really had unfolded over night was appropriate, to be weighing in on this as this crisis was unfolding in real time?” Follow-up: “What did the White House do wrong then, Gov. Romney, if they put out a statement saying they disagreed with it?”3. “The world is watching. Isn’t this itself a mixed signal when you criticize the administration at a time that Americans are being killed? Shouldn’t politics stop for this?”

      4. “Some people have said that you jumped the gun a little bit in putting that statement out last night and that you should have waited until more details were available. Do you regret having that statement come out so early before we learned about all of the things that were happening?”

      5. “If you had known last night that the ambassador had died, and obviously, I’m gathering you did not know . . . if you had known that the ambassador had died, would you have issued such a strongly-issued statement?”

      6. Reporter comments that Romney is running on his “economic know-how and private sector experience,” and adds, “but now that foreign policy and the situation in the Middle East has been thrust into the presidential campaign, can you talk about why specifically you think you are better qualified than President Obama to handle these issues?”

      7. “How specifically, Governor Romney, would a President Romney have handled this situation differently than President Obama did? You spoke out before midnight, when all the facts weren’t known. How would you have handled this differently than the president did?”

      Only the last question even addressed what Romney would have done if he was in office. None of the questions asked Romney to give details or be more specific about what he thinks the United States should do going forward.

    • Open mic captures press coordinating questions for Romney “no matter who he calls on we’re covered”– Before Romney issued his statement today, an open mic capture the press coordinating questions to ask Romney, with one saying “no matter who he calls on we’re covered on the one question”. I’ve transcribed it to the best of my ability but the audio is below for verification:I’ve labeled one as the CBS News reporter as I believe it is Nancy Cordes who works for CBS News. If I’ve gotten that wrong I apologize and will correct.UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: …pointing out that the Republicans… *unintelligible* …Obama….CBS REPORTER: That’s the question.

      UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: *unintelligible*

      CBS REPORTER: Yeah that’s the question. I would just say do you regret your question.

      UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Your question? Your statement?

      CBS REPORTER: I mean your statement. Not even the tone, because then he can go off on…

      UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And then if he does, if we can just follow up and say ‘but this morning your answer is continuing to sound…’ – *becomes unintelligble*

      CBS REPORTER: You can’t say that..

      **Later**

      CBS REPORTER: I’m just trying to make sure that we’re just talking about, no matter who he calls on we’re covered on the one question.

      UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you stand by your statement or regret your statement?

