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The Morning Flap: March 13, 2012
These are my links for March 12th through March 13th:
- Protests, attacks hit Afghanistan in wake of massacre – Thousands of people took to the streets in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday to protest the killing of 16 civilians by a U.S. soldier, burning an effigy of Barack Obama and calling for the killer to be tried in Afghanistan.
Demonstrators in the city of Jalalabad chanted “Death to America — Death to Obama” and blocked the main highway to Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported.
“Jihad (holy war) is the only way to get the invading Americans out of Afghanistan,” one banner read, according to the newspaper. - Specter says Obama ditched him after he provided 60th vote to pass health reform – Former Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) writes in a new book that President Obama ditched him in the 2010 election after he helped Obama win the biggest legislative victory of his term by passing healthcare reform.
Specter also claims that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) did not uphold his promise to grant him seniority accrued over 28 years of service in the Senate as a Republican.
- California’s Greek Tragedy – WSJ.com – Long a harbinger of national trends and an incubator of innovation, cash-strapped California eagerly awaits a temporary revenue surge from Facebook IPO stock options and capital gains. Meanwhile, Stockton may soon become the state’s largest city to go bust. Call it the agony and ecstasy of contemporary California.
California’s rising standards of living and outstanding public schools and universities once attracted millions seeking upward economic mobility. But then something went radically wrong as California legislatures and governors built a welfare state on high tax rates, liberal entitlement benefits, and excessive regulation. The results, though predictable, are nonetheless striking. From the mid-1980s to 2005, California’s population grew by 10 million, while Medicaid recipients soared by seven million; tax filers paying income taxes rose by just 150,000; and the prison population swelled by 115,000.
California’s economy, which used to outperform the rest of the country, now substantially underperforms. The unemployment rate, at 10.9%, is higher than every other state except Nevada and Rhode Island. With 12% of America’s population, California has one third of the nation’s welfare recipients.
- McGurn: Bill Maher’s ‘Fatwa’ – WSJ.com – ‘I don’t like fatwas.”
The words come from Bill Maher. The HBO comedian was tweeting his disapproval of the campaign to deprive Rush Limbaugh of his sponsors. Especially distressing for Mr. Maher is that the campaign continues even though Mr. Limbaugh has apologized for his rude remarks about the Georgetown Law student who had testified before Congress on behalf of the contraceptive mandate.
Mr. Maher’s “defense,” of course, may have more to do with self-defense. For in the midst of the ritual denunciations of Mr. Limbaugh, it has emerged that liberals—Mr. Maher included—have long called conservative women things far more vulgar. That has led to embarrassing explanations of why Mr. Maher gets a pass, and whether the super PAC backing President Obama should return the million dollars that Mr. Maher has donated.
- Republican Donors in Limbo – The extended Republican presidential primary has left many GOP donors paralyzed — unsure of whether to invest in the upcoming battle against President Barack Obama or focus on Congressional races.
Party insiders increasingly believe that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will win the nomination, a development that would likely open the donor spigot for the general election. But a victory by former Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) or ex-Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) would probably have the opposite effect. A GOP money machine skeptical of the party’s White House prospects would likely spend instead on House and Senate races as the best hope for a November gain.
- A Mere 80% Say They’re Not Better Off Than Four Years Ago –
- Did GDP and the Unemployment Rate Become De-linked? –
- Father And Daughter Run 100th Marathon Together –
- @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-13 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-13
- AD-38: Scott Wilk Wins Santa Clarita Valley Republican Assembly Straw Poll » Flap’s California Blog – AD-38: Scott Wilk Wins Santa Clarita Valley Republican Assembly Straw Poll
- President 2012 Poll Watch: New York Times/CBS Poll Has Obama at 41 Per Cent Approval | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012 Poll Watch: New York Times/CBS Poll Has Obama at 41 Per Cent Approval
- Red meat is blamed for one in 10 early deaths – Small quantities of processed meat such as bacon, sausages or salami can increase the likelihood of dying by a fifth, researchers from Harvard School of Medicine found. Eating steak increases the risk of dying by 12%.
The study found that cutting the amount of red meat in peoples’ diets to 1.5 ounces (42 grams) a day, equivalent to one large steak a week, could prevent almost one in 10 early deaths in men and one in 13 in women.
The scientists said that the government’s current advice that people should eat no more than 2.5 ounces (70 grams) a day, around around the level the average Briton already consumes, was “generous”.
Dr Frank Hu, co-author of the study, said: “Given the growing evidence that even modest amounts of red meat is associated with increased risk of chronic disease and premature death, 2.5 ounces (70 grams) per day seems generous. The bottom line is that we should make red meat only an occassional rather than regular part of our diet.”