    • Dead Ambassador dragged through streets, MSM furious at Romney criticism of Obama– If there ever were a doubt, no matter how small, that the mainstream media is deeply in bed with the Obama campaign, the reaction to the killing of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and several other Americans should put such doubt to rest.Beginning early this morning, when news was just breaking, the left-blogosphere and mainstream media, led by MSNBC, has attempted to shift the focus from the Obama administration’s failure to protect our embassies and for its apologies (both before and after the attack on the Cairo Embassy) to whether Mitt Romney was wrong to criticize Obama last night.No, I’m not kidding.
    • No Record of Intel Briefings for Obama Week Before Embassy Attacks – According to the White House calendar, there is no public record of President Barack Obama attending his daily intelligence briefing–known as the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB)–in the week leading up to the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Cairo and the murder of U.S. Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American members of his staff:
    • Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze on Dish TV– Glenn Beck is set for a TV comeback with his online channel TheBlaze launching on Dish Network Wednesday.“TheBlaze has helped revolutionize television over the Internet and now we are excited to bring the revolution back to traditional television,” Beck said in a press release. “TheBlaze will be home to news, information and entertainment programming with the facts and stories people care about most and we look forward to kicking things off with DISH.”The 24-hour online network will be available to Dish viewers starting on Sept. 12 at 5 p.m. Viewers with Dish’s America Top 250 package will be able to watch the channel, or can purchase it separately for $5 a month. TheBlaze — which celebrated its one-year anniversary on Wednesday — will continue to be available online, the release noted.“After being phenomenally successful with his online streaming network, we’re pleased to host Glenn Beck’s return to broadcast TV, especially during this exciting and important political season,” DISH CEO and President Joseph Clayton said in a press release on Wednesday announcing the launch. “With Glenn’s return, DISH is truly th
    • United States and Israel Engage in Public Spat Over Iran Policy – NYTimes.com – United States and Israel Engage in Public Spat Over Iran Policy #tcot
    • Obama Signals Wisconsin in Play – RT @politicalwire With new television ads, Obama signals Wisconsin is in play…. #tcot
    • Obama, Romney locked in tight race in Nevada– President Obama travels to Nevada on Wednesday to further his attempt to win the state’s six electoral votes in the face of the country’s worst unemployment rate and a sputtering housing market.The conventional wisdom around the Silver State is that while Obama faces significant headwinds to repeat his 2008 victory in Nevada, he remains the favorite given his slight but steady lead in polls.“With 56 days to go, basically both campaigns would privately acknowledge that Obama is ahead,” said Jon Ralston, one of the state’s top political commentators. “The question is, how far ahead? The Obama folks think they’re above the margin of error. And the Romney folks think they’re within the margin of error.”
    • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-09-12 – Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-09-12
    • Obama Announces Letterman Appearance on Day He Snubbed Netanyahu– President Barack Obama will be visiting one of his biggest fans soon – late night talker David Letterman.The president will chat with the “Late Show” host during a trip to New York City next week, according to the National Journal. Letterman’s nightly monologues mostly spare the president from satirical ribbing, saving his most cutting remarks for the Romneys … or even former President George W. Bush.The news comes on the same day Obama told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he couldn’t meet with him due to a scheduling conflict.
    • United States and Israel Engage in Public Spat Over Iran Policy – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel inserted himself into the most contentious foreign policy issue of the American presidential campaign on Tuesday, criticizing the Obama administration for refusing to set clear “red lines” on Iran’s nuclear progress that would prompt the United States to undertake a military strike. As a result, he said, the administration has no “moral right” to restrain Israel from taking military action of its own.
    • Polls: Ryan beats Biden in popularity– Paul Ryan has had a higher favorability rating than Vice President Biden in every major nonpartisan national poll since the Wisconsin lawmaker was picked for the GOP vice presidential slot.In these polls, Ryan averaged a likability factor 7.5 percentage points higher than Biden, and he even bested President Obama’s favorability rating four out of six times.
    • Poll Shows Allen Up 5 Over Kaine in Virginia Senate Race – The same Gravis Marketing Poll released today that showed Mitt Romney leading Barack Obama by 49-44 in Virginia showed Republican George Allen leading Democrat Tim Kaine 47-42 in the Senate race. For Allen, today’s 5 point margin reflects a 2 point increase from a poll conducted a month earlier by the same firm
    • REPORTS: US Ambassador To Libya Has Been Killed In Consulate Attack – Business Insider – RT @businessinsider US Ambassador To Libya Chris Stevens And Three Others Killed In Attack On Consulate In Benghazi
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-09-12 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-09-12 #tcot
    • Parents Photo Faves – Please vote for my grandson, James in this baby photo contest. Thanks #tcot
    • Political Cartoons / Michael Ramirez: The Media as Obama’s Lap Dog – Michael Ramirez: The Media as Obama’s Lap Dog via @pinterest #tcot
    • Political History / Panoramic view of NYC: The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center burning September 11, 2011 – Panoramic view of NYC: The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center burning September 11, 2011 via @pinterest
    • Political Cartoons / NEVER FORGET! – NEVER FORGET! via @pinterest
    • 11 Years: September 11, 2001: NEVER FORGET – Flap’s Blog – 11 Years: September 11, 2001: NEVER FORGET #tcot
    • Noonan’s Blog: Everyone Will Watch the Debates– 1. People will be watching. Convention viewership may have been down, but almost every voter who can, will watch at least some of the debates. Three reasons. First, nothing else has moved the needle, the race has been neck and neck for months. Second, a lot of people will use the debates to test and double-test their preliminary judgments. Is Romney really strong enough for this job? Is Obama really who I want to stick with? Third, it’s a contest, it’s combat. Someone will cross the goal line, one of them will beat the other. Someone will emerge the champ, or at least an undamaged contender. Unlike a convention, a debate is something a candidate can win right before your eyes.So: everyone will watch. What do they hope for? They’d like to think by the end, “That guy is a president” and turn it off and go to bed, resolved. They will also accept, “My guy didn’t screw up! It was a tie, but he didn’t lose, I’ll watch the next one.”
    • Depending on Dependency – – Thomas Sowell– The theme that most seemed to rouse the enthusiasm of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte was that we are all responsible for one another — and that Republicans don’t want to help the poor, the sick and the helpless.All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.Yet the notion that people who prefer economic decisions to be made by individuals in the market are not as compassionate as people who prefer those decisions to be made collectively by politicians is seldom even thought of as a belief that should be checked against facts.Nor is this notion confined to Democrats in America today. Belief in the superior compassion of the political left is a worldwide phenomenon that goes back at least as far as the 18th century. But in all that time, and in all those places, there has been little, if any, effort on the left to check this crucial assumption against facts.
    • White House pushes back on claims from Woodward book– Bob Woodward’s new book on the collapse of the grand bargain has put the Obama White House on the defensive on economic policy just as the 2012 campaign enters its most crucial phase.Republicans have seized on The Price of Politics as evidence President Obama is in over his head on the economy.The White House on Monday pushed back against Woodward’s latest conclusions: that weak leadership by Obama worsened last year’s debt-ceiling crisis and led to the failure to enact a deficit grand bargain.Obama’s leadership during the crisis was “significant,” according to White House spokesman Jay Carney, and reflected a “sincere and deliberate” effort to compromise.
    • Obama Opens Lead, But Both Camps See Tight Race | RealClearPolitics – RT @RealClearScott Romney, Obama camps still see neck and neck race w/ shifting dynamics: #tcot
    • Washington Post-ABC News Poll Among Likely Voters: Obama 49% vs. Romney 48%– Last week’s Democratic National Convention helped President Obama improve his standing against Republican Mitt Romney, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, but did little to reduce voter concern about his handling of the economy.The survey shows that the race remains close among likely voters, with Obama at 49 percent and Romney at 48 percent, virtually unchanged from a poll taken just before the conventions.But among a wider sample of all registered voters, Obama holds an apparent edge, topping Romney at 50 percent to 44 percent, and has clear advantages on important issues in the campaign when compared with his rival
    • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-09-11 – Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-09-11
    • Romney vows US ‘will never forget those who perished’ in Sept. 11 attacks – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room – RT @thehill Romney vows US ‘will never forget those who perished’ in Sept. 11 attacks
    • Construction on 9/11 Memorial Museum to Resume – NationalJournal.com – RT @nationaljournal Construction will resume on the September 11 Memorial Museum. #tcot
    • Tuesday’s Political Ledes | The Page by Mark Halperin | TIME.com – RT @MarkHalperin All in one place: Tuesday’s major paper political ledes: #tcot
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-09-11 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-09-11 #tcot
    • Capitol Alert: California ranked 4th worst in business legal climate – Capitol Alert: California ranked 4th worst in business legal climate #tcot
    • CA-Sen: Why Won’t Senator Dianne Feinstein Debate? – Flap’s Blog – CA-Sen: Why Won’t Senator Dianne Feinstein Debate? #tcot
    • Capitol Alert: California ranked 4th worst in business legal climate – Capitol Alert: California ranked 4th worst in business legal climate #tcot
    • PPIC: “Just the Facts” – Rise of the California Independents – PPIC: “Just the Facts” – Rise of the California Independents
    • 2012 Carmageddon Coming to I-405 and the Sepulveda Pass – 2012 Carmageddon Coming to I-405 and the Sepulveda Pass
    • Capitol Alert: California ranked 4th worst in business legal climate – California ranked 4th worst in business legal climate #tcot
    • California ranked 4th worst in business legal climate– California ranks 47th in the nation in its courts’ “fairness and reasonableness” regarding business lawsuits, according to a poll conducted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform.Not only is the state’s legal climate as a whole ranked fourth worst in the nation, just ahead of Mississippi, Louisiana and West Virginia, but Los Angeles County has the second worst lawsuit climate among local jurisdictions and San Francisco fourth worst..Delaware, the legal home of many major corporations, ranks No. 1 in business legal climate.The rankings are based on a survey of corporate general counsels and senior attorneys, conducted by Harris Interactive.The annual survey has been conducted for the past decade, and California’s standing has declined during that period. The survey report called California courts “havens for class action lawsuits because judges certify cases for trial that wouldn’t be certified in most other parts of the country.” It noted that the largest asbestos verdict in the nation this year – $48 million for one plaintiff – came in a Los Angeles jury trial.
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: Oklahoma Fake Dentist Elizabeth Hinosa Still at Large – Oklahoma Fake Dentist Elizabeth Hinosa Still at Large
    • Flapsblog Posts / Oh my dear did I tell you about my train adventures…. – Oh my dear did I tell you about my train adventures…. via @pinterest #tcot
    • Day By Day September 9, 2012 – Circus – Flap’s Blog – Day By Day September 9, 2012 – Circus #tcot
    • (404) http://twitter.com/MarkHalperin/status/245133539186708480/photo/1 – RT @MarkHalperin Here’s an Electoral College map scenario that wins for Romney, w/ NV, CO, VA, FL & NH but NOT WI or OH
    • Bob Woodward: ‘Gaps’ in Obama’s Leadership Contributed to Debt Deal Collapse – ABC News – RT @PounderFile ABC News:“Bob Woodward: ‘Gaps’ In President Obama’s Leadership Contributed To Debt Deal Collapse” #tcot
    • GM’s Volt – The ugly math of low sales, high costs – loss of $49K each– General Motors Co sold a record number of Chevrolet Volt sedans in August — but that probably isn’t a good thing for the automaker’s bottom line.Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds, according to estimates provided to Reuters by industry analysts and manufacturing experts.Cheap Volt lease offers meant to drive more customers to Chevy showrooms this summer may have pushed that loss even higher. There are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce.And while the loss per vehicle will shrink as more are built and sold, GM is still years away from making money on the Volt, which will soon face new competitors from Ford, Honda and others
    • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-09-10 – Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-09-10
    • 9 states where the race will be won– The presidential race has narrowed to a core of nine states, a collection of margin-of-error battlegrounds spread across nearly every region.From New Hampshire in the Northeast to Nevada in the Rocky Mountain West, there is little disagreement between the two campaigns about the places where the election will be won and lost. Aside from those two swing states, there are seven others: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.Some of them are familiar presidential battlegrounds, accustomed to playing a pivotal role every four years. Others are relative newcomers to the swing state roster. Every one of them was carried by President Barack Obama in 2008.According to interviews with campaign officials and strategists, here’s the state of play and the forces at work in the nine states:
    • Romney going up in Wisconsin with TV ads– Mitt Romney’s campaign will be launching TV ads in Wisconsin, reflecting its belief that the state is within its grasp. It was not an easy or risk-free choice to spend money there.The last two months of a campaign are when political consultants earn their keep. There are only so many hours in a day, so much airtime to be bought and so much money (even in an election with as much money already sloshing around as was spent in the entire 2008 race). One of those is where to try to expand the map for your candidate.A senior Romney adviser told me the spate of ads rolled out Friday in eight states was shipped before the Democratic National Convention and before the rotten August jobs numbers were known. But the campaign guessed right in making the ads intensely focused on jobs (even breaking down the number of jobs each state could hope to add under a Romney presidency) and emphasizing that Romney has a jobs plan. That economic message will be pounded home throughout the fall. There was a reason Obama was so glum in Charlotte on Thursday; the economy was and remains critical in the election and we are at best going sideways at a time the economy should be rolling full-steam ahead.
    • Re: Romney and Obamacare – Pre-existing Conditions?– I reached out to the Romney campaign for clarification about Mitt Romney’s remarks this morning about liking some parts of Obamacare. An aide pointed out that Romney first said on Meet the Press that “I say we are going to replace Obamacare. And I am replacing it with my own plan.”In reference to how Romney would deal with those with young adults who want to remain on their parents’ plans, a Romney aide responded that there had been no change in Romney’s position and that “in a competitive environment, the marketplace will make available plans that include coverage for what there is demand for. He was not proposing a federal mandate to require insurance plans to offer those particular features.”UPDATE: In reference to pre-existing conditions, a Romney aide responds, “Governor Romney will ensure that discrimination against individuals with pre-existing conditions who maintain continuous coverage is prohibited,” and refers me to these remarks Romney made in Florida in June:
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-09-10 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-09-10 #tcot
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: August 23, 2012

    Obama speaking behind teleprompter

    A teleprompter obscures U.S. President Barack Obama as he speaks during a campaign event at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio August 21, 2012.

    These are my links for August 21st through August 23rd:

    • Obama: Team Romney coming on strong, playing dirty, time to ‘put them away’– President Obama joined a group of former NBA stars at a fundraiser at New York’s Lincoln Center Wednesday night.  With Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley and other basketball legends sitting nearby — “It’s very rare that I come to an event where I’m like the fifth- or sixth-most interesting person,” Obama said — the president made a few obligatory remarks about opponent Mitt Romney’s tax and economic plans.  And then he addressed the presidential horse race — or basketball game.“I can’t resist a basketball analogy,” Obama told the crowd, according to a White House pool report.  “We are in the fourth quarter.  We’re up by a few points but the other side is coming on strong and they play a little dirty.”
    • Tropical Storm Isaac Heads Toward Florida Ahead of Convention– Tropical storm Isaac, which is gathering strength in the Caribbean, could strike Florida, hurricane forecasters say, triggering concern it might force a postponement or cancellation of the Republican National Convention in Tampa next week.It is still too early to predict whether the storm could make a direct hit on the city. Forecast models show Isaac’s center following a path that could take it as far west as the Gulf of Mexico and as far east as the Atlantic Ocean by next Monday. Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands braced for torrential rains on Thursday as the storm churned waves as high as 10 feet in the Caribbean and threatened to become a hurricane. Some flooding was reported in eastern and southern regions of Puerto Rico as the storm approached.
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: August 23, 2012 – The Morning Drill: August 23, 2012
    • Day By Day August 23, 2012 – Additions – Flap’s Blog – Day By Day August 23, 2012 – Additions #tcot
    • Polls: Obama’s Lead Cut in Florida, Wisconsin– The presidential race has tightened slightly in Florida and Wisconsin since the rollout of Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as Mitt Romney’s running mate, according to new CBS News/Quinnipiac University/New York Times polls released early Thursday. But President Obama’s lead in Ohio remains unchanged over the past three weeks.Obama’s advantages in Florida and Wisconsin have been reduced to within the margin of error, the polls show. But in Ohio, Romney remains unpopular, and the president is still ahead by a statistically significant, if single-digit, margin.The polls show Romney with an advantage among seniors, but voters in each state think Obama would do a better job on Medicare, and by wide margins, oppose changing Medicare in the ways Ryan has advocated as chairman of the House Budget Committee.
    • Crossroads launches new Senate offensive, with Florida on target list – POLITICO.com – RT @aburnspolitico Crossroads launches $4.2 million offensive in 4 Senate races, this time including FLORIDA #tcot
    • GM Goes From Bad to Worse Despite Obama Bailout– Things are different now. General Motors’ market share in the U.S. is below 20 percent. It has gone through bankruptcy and exists now thanks to a federal bailout. But Barack Obama seems to think that it’s as closely aligned with the national interest as Wilson did.”When the American auto industry was on the brink of collapse,” Obama told a campaign event audience in Colorado earlier this month, “I said, let’s bet on America’s workers. And we got management and workers to come together, making cars better than ever, and now GM is No. 1 again and the American auto industry has come roaring back.”His conclusion: “So now I want to say that what we did with the auto industry, we can do in manufacturing across America. Let’s make sure advanced, high-tech manufacturing jobs take root here, not in China. Let’s have them here in Colorado. And that means supporting investment here.”