Red meat often contains high amounts of saturated fat, while bacon and salami contain large amounts of salt. Replacing red meat with poultry, fish or vegetables, whole grains and other healthy foods cut the risk of dying by up to one fifth, the study found. - Steve Schmidt: Putting Palin on the ticket taught me there are worse things than losing – Via Mediaite, Exhibit A in why John Podhoretz’s review of “Game Change” is titled “Back Stab.” Actually, scratch that; this is Exhibit Z. Schmidt’s getting more attention for it now because the movie’s getting attention but he’s been dumping on Palin publicly for more than two years and privately for who knows how long. (Leaks from unnamed staffers began less than a week after election day and Palin allies inside the campaign warned weeks earlier that they were coming.) This is his job now, I think — doing sporadic cable-news cameos as some sort of RINO Dr. Frankenstein who created a grassroots monster and has to atone by killing it. Michael Goldfarb, who left the Weekly Standard to join the McCain campaign’s communications team, has had enough:
- Back Stab – Sarah Palin as portrayed by her disloyal staff. – Nicolle Wallace was the onetime consultant to CBS News and media aide to George W. Bush who was assigned to work with Sarah Palin after the Alaska governor was chosen as John McCain’s running mate. It was Wallace who assured the McCain campaign that her dear friend Katie Couric, a committed liberal with a history of interviewing Republicans and conservatives in a quietly nasty way, was the right journalist to conduct a major early interview with the extremely conservative vice-presidential nominee.
Palin has only herself to blame for how horribly she came off, but as she was the most hotly sought-after interview in the world at the time, the McCain campaign could have picked and chosen and been cleverly calculating about which journalist would win the prize. Wallace was responsible for one of the great blunders in political advance work of modern media history.
Now, imagine you’re making a movie about the Palin story, one that demonstrates a modicum of sympathy for Sarah Palin’s excoriation at the hands of the media. (I know, I’m talking crazy, but go with me here.) In such a movie, Nicolle Wallace’s catastrophic guidance could have been portrayed in several ways. It could have been played as a simple goof, a wrongheaded political calculation. Or as an example of a kind of golly-gee naïveté, with Wallace being snowed by a seductive Couric. Or as a careerist move killing two birds with one stone, with Wallace seeking to stay in the good graces of her former colleague Couric despite several years of working for Republicans.
- Michael Goldfarb’s response to ‘A game changer for Palin’s image?’ – I can’t speak to the film, because I can’t bring myself to watch it.
Other loyal McCain staffers I’ve spoken to have had the same reaction. While a few senior aides from the McCain campaign collaborated with the authors of Game Change and painted a picture of John McCain and Sarah Palin as so craven or ill-informed or incompetent that no handler could have gotten them elected, the reality is that John McCain was the better man and would have made a better president.
We lost that campaign partly because of events beyond our control, and partly as a result of bad counsel given by the same people who are apparently so flatteringly portrayed in this movie. John McCain deserved better than to be betrayed by his own top aides, and true to form he has honorably stuck by Gov. Palin even as she’s been smeared in the press over and over again by the same self-serving former staffers. I only hope that the Romney campaign takes notice of what’s happened here.
Halperin and Heilemann have gotten a $5 million contract to do the same thing to Romney that they did to McCain, and they will no doubt be looking for Romney aides the same way a con artist searches for his mark – seeking the emotionally vulnerable, the weak, the insecure, the ones who value the approval of MSNBC analysts more than the respect of their own campaign staff. Unfortunately, every Republican campaign has them – and given the opportunity Halperin and Heilemann are certain to reoffend.
- AD-38: Patricia McKeon Upgrades Website and Lists Endorsements » Flap’s California Blog – AD-38: Patricia McKeon Upgrades Website and Lists Endorsements
- Villaraigosa declines to back any of three competing tax initiatives – latimes.com – RT @LATPoliticsCA: Villaraigosa declines to back any of tax initiatives on ballot
- President 2012 Poll Watch: Obama Approval Rate Reaches 49 Per Cent and Trending Upward | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012 Poll Watch: Obama Approval Rate Reaches 49 Per Cent and Trending Upward
- Center-right leaders, Bush alums form religious conscience group – A collection of prominent center-right leaders, including multiple top Bush administration officials, have founded a new advocacy group to advocate for measures exempting religious organizations from federal rules governing contraception coverage, POLITICO has learned.
Among those involved in planning the group are former presidential adviser Mary Matalin, former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, former RNC Chairman and Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson, former Rep. Bill Paxon, former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn and New York Rabbi Meir Yaakov Soloveichik.
Their 501(c)4 organization, Conscience Cause, is aimed at “stopping the implementation of a Department of Health and Human Services regulation which would compel people and organizations to pay for drugs and services that violate their faith,” according to a statement shared with POLITICO.
Both Nicholson and Flynn are former ambassadors to the Vatican; Flynn is the lone Democrat in the group, though he has endorsed Mitt Romney for president.
- College board says it is addressing probation issues – The board that oversees Moorpark, Oxnard and Ventura colleges has drafted a letter to the commission that put the colleges on probation, outlining what it has done to improve and what more it plans to do.
The Ventura County Community College District board is set to vote on the letter Tuesday..
“We’re trying to specifically respond to their concerns, to show them what we’re doing,” said board President Stephen Blum. “We realize we can’t just tell them what we’re going to do. We have to do what we say we’re going to do. I see this as one of our first steps.”
The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges put the three campuses on probation last month, citing problems on the board. The commission noted one trustee’s “disruptive and inappropriate behavior.” Although he is not named in the letter, that trustee is Art Hernandez, who represents Oxnard.