      Was he calling for a federal bailout of other American manufacturing companies? And what does he mean by “supporting investment”? White House reporters have not asked these obvious questions, for the good reason that the president, who has been attending fundraisers on an average of one every 60 hours, has not held a press conference in something like two months.

    • GOP Recasts Path to Senate Majority — Without Missouri– Pressing on with his Senate bid against the broader GOP’s wishes, Missouri Republican Todd Akin introduced a new campaign theme Wednesday: “Let the people decide; not party bosses.” Of course, such is the premise of all elections. But the “party bosses” in this case are looking at a much bigger picture than Akin is, and facing a critical decision of their own: How to win control of the upper chamber if Missouri stays in the Democratic column?Republicans need to gain four seats in November –three if Mitt Romney wins the presidency and Paul Ryan subsequently holds any tie-breaking votes –to earn a majority in the U.S. Senate. Before Akin told a local television show on Sunday that “legitimate rape” usually doesn’t cause pregnancy, the Show-Me State had long been considered the easiest GOP pickup. (As one Republican strategist described it, “Akin could have sat on his front porch and won.”)
    • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-08-23 – Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-08-23
    • Team Romney calls out Obama for misspelling ‘Ohio’ at campaign stop– President Obama needed a do-over to spell “Ohio” correctly on the campus of Ohio State University this week.Although Obama and several students at a campaign stop Tuesday morning at Sloopy’s Diner on the campus of OSU tweeted out photos of the president correctly posing as the “I” in Ohio, another student supplied a photo of a spelling mishap to Mitt Romney’s campaign.photo, tweeted by Romney’s Ohio communications director, Christopher Maloney, shows Obama and three students all a little confused about how to spell the state’s name, with Obama holding his hands up in what seems to be an “H” and as the third letter.

      “A word of advice to @BarackObama: It’s ‘O-H-I-O’ that has 18 electoral votes, not ‘O-I-H-O,’ ” Maloney tweeted.

    • Team Obama breaks precedent to try to spoil Romney’s convention– Bucking protocol, President Obama and the Democrats are planning a full-scale assault on Republicans next week during their convention.Bucking protocol, President Obama and the Democrats are planning a full-scale assault on Republicans next week during their convention.Presidential candidates have traditionally kept a low profile during their opponent’s nominating celebration, but Democrats are throwing those rules out the window in an attempt to spoil Mitt Romney’s coronation as the GOP nominee.

      President Obama, Vice President Biden and leading congressional Democrats have all scheduled high-profile events next week to counter-program the Republican gathering in Tampa.

    • “Clear Choice” – Obama for America TV Ad
      – YouTube
      – RT @HotlineSteve President Obama unleashes the big dog in a new TV ad out this morning #tcot
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-08-23 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-08-23 #tcot
    • Tony Strickland for Congress – BROWNLEY LA LIBERAL
      – YouTube
      – Tony Strickland for Congress – BROWNLEY LA LIBERAL
      – YouTube #tcot
    • Tony Strickland Calls Julia Brownley a LA Liberal in New Television Ad – Tony Strickland Calls Julia Brownley a LA Liberal in New Television Ad #tcot
    • Tony Strickland for Congress – BROWNLEY LA LIBERAL
      – YouTube
      – I uploaded a @YouTube video Tony Strickland for Congress – BROWNLEY LA LIBERAL
    • CU forecasters predict a Romney presidency – The Denver Post – Two University of Colorado professors predict a Romney presidency #tcot
    • American Smoking Sinks to One in Five – Tied for All-Time Low – American Smoking Sinks to One in Five – Tied for All-Time Low #tcot
    • Get Lost – Rich Lowry – National Review Online – Rich Lowry’s response at National Review to Michael Mann of Climategate infamy – GET LOST #tcot
    • One in Five U.S. Adults Smoke, Tied for All-Time Low – Thank goodness! RT @gallupnews: One in Five U.S. Adults Smoke, Tied for All-Time Low.
    • Video: Obama Says He’s “Pro-Choice” on Third-Trimester Abortions | The Weekly Standard – Video: Obama Says He’s “Pro-Choice” on Third-Trimester Abortions – But, his position is NOT clear #tcot
    • (404) http://t.co/QVE – RT @guypbenson: Rasmussen has it at Thompson +11 RT @ppppolls Thompson leads Baldwin 49-44 in the Wisconsin Senate race. …
    • CBO warns of deep recession if Congress fails to avert ‘fiscal cliff’ – The Hill’s On The Money – CBO warns of worsening economy and higher unemployment –> 9.1 % if steps are not taken: #tcot
    • Another Health Nut Donor for California Proposition 37 – Flap’s Blog – Another Health Nut Donor for California Proposition 37 #tcot
    • New Finance Web Site Highlights California Political Campaigns – New Finance Web Site Highlights California Political Campaigns #tcot
    • California Ready to Grant Driver’s Licenses to Illegal Immigrants? – California Ready to Grant Driver’s Licenses to Illegal Immigrants?
    • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-08-22 – Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-08-22
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: August 22, 2012 – The Morning Drill: August 22, 2012
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: Dental Health Associated with Alzheimer’s Disease or Dementia? – Dental Health Associated with Alzheimer’s Disease or Dementia?
    • Day By Day August 21, 2012 – Build It – Flap’s Blog – Day By Day August 21, 2012 – Build It #tcot
    • AD-38: Assembly Contenders Wilk & Headington Visit VIA to Vie for Votes– Democratic Assembly candidate Edward Headington and Republican Scott Wilk broke bread at the Valley Industry Association’s August luncheon, then broke out their different views of the district’s political future.Wilk sees himself as picking up the flag of past Republican Assemblymembers Keith Richman and Cameron Smyth.“Assemblyman Cameron Smyth, who has endorsed me, is up there working hard for you Monday through Thursday slamming his head against the wall because in the 80 member body only 27 of those are Republicans,” said Wilk.

      However, Wilk said “Good news is on the way” and envisions the Republicans gaining up to 34 seats in the next election due to redistricting.