- Gawker more acceptable than conservative talk radio for advertisers? – Given all the attacks on advertisers who advertise on the Rush Limbaugh show or other conservative talk radio shows, one has to wonder why the companies below — who are highlighted on Gawker Media’s advertising page — do not apply such standards of civility and civil discourse to Gawker Media?
Of particular interest was Ford Motor Company, which was included in a list of companies which allegedly had instructed Premier Networks not to run its ads on conservative talk radio for fear of controversy. I have e-mailed Ford both to confirm it will not advertise on conservative talk radio and that it advertises on Gawker Media sites, but have not heard back.
At the end of the day, the point is not that advertisers should quite Gawker, it’s that there is a complete double standard. Sexualized, unapologetic attacks on conservative women simply are part of the accepted landscape.
- California revenues 3.2 percent shy in February – California revenues missed the mark in February by 3.2 percent, or $146.3 million, state Controller John Chiang said Monday.
Chiang, who manages the state’s cash, said the shortfall was likely due to a spike in tax refunds going out earlier than expected in February. Income tax receipts were 5.7 percent, or $99.9 million, below the Department of Finance’s projection.
Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers are anxiously awaiting tax receipts from March and April, two significant revenue months as taxpayers file their returns. The Democratic governor has proposed a budget to close a $9.2 billion deficit, but the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office has suggested that Brown’s estimates are overly optimistic and that the deficit is likely higher than that figure.
Though lawmakers have begun to review Brown’s budget in committee, they do not plan to take significant steps on the plan until late spring, closer to the June 15 deadline. Democratic leaders have said they want to see what tax revenues will be like in March and April before deciding how much to cut and where.
- CA-Sen: California Republican Party Endorses Elizabeth Emken for U.S. Senate Race | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – CA-Sen: California Republican Party Endorses Elizabeth Emken for U.S. Senate Race
- Contact | Smiles For A Lifetime – Temporary (Locum Tenens) Dentistry – @MarkStandriff The website is probably overloaded. You can go here and find my direct text address: First #. Thanks!
- ASICS Support Your Marathoner – 2012 Honda Los Angeles Marathon – Everyone here is the direct link to the Support Your Marathoner Page for me:
- ASICS Support Your Marathoner – 2012 Honda Los Angeles Marathon – @MarkStandriff Mark, is it the support your marathoner link?
- Flapsblog.com Readers: Please Support @Flap – Gregory Flap Cole in the Los Angeles Marathon | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Readers: Please Support @Flap – Gregory Flap Cole in the Los Angeles Marathon
- AD-38: Los Angeles County Republican Party Makes NO Endorsements in Assembly Race » Flap’s California Blog – AD-38: Los Angeles County Republican Party Makes NO Endorsements in Assembly Race
- Social Demographics: Who’s Using Today’s Biggest Networks – More than 66% of adults are connected to one or more social media platforms, but who exactly are these people?
The infographic below, created by Online MBA, breaks down the demographics, including education level, income, age and gender of social media users, along with other miscellaneous facts.
Some sites’ users are more demographically alike than others. One thing is the same for most social sites — college students, or those who have completed some college, represent the majority on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Digg and Reddit. Among Facebook users, 57% have completed some college, and 24% have earned a bachelor’s or master’s degree. Although, people 45 and older make up 46% of Facebook users.
Social media sites are also seeing a gender split — women use social media more than men. More women are on Facebook and Twitter. About 57% of Facebook and 59% of Twitter users are women.
Women gravitate toward Pinterest and young, techie men hang out on Google+. Pinterest has the heaviest gender imbalance — 82% of users are women, who pin crafts, gift ideas, hobbies, interior design and fashion. On the other spectrum, Google+ is dominated by men (71%) and early adopters, engineers and developers. About 50% of Google+ users are 24 or younger.
LinkedIn reports an even ratio of men and women — 49% over age 45 — who use the site to connect with other business professionals.
Most people use social media to stay in touch with friends and family, and more are doing so while on the go. About 200 million Facebook users check their Timelines from their mobile devices every day.
- Justice Dept opposes Texas voter ID law – The Justice Department’s civil rights division on Monday objected to a new photo ID requirement for voters in Texas because many Hispanic voters lack state-issued identification.
Texas is the second state in recent months to become embroiled in a court battle with the Justice Department over photo ID requirements for voters.
The Justice Department said Texas officials failed to show that the newly enacted law has neither a discriminatory purpose nor effect.
The department had been reviewing the law since last year and discussing the matter with state officials. In January, Texas officials sued U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, seeking a court judgment that the state’s recently enacted voter ID law was not discriminatory in purpose or effect. - Flap’s California Morning Collection: March 12, 2012 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Morning Collection: March 12, 2012
- The Morning Flap: March 12, 2012 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – The Morning Flap: March 12, 2012
- Flap’s Dentistry Blog: Dayton Ohio Veterans Administration Dental Clinic Has $6.6 Million in Outstanding Malpractice Claims – Dayton Ohio Veterans Administration Dental Clinic Has $6.6 Million in Outstanding Malpractice Claims
- Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: March 12, 2012 – The Morning Drill: March 12, 2012
- Protests, attacks hit Afghanistan in wake of massacre – Thousands of people took to the streets in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday to protest the killing of 16 civilians by a U.S. soldier, burning an effigy of Barack Obama and calling for the killer to be tried in Afghanistan.