    • Tea Party Tony Strickland’s First Ad Tries to Trick Voters | DCCC– Tea Party congressional candidate Tony Strickland (CA-26) introduced his first ad today and it’s chock full of hypocrisy and lies in an effort to disguise his own extreme positions, particularly on Medicare.“Tea Party Tony Strickland has toed the extreme Republican Party line his whole career, so voters shouldn’t be tricked into thinking he would do any different in Washington,” said Amber Moon of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Tea Party Tony is willing to do or say anything to get elected, even repeating false claims to distract from his own record.”
    • Romney Camp Sees Upper Midwest Coming Into Play– Lost amid the daily uproar over embattled Senate candidate Todd Akin’s refusal to drop his Missouri bid is a growing effort by the GOP to spotlight a tightening presidential race in the Upper Midwest.The Republican National Committee has pounced on new polling data in Michigan and Wisconsin that show President Obama losing ground to Mitt Romney after the latter announced Paul Ryan as his running mate. And in what may — or may not –have been a coincidence, Vice President Joe Biden made a pair of campaign stops in Minnesota on Tuesday and will make several more in Michigan today.
    • Who’s sorry about the Roberts ruling on ObamaCare now?– Any year now, Democrats may start to ask themselves if it might have been better had John Roberts not changed his mind. If they would be better off with Obamacare out of its and our misery, a bone of contention now safely buried, and not as a bone in their throats. For one thing, they still have the issue upon them –the historic triumph they don’t dare mention but which Republicans happily do.Second, were Obamacare no longer the law, we might be seeing an uptick in hiring right now. Instead, that will be deferred until after November (and then possibly only if Romney’s elected), and unemployment is rising in 44 states. Unemployment rising in 44 states is not what you want when just ten or so states will decide the election and unemployment has been 8 percent or higher for 41 months.Third, had Roberts done otherwise, they might still have the issue of Medicare, which at this point they do not. When Paul Ryan was chosen to run with Mitt Romney, liberals planned to rip him to pieces over plans to trim Medicare. Somehow, they forgot that their own health care plan did much the same thing, covering 30 million new clients by draining millions from providers of Medicare. Although these cuts will not directly lead Medicare clients to pay more or lose coverage, they will end with many doctors and hospitals refusing to treat them at all.
    • GOP 12: Poll: Romney up 4% in Florida – RT @CPHeinze Florida: Romney 49% Obama 45% #tcot
    • MO-Sen: For Those Wondering About Missouri Write-In Bids…– So Sarah Steelman and John Brunner, who lost the GOP Senate primary, are not eligible to run as write-in candidates.Of course, for a write-in bid to succeed, one would need ideally a simple name, one that is not easily misspelled, since we know election lawyers will attempt to disqualify any ballot that is unclear in any way.If only some figure, well known to Missouri voters and trusted by them, would step forward and declare, “The name’s Bond… Kit Bond.
    • AP-GfK poll: Obama 47% vs. Romney 44% shows White House race still tight– or allFor all the attention it got, Republican the attention it got, Republican Mitt Romney’s selection of Mitt Romney’s selection of Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate has not as his running mate has not altered the race against altered the race against President Barack Obama. The President Barack Obama. The campaign remains neck and campaign remains neck and neck with less than three months to go, a new AP-neck with less than three months to go, a new AP-Overall, 47 percent of registered voters said they Overall, 47 percent of registered voters said they planned to back Obama and Vice President Joe planned to back Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in November, while 46 percent favored Biden in November, while 46 percent favored Romney and Ryan. That’s not much changed from Romney and Ryan. That’s not much changed from a June AP-GfK survey, when the split was 47 a June AP-GfK survey, when the split was 47 percent for the president to 44 percent for percent for the president to 44 percent forAt the same time, there’s a far wider gap when At the same time, there’s a far wider gap when people were asked who they thought would win. people were asked who they thought would win. Some 58 percent of adults said they expected Some 58 percent of adults said they expected Obama to be re-elected, while just 32 percent said Obama to be re-elected, while just 32 percent said they thought he’d be voted out of officthey thought he’d be voted out of office
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-08-22 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-08-22 #tcot
    • Poll: Voters split on Paul Ryan as VP – The Hill’s Ballot Box – WSJ/NBC Poll: Voters split on whether Paul Ryan helps Romney = more likely to vote for #tcot
    • The George Takei Happy Dance
      – YouTube
      – Mo-Sen: Sen Claire McCaskill seen doing the “happy dance” #tcot
    • Election 2012: Montana Senate – Rasmussen Reports™ – Montana Sen Poll Watch: Rehberg (R) 47% vs. Dem Sen Tester’s 43% #tcot
    • Romney slightly ahead in Wisconsin – Public Policy Polling – RT @ppppolls: Mitt Romney leads Barack Obama 48-47 on our new Wisconsin poll. 7 point shift since early July: #tcot
    • Gallup Poll Watch: U.S. Economic Confidence Looks Bleak – Flap’s Blog – Gallup Poll Watch: U.S. Economic Confidence Looks Bleak #tcot
    • 63% Oppose Driver’s Licenses, Public Benefits for Illegal Immigrants Who Get Work Permits – Rasmussen Reports™ – 63% Oppose Driver’s Licenses, Public Benefits for Illegal Immigrants Who Get Work Permits #tcot #catcot
    • MO-Sen Video: Todd Akin Apologizes – Flap’s Blog – MO-Sen Video: Todd Akin Apologizes #tcot
    • Mars rover Curiosity gets ready for its first road trip on Red Planet – latimes.com – RT @LANow Mars rover Curiosity gets ready for its first road trip on Red Planet
    • How Obama can fix his welfare problem– Thank goodness all that veepstakes/Paul Ryan business is over and we can get back to welfare reform.If you remember, back before we were temporarily distracted, Romney TV ads had attacked Obama for planning to give states waivers from welfare work requirements, thereby opening the door to diluting (and in some cases, eliminating) them. The Romney camp must at least think its (oversimplified) attacks on the issue are working, because it’s back with another welfare ad today.At some point, if these ads keep biting, the attitude of Obamaites is going to shift from ‘Why can’t the MSM protect us from Romney’s lies!’ to ‘Stop the bleeding!” But stopping the bleeding won’t be easy. The Obama campaign has righteously defended the new HHS rules, after all. If the President suddenly repudiates them he might look guilty, or weak, or not in control, or all three. Even after the rules are withdrawn, many voters might doubt that Obama’s actually changed his mind. Won’t he pursue the same waivers once he’s reelected? If the waivers are bad isn’t that a cause for worry? Romney’s campaign could easily stoke these suspicions.
    • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-08-21 – Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-08-21
    • “Issues” or America?– There are some very serious issues at stake in this year’s election — so many that some people may not be able to see the forest for the trees. Individual issues are the trees, but the forest is the future of America as we have known it.The America that has flourished for more than two centuries is being quietly but steadily dismantled by the Obama administration, during the process of dealing with particular issues.For example, the merits or demerits of President Obama’s recent executive order, suspending legal liability for young people who are here illegally, presumably as a result of being brought here as children by their parents, can be debated pro and con. But such a debate overlooks the much more fundamental undermining of the whole American system of Constitutional government.
    • Romney Racks Up Big Cash Advantage– Mitt Romney’s cash advantage over President Obama and the Democrats more than doubled in July, as intense Republican fund-raising and heavy spending by Mr. Obama and his allies left Mr. Romney and the Republican National Committee with $62 million more in the bank than the Democrats at the end of last month.Mr. Obama’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee spent $91 million in July, significantly more than the $75 million the Democrats raised, underscoring the investments Mr. Obama made in technology and field staff as well as nearly $40 million his campaign spent on advertising that month. While Mr. Romney continued to husband his resources for the fall – he spent less than half of what Mr. Obama did on advertising – conservative “super PACs” and other outside groups stepped into the breach, spending millions of dollars on ads attacking Mr. Obama.
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: August 20, 2012

    Hit the Road Barack

    These are my links for August 16th through August 20th:

  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: August 16, 2012

    Chris McMurray of Crumb and Get It does not agree with Obama Administration policies

    These are my links for August 15th through August 16th:

    • Radford business owner declines Joe Biden’s request to stop in store– Would you say no to the Vice President?This might happen more than you think from both political parties, most businesses just don’t talk about it. The owner of “Crumb and Get It” – did.Chris McMurray’s bakery has been open only since May, barely three months.Wednesday morning, advance teams for Vice President Joe Biden walked in.

      “I approached her she said Joe Biden is coming to town today,” McMurray said.

      “Crumb and Get It” is a mom and pop store. Literally. Chris and his wife Kelly run the place and need all the business they can get.

      McMurray said the Vice President’s entourage got to the point and made its pitch.

      “She said they have selected ‘Crumb and Get It” to be his stop on his way to Blacksburg and was wondering if that was ok.”

      Here’s the part that might make other business owners crazy.

      “This is an opportunity of a lifetime but essentially I said ‘No offense to you or the campaign but I just decline you guys coming in here. At that time she said ‘Are you sure? There’s going to be a lot of press, a lot of activity,’” McMurray said.

      Why in the world would a new business owner say “no” to a photo op with the Vice President of the United States?

      McMurray said it was President Obama’s recent remarks about small business and who built what.

      “Very simply, ‘you didn’t build that’” McMurray said. “Speaking of small businesses and entrepreneurs all across this country and actually last night my wife was up all night. No sleep, she’s worked a full 24 hours.”

    • Shooting spurs heated debate on gay rights, ‘hate group’ label– The shooting of a security guard Wednesday at the Family Research Council (FRC) has spurred a torrent of heated accusations from both sides of the gay rights debate about claims that the conservative organization is a “hate group.”The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), one of the nation’s leading opponents of same-sex marriage, told The Hill the shooting was a direct result of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s decision in 2010 to place the FRC on its list of hate groups for its rhetoric on gays.Brian Brown, the president of NOM, pointed to a recent blog post by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), one of the largest gay-rights groups in the country. The post, “Paul Ryan Speaking at Hate Group’s Annual Conference,” called attention to the vice presidential candidate’s scheduled appearance at the FRC’s national summit next month.“Today’s attack is the clearest sign we’ve seen that labeling pro-marriage groups as ‘hateful’ must end,” Brown said in a statement issued following the shooting.

      “For too long national gay rights groups have intentionally marginalized and ostracized pro-marriage groups and individuals by labeling them as ‘hateful’ and ‘bigoted.’”

    • Why the Doctor Can’t See You– Are you having trouble finding a doctor who will see you? If not, give it another year and a half. A doctor shortage is on its way.Most provisions of the Obama health law kick in on Jan. 1, 2014. Within the decade after that, an additional 30 million people are expected to acquire health plans—and if the economic studies are correct, they will try to double their use of the health-care system.Meanwhile, the administration never seems to tire of reminding seniors that they are entitled to a free annual checkup. Its new campaign is focused on women. Thanks to health reform, they are being told, they will have access to free breast and pelvic exams and even free contraceptives. Once ObamaCare fully takes effect, all of us will be entitled to a long list of preventive services—with no deductible or copayment.Here is the problem: The health-care system can’t possibly deliver on the huge increase in demand for primary-care services. The original ObamaCare bill actually had a line item for increased doctor training. But this provision was zeroed out before passage, probably to keep down the cost of health reform. The result will be gridlock.

      Take preventive care. ObamaCare says that health insurance must cover the tests and procedures recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. What would that involve? In the American Journal of Public Health (2003), scholars at Duke University calculated that arranging for and counseling patients about all those screenings would require 1,773 hours of the average primary-care physician’s time each year, or 7.4 hours per working day.