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The Morning Flap: March 6, 2012
These are my links for March 2nd through March 6th:
- Sandra Fluke Argued for Mandatory Coverage for Sex-Change Surgery – Rather belatedly, we are becoming aware that this supposedly typical Georgetown coed is not very typical at all:
[B]irth control is not all that Ms. Fluke believes private health insurance must cover. She also, apparently, believes that it is discrimination deserving of legal action if “gender reassignment” surgeries are not covered by employer provided health insurance. She makes these views clear in an article she co-edited with Karen Hu in the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law.
The title of the article . . . is “Employment Discrimination Against LGBTQ Persons” and was published in the Journal’s 2011 Annual Review.Remember, as Byron York previously reported, Fluke was rejected as a last-minute substitute witness at a Feb. 16 committee hearing because staffers for Chairman Issa were unable to discover Fluke’s claim to expertise relevant to the subject of the hearing. This law school journal article is the sort of thing that might have been discovered about Fluke’s background, had the Democrats who put Fluke forward as a witness done so with the usual 72-hour advance notice.
- Call Them Out By Name: Sandra Fluke, David Gregory and David Friend – After going to an Andrew Breitbart memorial event on Saturday, I am more inspired than ever to fight back against the Left. Three things that were said stood out to me in that regard. Number one, Dana Loesch said we need to follow Breitbart and hit Leftists by “calling them out by name.” Then Brandon Darby mentioned that the Left was taking advantage of our grief and we were losing on Limbaugh. Finally, I’m struck with the image of Breitbart himself in this tribute video looking straight at the camera and simply saying, “War.”
This is war. I am going to defend Limbaugh from the radical Leftists who want to take him off the air. And I am going to call out our opponents by name. Starting with Sandra Fluke, David Gregory and David Friend.
- Sandra Fluke, Gender Reassignment, and Health Insurance – Sandra Fluke is being sold by the left as something she’s not. Namely a random co-ed from Georgetown law who found herself mixed up in the latest front of the culture war who was simply looking to make sure needy women had access to birth control. That, of course, is not the case.
As many have already uncovered Sandra Fluke she is, in reality, a 30 year old long time liberal activist who enrolled at Georgetown with the express purpose of fighting for the school to pay for students’ birth control. She has been pushing for mandated coverage of contraceptives at Georgetown for at least three years according to the Washington Post.
- 2011 total: 254 companies leave California – In 2011, 254 California companies moved some or all of their work and jobs out of state, 26% more than in 2010, according to Irvine business consultant Joe Vranich who has been tracking these departures since 2009.
Twenty-eight of these companies were in Orange County. Seven of them moved or expanded to Texas, three to Mexico, two to Washington and one each to 16 other states, said Vranich, who has changed the name of his business from The Relocation Coach to Spectrum Location Solutions, which helps companies define their goals, find new locations and coordinate the move.The pace is accelerating, Vranich said. An average of 4.9 businesses left California each week of 2011, compared to 3.9 per week (202 total) in 2010 and one a week (51 total) in 2009. In what he calls “disinvestment events,” Vranich counts companies that move jobs, facilities or headquarters out of California and “in carefully selected instances, companies making major capital investments in plants elsewhere that in the past would have been built in California,” Vranich said.
- Contraceptive corporate welfare –
- Flip This White House! –
- GOP focus on control of Congress amid presidential doubts this fall –
- Re: Rush Limbaugh: They don’t want an apology, they want a confession – Ann Althouse gets deep into the weeds on apologies, and finds that some apologies are more equal than others in the eyes of the Democratic Commisariate (emphasis in original):
Now, I believe in general principles, and I want to know what the general principle is about accepting apologies. I’d like to nail down people like Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Eric Boehlert, because their candidate, Barack Obama, is one of the greatest purveyors of apologies in the history of the world!
There is a difference between heartfelt apology, and a political confession. An apology would not be enough to obtain release from prison, while a confession, which is a political statement that has nothing to do with the heart, held out the possibility of getting one out of prison:
- MoveOn.Org – Carbonite CEO tied to : time for conservatives to fight blacklisting?
- Carbonite CEO tied to MoveOn.org: time for conservatives to fight blacklisting? – So. Did you hear about Carbonite and Rush Limbaugh?
No, you didn’t. Not the way you will in a minute. But first?
It’s time to turn the tables.
It’s time to stand up to the bullies.
It’s time to Rally for Rush.
Rush Limbaugh has discussed at length — at length — what Sandra Fluke and her statist cronies are up to. Yes, he used the words “slut” and “prostitute” — using the ludicrous to make his point. Ms. Fluke, in one of the most pathetic, shamelessly whining stories in recent memory, demands to be paid for her sex life because it costs $3,000 for three years of birth control while she’s at law school. She demands that a Catholic university violate its fundamental right to religious liberty so she can have others pay for her sex life. So Rush asked the farcical obvious about somebody who demands that someone else pay her for her apparent, self-admitted prolific sex life. He spent two solid days relating her greed for other people’s money and a lack of personal responsibility to the oldest of principles.
Right on cue, the blacklisting crowd came out of their Stalinist caves. Having driven Lou Dobbs from CNN, cut off Beck’s windpipe at Fox, severed Pat Buchanan from MSNBC, thus emboldened they have now set their sights on Rush.