    • Eric Holder’s uphill battle: Huge public support for voter ID– While the Obama Justice Department, led by Attorney General Eric Holder, uses its authority to block some state voter ID laws (Texas), and investigate others (Pennsylvania), a newly-released poll shows overwhelming public support for laws requiring voters to present identification before casting a ballot.  That support crosses party lines, racial lines, economic lines, educational lines, and just about every other line in the electorate at large.In the survey, the Washington Post asked, “In your view, should voters in the United States be required to show official, government-issued photo identification — such as a driver’s license — when they cast ballots on election day, or shouldn’t they have to do this?”  Among all adults, 74 percent said voters should present ID, versus 23 percent who said they should not.  Among registered voters, the numbers were 75 percent to 23 percent.When something has the support of 75 percent of the voters, plus the approval of the Supreme Court, which by a six-to-three vote in 2008 upheld Indiana’s voter ID law, one might think the Justice Department would give up trying to stop it.  So far, that’s not the case with Attorney General Holder.The Post poll found support for voter ID extends far and wide.  Seventy-six percent of men support it, as do 73 percent of women.
    • General Motors Is Headed For Bankruptcy — Again– President Obama is proud of his bailout of General Motors.  That’s good, because, if he wins a second term, he is probably going to have to bail GM out again.  The company is once again losing market share, and it seems unable to develop products that are truly competitive in the U.S. market.Right now, the federal government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of the company.  It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout, but the stock closed at only $20.21/share on Tuesday.  This left the government holding $10.1 billion worth of stock, and sitting on an unrealized loss of $16.4 billion.Right now, the government’s GM stock is worth about 39% less than it was on November 17, 2010, when the company went public at $33.00/share. However, during the intervening time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen by almost 20%, so GM shares have lost 49% of their value relative to the Dow.It’s doubtful that the Obama administration would attempt to sell off the government’s massive position in GM while the stock price is falling. It would be too embarrassing politically. Accordingly, if GM shares continue to decline, it is likely that Obama would ride the stock down to zero.
    • The GOP’s Medicare Advantage– Predictably, Democrats went after Mitt Romney’s new running mate immediately, describing Paul Ryan as a “certifiable right-wing ideologue” whose views are “extreme” and “radical.” They focused on Medicare, warning that Republicans “would end Medicare as we know it,” making it “a voucher system” that costs seniors “thousands of dollars in health care costs.”Some Republican hand-wringers moaned. They failed to consider that Democrats were going to level these charges no matter whom Mr. Romney picked as his running mate. And they ignored the ammunition the party has to turn the issue against Democrats.For one thing, the GOP doesn’t cut Medicare spending. This fiscal year, Medicare outlays will total $503 billion. Even under the House GOP budget—considered the most parsimonious plan out there—Medicare spending would be $855 billion annually 10 years from now. That just 3% less than what President Obama proposes, hardly enough to justify Vice President Joe Biden’s claim that Republicans are “gutting Medicare.”
    • There Is No California– Driving across California is like going from Mississippi to Massachusetts without ever crossing a state line.Consider the disconnects: California’s combined income and sales taxes are among the nation’s highest, but the state’s deficit is still about $16 billion. It’s estimated that more than 2,000 upper-income Californians are leaving per week to flee high taxes and costly regulations, yet California wants to raise taxes even higher; its business climate already ranks near the bottom of most surveys. Its teachers are among the highest paid on average in the nation, but its public school students consistently test near the bottom of the nation in both math and science.
    • Why The Screwed Generation Is Turning To Paul Ryan– GOP Congressman Paul Ryan—the tireless, wonky, 42-year-old workout freak—has made history by becoming the first member of our generation to join a presidential ticket. It should come as a surprise to no one that his calling card is reforming entitlements.We hear incessantly about how members of today’s screwed generation face the prospect of less prosperous lives than those lived by their parents. But the maiden generation to stare down that gloomy prognosis was Generation X, the tiny slice of America born between about 1965 and 1980. (Ryan was born in 1970.) We were the first generation to be told we would never get Social Security or Medicare even though we would be forced to pay into these programs.When many X-ers graduated from college, stocking shelves at the Gap was considered a career choice, as jobs were few and far between amidst a major economic downturn. I won’t bore you with the horror show of the low-paying and miserable jobs I had for the first three years after college.Unfortunately, the future looks as bleak for today’s young people. No amount of coddling by their well-provided-for Boomer parents can save Generation Y and the Millennials from the dire economic conditions they face, including criminal levels of educational debt. Pensions have gone the way of the horse and buggy. You want to retire with health-care benefits, as both my professor parents did? Good luck. As the 1994 movie turned Gen-X mantra has it: Reality Bites.
    • Executive order from Governor Jan Brewer blocks IDs, benefits for illegal immigrants– Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on Wednesday ordered state agencies to deny driver’s licenses and other public benefits to young illegal immigrants who obtain work authorizations under a new Obama administration policy.After the order was issued, supporters of the program and the DREAM Act took to the streets of Phoenix in protest. Video from Air15 showed the protesters carrying signs and walking down Central Avenue toward the State Capitol.In an executive order, Brewer said she was reaffirming the intent of current Arizona law denying taxpayer-funded public benefits and state identification to illegalYoung illegal immigrants around the nation on Wednesday began the process of applying for federal work permits under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
    • Americans Continue to Give Obama Low Marks on the Economy – Three months before the election, President Barack Obama gets good marks from Americans for his handling of terrorism, fair marks for education and foreign affairs, but poor marks on immigration and three big economic issues: the federal budget deficit, creating jobs, and the economy generally.
    • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-08-16 – Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-08-16
    • Ryan abandons part of Ryan plan | Mobile Washington Examiner – Ryan abandons part of Ryan plan #tcot
    • Morning Joe Crew Mocks Obama Over Not Doing Serious Interviews
      – YouTube
      – RT @PounderFile VIDEO: Morning Joe Crew Mocks Obama Over Not Doing Serious Interviews #tcot
    • Media Refuse to Connect the Dots on Violent Leftists– So far, the media has done nothing but blame the wrong people. At the first site of violence in Colorado, ABC’s Brian Ross turns to the Tea Party because apparently that’s the only template he knows. He could not have been further from the truth.If police reports are accurate, the violence at a Conservative lobbying group in Washington DC was perpetuated by a radical leftist whose motive was purely political. He said so. He reportedly said he shot up the place because of what it stood for. It doesn’t get more clear than that. It’s like a guy going into a US Military Base yelling “Allahu Akbar” and the media still wondering what the motive is. Wait, that happened as well and the motive was ignored. “We don’t know why Major Hasan did this,” is what most media observers said.An honest media is necessary to expose the motives behind these violent leftists. No, this is not equal on both sides. Not even close.
    • Ryan abandons part of Ryan plan– Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s signature achievement in Congress is his plan to bring runaway federal spending, particularly the skyrocketing cost of Medicare, under control. With Ryan under Democratic fire for his Medicare proposals, columnist Charles Krauthammer suggested Ryan simply declare his plan “history” and move on. “The details of the Ryan plan have some things that don’t mesh with what Romney is running on, and are a little harder to defend,” Krauthammer said Tuesday on Fox News. “I think what Ryan has to say is, look, I proposed the plan in Congress, a congressional plan. It was rejected by the Democratic Senate and by the president. It’s now history.”Ryan is already doing that, at least in part. In his interview with Fox’s Brit Hume Tuesday, Ryan said he has abandoned his plan’s provision to take about a half-trillion dollars out of current Medicare funding in order to shore up the Medicare trust fund for the future (as opposed to the provision of Obamacare that takes about $700 billion out of Medicare to pay for health coverage for currently uncovered people). Romney’s proposal is not to take the money out at all, so Ryan has abandoned his old position and now supports Romney’s
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-08-16 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-08-16 #tcot
    • News from The Associated Press – Obama defends Biden on ‘chains’ comment #tcot
    • Chicago Dream Relief in Demand – 50K Line Up in Chicago– The turnout for Wednesday’s Dream Relief workshop in Chicago was so strong that organizers began turning people away.The line of undocumented students wrapped around Navy Pier and at one point across the Chicago River to apply for deferred action to allow them, at least in the short-term, not to worry about deportation. As many as 50,000 lined up for the program, according to estimates.Following a major immigration policy change about two months ago, the Dream Relief workshop helps children who were illegally brought into the United States apply for a work permit and even a driver’s license.Five thousand people initially signed up for the workshop, and as the 9 a.m. start time came and went, the crowds kept filing toward the lake. Organizers said they would be able to provide full services for 1,500 people today and partial services to another 6,000.

      The new policy announced by President Barack Obama this summer took effect Wednesday and will allow more than 75,000 young undocumented immigrants in Illinois and 1.7 million across the country the temporary right to live and work openly in the United States.