- Sandra Fluke Defenders Target Rush Limbaugh, Not Bill Maher Or Ed Schultz – When the left savages the right, it’s OK. When America’s top conservative questions why taxpayers must subsidize the sex life of a coed, the sky falls in. Bill Maher, call your office.
When the late, great Andrew Breitbart was asked in a Twitter conversation whether he’d apologize for his website’s posting of a video of a speech by Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod that led to her forced resignation, Breitbart replied, “Apologize for what?”
Breitbart knew the sensitivities and the hypocrisy of the left when their sacred cows and double standards were under attack.
Hell hath no fury, he knew, like a liberal whose dogma stands exposed. He wondered why those on the right always had to apologize for saying liberal emperors had no clothes, when the left never had to apologize for anything no matter how outrageous or offensive.
- Re: Rush Limbaugh – Should Conservatives Make an Example of Carbonite and ProFlowers? | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Re: Rush Limbaugh – Should Conservatives Make an Example of Carbonite and ProFlowers? | Flap’s Blog – Fullosseou…
- Video: Occupy Education Protesters “OCCUPY” the California State Capitol » Flap’s California Blog – Video: Occupy Education Protesters “OCCUPY” the California State Capitol
- Re: Rush Limbaugh – Should Conservatives Make an Example of Carbonite and ProFlowers? | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – RE: You have a very good point…
- L.A. Times Attempting Suicide – Today the Los Angeles Times is charging for visiting its site online. This is a suicide attempt that will severely damage the paper. Its parent company, Tribune Co., long has been in bankruptcy, running up $233 million in legal fees.
- California Students Protest Education Entitlement Cuts – Middle-aged, greying 1960s radicals, pimply faced kids, teachers, throngs of SEIU members, angry Occupy protestors, and union members of all kinds descended upon the state Capitol Monday. They demanded, “Wall Street and the wealthy 1 percent, pay to refund education, jobs, essential services, and a better future.”
The protest was sponsored by the California Teachers Association and the Occupy movement.
The protest even included roving bands of gang-attired youth probably not connected to education, dreadlock-wearing Rastafarians, earth children and the unmistakable sweet smell of marijuana wafting about. Vapid stares, body odor, anger and an abundant use of the “F” word, some attended the rally with an express purpose in mind, while others appeared less committed and just were there for the chanting and day off of school. “Enough is enough,” came the rally cry from college student body presidents. “We stand in solidarity,” said one speaker as Che Guevara signs waived wildly.
- Conejo Valley development icon Joe Brown dies at 86 – Funeral services will be held Saturday March 10 for a fifth-generation Californian who had a hand in shaping the Conejo Valley.
Services will begin at 12:30 p.m. at St. Paschal Baylon Catholic Church in Thousand Oaks for retired Realtor Joseph “Joe” Brown.
Brown died Thursday in his Thousand Oaks home at age 86 with his wife, Dolly, by his side. He had been suffering from heart problems for some time, but Dolly Brown, 65, said his death was somewhat sudden.
“He was lying in his hospital bed about a week ago and he said, ‘I’m not being very productive,’ ” she said with a smile.
By all accounts, “productive” was an understatement when it came to Joe Brown. Among his many accomplishments was helping to establish Mary Health of the Sick Convalescent Home in Newbury Park, the Conejo Valley Association of Realtors and the Ventura County Community Foundation in Camarillo, to name a few of his efforts.
- Lenny Dykstra gets 3 years in California prison – Disgraced ex-New York Mets outfielder Lenny Dykstra on Monday was sentenced to three years in a California state prison after pleading no contest to grand theft auto and providing a false financial statement.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Cynthia Ulfig sentenced Dykstra after refusing to allow him to withdraw his plea and said the scam to lease high-end automobiles from dealerships by providing fraudulent information and claiming credit through a phony business showed sophistication and extensive planning.
“He obviously didn’t have the money to get the vehicles,” Ulfig said. “His conduct was indeed criminal.”
- New California Legislative Information Website Makes Tracking Bills Easier » Flap’s California Blog – New California Legislative Information Website Makes Tracking Bills Easier
- Thousands of Students Protest Education Cuts … Bill Would Add Options in Evaluating Schools: KQED News | KQED Public Media for Northern CA – RT @KQED: From @KQEDnews: several thousand college students protest education cuts in Sacramento #OccupyCapitol
- GOP Hopefuls Losing Ground to Obama Among Latinos, Poll Says – Despite growing disappointment in his handling of immigration issues, Latino voters favor President Barack Obama by six-to-one over any of the Republican presidential hopefuls, showed a Fox News Latino poll conducted under the direction of Latin Insights and released Monday.
The national poll of likely Latino voters indicated that 73 percent of them approved of Obama’s performance in office, with over half those questioned looking favorably upon his handling of the healthcare debate and the economy, at 66 percent and 58 percent respectively.
Released on the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries in the race for the GOP nomination, the Fox News Latino poll shows former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 35 percent of Latino voter support, to Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s 13 percent, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s 12 percent, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s 9 percent.
- Re: Rush Limbaugh – Should Conservatives Make an Example of Carbonite and ProFlowers? | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Re: Rush Limbaugh – Should Conservatives Make an Example of Carbonite and ProFlowers?
- CA-26: Is NPP – No Party Preference a Passing Fad in California Elections? | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – CA-26: Is NPP – No Party Preference a Passing Fad in California Elections?
- Scott Walker Video: Promises Kept | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Scott Walker Video: Promises Kept
- Welcome to total political war – Re: Rush Limbaugh – And I’m not talking about the attempt to get advertisers to stop advertising on Rush Limbaugh’s show, or Fox News, although that would be bad enough.
I’m talking about the second-tier of the warfare, the attempt to intimidate those removed by one or more degrees of separation from the dispute, and to use them as tools against the target.
And I’m not talking about the attempt to get advertisers to stop advertising on Rush Limbaugh’s show, or Fox News, although that would be bad enough. I’m talking about the second-tier of the warfare, the attempt to intimidate those removed by one or more degrees of separation from the dispute, and to use them as tools against the target.
I would not be surprised to see a similar reaction from the right to the left’s attacks on advertisers, but that would be a mistake. What is happening goes beyond Obama’s call for people to argue with their neighbors and get in their faces. It goes far beyond Bill Clinton’s politics of personal destruction directed at accusers, and beyond name-calling by right wing pundits. This total war, in which no one is allowed to be non-political and neighbors and clients become mere pressure points, is a dangerous development.
- Breitbart.Com Relaunches | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Relaunches
- AD-44: California Assemblyman Jeff Gorell’s Welcome Home Rescheduled to April 4 » Flap’s California Blog – AD-44: California Assemblyman Jeff Gorell’s Welcome Home Rescheduled to April 4
- Day By Day March 5, 2012 – Star Wars | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Day By Day March 5, 2012 – Star Wars
- The China Threat – Increasing Defense Spending – The China Threat – Increasing Defense Spending
- Gingrich: Romney can’t ‘close the deal’ – Gingrich: Romney can’t ‘close the deal’
- GA-2012 Primary: 38% Gingrich, 24% Romney, 22% santorum, 3% Paul (Mason-Dixon 2/29-3/2) – RT @pollsterpolls: GA-2012 Primary: 38% Gingrich, 24% Romney, 22% santorum, 3% Paul (Mason-Dixon 2/29-3/2)
- OH-2012 Primary: 34% Romney 31% Santorum 15% Gingrich 12% Paul (Quinnipiac 3/2-4) – RT @pollsterpolls: OH-2012 Primary: 34% Romney 31% Santorum 15% Gingrich 12% Paul (Quinnipiac 3/2-4)
- Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-05 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-05
- @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-05 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-05
- foursquare :: Gregory Flap @ Starbucks Coffee – On the way to San Diego! (@ Starbucks Coffee)
- Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-04 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-04
- @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-04 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-04
- Rush: “I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke”; Update: Ironic tweet of the day – I think Rush did the right thing in apologizing to Fluke. However, let’s keep in mind that it was Fluke who made her sexual activity a matter of national political debate by insisting that the government pass laws and regulations forcing employers and insurers to provide her free contraception, and apparently as much as she and others demand. It’s Republicans who believe that contraception should remain a private affair, and that employers and insurers should be free to decide whether to cover contraception for their employees and customers or not. Democrats used Fluke to demand that those choices be stripped from private enterprises and instead be forced by the executive branch to entirely subsidize contraception.
That is the argument we should be making, as Republicans and conservatives. If you want your sexual choices to remain private, don’t use the government to force other people to subsidize them. Then we won’t have to turn the sex lives of Georgetown law school students into topics for political speculation.
- A Statement from Rush – The Rush Limbaugh Show – RT @DanRiehl: A Statement from Rush RT @DavidLimbaugh:
- Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-03 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-03
- @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-03 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-03
- AD-38 Video: Patricia McKeon Asks the Ventura County Republican Party For an Endorsement » Flap’s California Blog – AD-38 Video: Patricia McKeon Asks the Ventura County Republican Party For an Endorsement
- Day By Day March 2, 2012 – Think Big, America | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Day By Day March 2, 2012 – Think Big, America
- Gallup’s Unadjusted Unemployment Data Suggest Increase in BLS Adjusted Figure – Gallup finds U.S. unemployment, as measured without seasonal adjustment, to be 9.1% in February, based on almost 30,000 interviews with a random sample of Americans. When Gallup applies the 0.5-percentage-point seasonal adjustment that the government applied to its unadjusted data for February last year, it produces an adjusted unemployment rate for February 2012 of 8.6% –a substantial increase from the 8.3% adjusted rate the government reported for January.
- Ohio GOP Race Going Down To The Wire- Quinnipiac University – Ohio GOP Race Going Down To The Wire- Quinnipiac University
- Sandra Fluke’s Appearance Is No Fluke – Sandra Fluke’s Appearance Is No Fluke
- Sandra Fluke is not a “slut.” She’s a femme-agogue tool; DCCC, Emily’s list fund-raise off of Rush –
- Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-02 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-02
- Kentucky to Settle for Compromise Methamphetamine Legislation? | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Kentucky to Settle for Compromise Methamphetamine Legislation? | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog
- @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-02 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-03-02
- Sandra Fluke Argued for Mandatory Coverage for Sex-Change Surgery – Rather belatedly, we are becoming aware that this supposedly typical Georgetown coed is not very typical at all:
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The Afternoon Flap: December 7, 2011
These are my links for December 6th through December 7th:
- Alec Baldwin: A Farewell to Common Sense, Style, and Service on American Airlines – First off, I would like to apologize to the other passengers onboard the American Airlines flight that I was thrown off of yesterday. It was never my intention to inconvenience anyone with my “issue” with a certain flight attendant.