    • Security guard shot at Family Research Council in downtown D.C. – Crime Scene – The Washington Post – Why didn’t the WaPO reporter say the shooter at the FRC was a proponent of same sex marriage with a chick-fil-A sack?
    • AD-48: Roger Hernandez Initially Refused Blood Alcohol Test – AD-48: Roger Hernandez Initially Refused Blood Alcohol Test
    • Untitled (http://www.purplestrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/PurplePoll_Aug15_Final.pdf) – Romney now leading in the swing state polls in Florida, Ohio, Virginia but trails in Colorado But, race remains close
    • Music / Today in Beatles history: Concert at the Shea Stadium, New York. 8.00pm. Beginning of the concert. 56,000 people attend, record of audience for a live performance. The concert is filmed for the BBC by Subafilms Limited, in association with E – Today in Beatles history: Concert at the Shea Stadium, New York. via @pinterest
    • Crossroads GPS: “Business” NV
      – YouTube
      – NV-Sen: Crossroads GPS airs TV ad attacking Rep, Shelley Berkley on numerous ethical lapses #tcot
    • How Tommy Thompson’s win in Wisconsin changes the Senate majority fight – Former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson’s narrow victory in Wisconsin’s Republican Senate primary on Tuesday not only bolsters his party’s chances of winning the seat in the fall election but also betters the GOP’s chances of re-claiming the majority in the chamber this November.
    • Tim Pawlenty Schools Soledad O’Brien on Medicare – Flap’s Blog – Tim Pawlenty Schools Soledad O’Brien on Medicare #tcot
    • The National Organization for Marriage Offers Prayers For “Hero of G Street,” Calls for End to Harmful and Irresponsible “Hate” Label | NOM Blog – RT @NOMupdate: NOM offers prayers for the “Hero of G Street,” and calls for an end to the harmful & irresponsib …
    • Destinations / This image released by NASA on Wednesday, taken by cameras aboard the Curiosity rover, shows the Martian horizon. It’s one of dozens of images that will be made into a panorama. Curiosity landed Sunday on a two-year mission to study whether – This image released by NASA on Wednesday, taken by cameras aboard the Curiosity rover, shows the Martian horizon.
    • SurveyUSA » Blog Archive » In Florida, 17% Change Vote Because of Ryan VP Pick; Vote Changers by 4:3 are Drawn To Romney – In Florida, 17% Change Vote Because of Ryan VP Pick; Vote Changers by 4:3 are Drawn To Romney #tcot
    • ABC 7 News – Washington D.C., Maryland & Virginia News | WJLA.com – Family Research Council shooting leaves security guard wounded | #tcot
    • In Florida, 17% Change Vote Because of Ryan VP Pick; Vote Changers by 4:3 are Drawn To Romney– 17% of registered voters in the state of Florida say they will change who they will vote for in the election for President as a result of Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as Vice President, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted statewide for WFLA-TV in Tampa.Of those who will change their vote, 57% say they are more likely to vote for Romney, 42% say they are less likely to vote for Romney. The state of Florida is one of the most important swing-states in the country. Florida’s 29 electoral votes are critical to Romney.Reaction to the Ryan pick breaks along party lines. 82% of Republicans, 91% of Tea Party members, and 86% of conservatives say the selection of Ryan is excellent or good. 57% of Democrats and 51% of liberals say the Ryan selection is bad or very bad.75% of Republicans say Ryan would be ready to step-in as President if Romney were unable to serve, compared to 28% of Democrats who say Ryan would be ready.

      Cell-phone and home-phone respondents included in this research: SurveyUSA interviewed 640 adults from the state of Florida 08/13/12. Of the adults, 590 were registered to vote. This research was conducted using blended sample, mixed mode. Respondents reachable on a home telephone (70% of registered voters) were interviewed on their home telephone in the recorded voice of a professional announcer. Respondents not reachable on a home telephone (30% of likely voters) were shown a questionnaire on their smartphone, laptop or other electronic device.

    • Video: Joe Biden Living in the Wrong Century With Another Gaffe – Video: Joe Biden Living in the Wrong Century With Another Gaffe #tcot
    • Romney Sees No Immediate Bounce From Ryan V.P. Pick – Gallup Poll: Romney Sees No Immediate Bounce From Ryan V.P. Pick #tcot
    • Political Cartoons / Obama is walking Grandma and Medicare to the cliff… – Obama is walking Grandma and Medicare to the cliff… via @pinterest
    • Family Research Council shooting leaves security guard wounded | WJLA.com – Family Research Council shooting leaves security guard wounded #tcot
    • Economic recovery is weakest since World War II – Yahoo! News – Economic recovery is weakest since World War II #tcot
    • Obama Has Plenty of Time to Drop Biden | The Weekly Standard – One more Biden gaffe and it is Hillary! RT @DRUDGE_REPORT: REPORT: Obama has 22 days to drop Biden… #tcot
    • ‘Dreamers’ Line Up For Legal Status – ABC News – ‘Dreamers’ Line Up For Legal Status #tcot
    • Paul Ryan Speaking at Hate Group’s Annual Conference | HRC Blog | Human Rights Campaign – RT @EWErickson: Gay rights organization considers the Family Research Council a “hate group.” #tcot
    • DrBicuspid Imaging – RT @drbicuspid: #FDA issues guidance on dental CBCT
    • Flap’s California Morning Collection: August 15, 2012 – Flapsblog.org – Flap’s California Morning Collection: August 15, 2012
    • ‘Dreamers’ Line Up For Legal Status– After a lifetime of fearing deportation, being banned for legal work and fighting to stay in the country they grew up in, thousands and thousands of young undocumented immigrants could get a reprieve today as the federal government begins accepting applications for deferred action permits.Immigrants who are under the age of 31 and were brought into the country before their 16th birthdays are eligible for the permits, which will allow them to stay in the country legally for two years. According to the Migration Policy Institute, up to 1.76 million could be eligible.”I have been waiting for this day and will be in line early,” Jose Cabrera, a 23-year-old undocumented immigrant from Mexico, told ABC’s Gina Sunseri in Houston. “I hope this means someday I can be a real citizen.”
    • Pennsylvania voters must show photo ID at polls, judge rules – latimes.com – RT @latimes: Pennsylvania voters must show photo ID at polls, judge rules #tcot
    • Breaking: Shooting at Family Research Council office in DC | WashingtonExaminer.com – Shooting at Family Research Council office in DC #tcot
    • CA-26: Tony Strickland Says NO to Paul Ryan Budget – Flap’s Blog – CA-26: Tony Strickland Says NO to Paul Ryan Budget #tcot
    • The Morning Flap: August 15, 2012 – Flap’s Blog – The Morning Flap: August 15, 2012 #tcot
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: August 15, 2012 – The Morning Drill: August 15, 2012
  • 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 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