I suppose a part of my frustration lay with the fact that I had flown American for over 20 years and was brand loyal, in the extreme. The ticketing agents and Admiral’s Club staff have always been nothing but abundantly helpful to me, as I have flown hundreds of thousands of miles with the one carrier.
My confusion began when the flight, already a half hour behind schedule, boarded, the door closed, and we proceeded to sit at the gate for another fifteen minutes. I then did what I have nearly always done and that was to pull out my phone to complete any other messaging I had to do before take off. In nearly all other instances, the flight attendants seemed to be unbothered by and said nothing about such activity, by me or anyone else, until we actually were pulling away from the gate.
- Sarah Palin Won’t Endorse Before Iowa Caucuses – Sarah Palin told Fox Business Network today that she will not be endorsing a candidate in the next few weeks.
“Not before Iowa,” Palin said, in an interview set to air at 10 p.m. EST on FBN. “And Iowa’s not the end of the road. It’s the beginning of the road really. Newt Gingrich, I believe, has risen in the polls because he has been a bit more successful than Romney in reaching out to that base of constitutional conservatives who are part of the tea party movement. He hasn’t been afraid of that movement. He has been engaged in that movement most recently in order for them to hear his solutions and there’s been some forgiveness then on the part of Tea Party Patriots for some of the things in Gingrich’s past.”
- Obama administration refuses to relax Plan B restrictions – The federal government Wednesday rejected a request to let young teenage girls buy the controversial morning-after pill Plan B directly off drugstore and supermarket shelves without a prescription.
In a rare public split among federal health officials, the Health and Human Services Department overruled a decision by the Food and Drug Administration to make the drug available to anyone of any age without a restriction.
In a statement, FDA Administrator Margaret A. Hamburg said she had decided the medication could be used safely by girls and women of all ages. But she added that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had rejected the move.
“I agree … there is adequate and reasonable, well-supported, and science-based evidence that Plan B One-Step is safe and effective and should be approved for nonprescription use for all females of child-bearing potential,” Hamburg said.
“However, this morning I received a memorandum from the Secretary of Health and Human Services invoking her authority under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to execute its provisions and stating that she does not agree with the Agency’s decision to allow the marketing of Plan B One-Step nonprescription for all females of child-bearing potential,” she said.
- Death penalty dropped against Mumia Abu-Jamal – Prosecutors on Wednesday abandoned their 30-year pursuit of the execution of convicted police killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther whose claim that he was the victim of a racist legal system made him an international cause celebre.
Abu-Jamal, 58, will instead spend the rest of his life in prison. His writings and radio broadcasts from death row had put him at the center of an international debate over capital punishment.
Flanked by Officer Daniel Faulkner’s widow, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced his decision two days short of the 30th anniversary of the white policeman’s killing.
He said continuing to seek the death penalty could lead to “an unknowable number of years” of appeals, and that some witnesses have died or are unavailable after nearly three decades.
“There’s never been any doubt in my mind that Mumia Abu-Jamal shot and killed Officer Faulkner. I believe that the appropriate sentence was handed down by a jury of his peers in 1982,” said Williams, the city’s first black district attorney. “While Abu-Jamal will no longer be facing the death penalty, he will remain behind bars for the rest of his life, and that is where he belongs.”
Abu-Jamal was originally sentenced to death. His murder conviction was upheld through years of appeals. But in 2008, a federal appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing on the grounds that the instructions given to the jury were potentially misleading.
After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to weigh in two months ago, prosecutors were forced to decide whether to pursue the death penalty again or accept a life sentence without parole.
Williams said he reached the decision with the blessing of Faulkner’s widow, Maureen.
- Poll Watch: A Majority of California Voters Favor Governor Jerry Brown’s Pension Reform Plans » Flap’s California Blog – Poll Watch: A Majority of California Voters Favor Governor Jerry Brown’s Pension Reform Plans
- Anti-union “paycheck protection” measure qualifies for Nov. 2012 ballot | Politics Blog | an SFGate.com blog – Anti-union “paycheck protection” measure qualifies for Nov. 2012 California ballot #catcot
- President 2012 GOP Poll Watch: Newt Gingrich Leads BIG in 3 Early States – Is Newt the Nominee? | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012 GOP Poll Watch: Newt Gingrich Leads BIG in 3 Early States – Is Newt the Nominee? #tcot #catcot
- Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire – RT @pwire: New polls from Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida will be out within the hour…
- O’Grady v. Superior Court – 139 Cal. App. 4th 1423, 2006 WL 1452685 (Cal. App. , 6th Dist., May 26, 2006) – Apple Barred From Obtaining Source Of Blog’s Article
Reversing the court below, the California Court of Appeals holds that the Stored Communications Act prohibits an ISP that hosted a blog’s email account from disclosing e-mails sent to the blog in response to a subpoena issued in a civil litigation. The subpoena sought production of e-mails that would permit Apple Computer (“Apple”) to identify the individual(s) who transmitted trade secret information about an as yet unreleased Apple product to the blog/website Power Page, which information was the source of articles Power Page subsequently published on its blog/website.
The Court further held that petitioners, who acted as publishers of, and/or editors or reporters for, the news blogs that published the stories at issue about this Apple product, were entitled to a protective order against their disclosure of the confidential sources of their stories. Notwithstanding Apple’s claim that the information petitioners received from these services constituted trade secrets disclosed in violation of confidentiality agreements each of its employees had signed, the Court held such disclosure barred by both California’s Reporter’s Shield Law and the First Amendment. The Court held that the Shield Law, which prohibits a court from holding in contempt a publisher, editor or reporter of “a newspaper, magazines or other periodical publication” for failing to disclose the source of a published story, protected petitioners, publishers and/or reporters of news blogs, from having to disclose the sources of the stories at issue. The First Amendment similarly provided protection, given Apple’s failure to fully exhaust other avenues of disclosure before pursuing discovery from petitioners.
- Crystal Cox, Oregon Blogger, Isn’t a Journalist, Concludes U.S. Court–Imposes $2.5 Million Judgement on Her – A U.S. District Court judge in Portland has drawn a line in the sand between “journalist” and “blogger.” And for Crystal Cox, a woman on the latter end of that comparison, the distinction has cost her $2.5 million.
Speaking to Seattle Weekly, Cox says that the judgement could have impacts on bloggers everywhere.“This should matter to everyone who writes on the Internet,” she says.
Cox runs several law-centric blogs, like industrywhistleblower.com, judicialhellhole.com, and obsidianfinancesucks.com, and was sued by investment firm Obsidian Finance Group in January for defamation, to the tune of $10 million, for writing several blog posts that were highly critical of the firm and its co-founder Kevin Padrick.
Representing herself in court, Cox had argued that her writing was a mixture of facts, commentary and opinion (like a million other blogs on the web) and moved to have the case dismissed. Dismissed it wasn’t, however, and after throwing out all but one of the blog posts cited by Obsidian Financial, the judge ruled that this single post was indeed defamatory because it was presented, essentially, as more factual in tone than her other posts, and therefore a reasonable person could conclude it was factual.
The judge ruled against Cox on that post and awarded $2.5 million to the investment firm.
- Unlike Oregon, Bloggers Are Journalists in Washington State, Do Qualify for Legal Protections – This morning we told you about the troubling case of Crystal Cox, the Oregon blogger who was successfully sued for defamation, thanks in part to a federal court ruling that she isn’t a “journalist” and therefore doesn’t qualify for the state’s media shield laws. Now, the man who wrote the shield laws in Washington state has weighed in on whether such a ruling would fly here.
Bruce E. H. Johnson, attorney with Davis Wright Tremaine, is a veteran litigator in the field of free speech and media law. In 2006 he drafted Washington state’s media shield legislation, and in 2007 the state legislature passed it into law.He says that had Cox’s case been heard in a Washington court, the outcome (at least in regards to the shield law) would have most likely been different.
“I believe the shield law would have been applied [in Washington state],” Johnson tells Seattle Weekly. “Oregon’s law was probably written before blogging was accounted for
- Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: December 7, 2011 – The Morning Drill: December 7, 2011
- President 2012: Newt Gingrich the Worst of Both Worlds? | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012: Newt Gingrich the Worst of Both Worlds? #tcot #catcot
- Blagojevich gets 14 years in prison for corruption – CNN Political Ticker – CNN.com Blogs – RT @PoliticalTicker: BREAKING: Blagojevich sentenced to 14 years in prison –
- Dilbert December 7, 2011 – Lower the Expectations? » Flap’s California Blog – Dilbert December 7, 2011 – Lower the Expectations?
- Day By Day December 7, 2011 – In Your Face Politics | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Day By Day December 7, 2011 – In Your Face Politics #tcot #catcot
- @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-12-07 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-12-07 #tcot #catcot
- Getting to a Brokered Convention | RedState – RT @fivethirtyeight: Some Republican donors still trying to draft new candidate.
- No TR: The Limits of Obama’s Bully Pulpit – 2012 Decoded – Sorry but Prez Obama is NO Teddy Roosevelt – not even close –
- Flap’s California Afternoon Collection: December 6, 2011 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Afternoon Collection: December 6, 2011
- (500) http://flapsblog.com/2011/12/06/the-afternoon-flap-december-6-2011/ – The Afternoon Flap: December 6, 2011 #tcot #catcot
- Heartbreak Awaits Republicans Who Love Gingrich: Ramesh Ponnuru- Bloomberg – Heartbreak Awaits Republicans Who Love Gingrich
- Alec Baldwin: A Farewell to Common Sense, Style, and Service on American Airlines – First off, I would like to apologize to the other passengers onboard the American Airlines flight that I was thrown off of yesterday. It was never my intention to inconvenience anyone with my “issue” with a certain flight attendant.