• Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: April 30, 2012

    April 30, 2012 /

    These are my links for April 26th through April 30th:

    • Occupy Wall Street plans mass May Day demonstration to shut down NYC – The NYPD is bracing for an attempt by Occupy Wall Street protesters to shut down traffic at arteries across the city during a mass demonstration Tuesday.

      Using websites and pamphlets, OWS organizers are urging people to help block traffic at bridge and tunnel ports to slow people going to work on May Day.

      Protesters — who also plan action in front of several financial buildings — are using the date to strengthen their numbers since the labor movement traditionally holds rallies that day.

      “No work, no school, no shopping, now housework, no compliance,” reads a posting on one OWS-related website. “If you can’t strike call in sick. If you can’t call in sick hold a slow down.”

      Other Occupy websites say protesters will try to blockade city crossings as they did the Brooklyn Bridge in October — when more than 700 people were arrested for marching on the span’s roadway.

      One website also calls for marchers to swarm financial buildings, including the offices of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and the New York Stock Exchange.

      Mayor Bloomberg said the city is prepared to thwart any actions that could cause serious delays in people’s commutes.

      He declined to discuss how authorities have been training to handle any OWS action. But sources said the NYPD conducted a major exercise at Floyd Bennett Field on Wednesday.

    • Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Protests in May Day Resurgence – Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, whose anti-greed message spread worldwide during an eight-week encampment in Lower Manhattan last year, plan marches across the globe today calling attention to what they say are abuses of power and wealth.

      Organizers say they hope the coordinated events will mark a spring resurgence of the movement after a quiet winter. Calls for a general strike with no work, no school, no banking and no shopping have sprung up on websites in Toronto, Barcelona, London, Kuala Lumpur and Sydney, among hundreds of cities in North America, Europe and Asia.

      In New York, Occupy Wall Street will join scores of labor organizations observing May 1, traditionally recognized as International Workers’ Day. They plan marches from Union Square to Lower Manhattan and a “pop-up occupation” of Bryant Park on Sixth Avenue, across the street from Bank of America’s Corp.’s 55-story tower.

      “We call upon people to refrain from shopping, walk out of class, take the day off of work and other creative forms of resistance disrupting the status quo,” organizers said in an April 26 e-mail.

      Occupy groups across the U.S. have protested economic disparity, decrying high foreclosure and unemployment rates that hurt average Americans while bankers and financial executives received bonuses and taxpayer-funded bailouts. In the past six months, similar groups, using social media and other tools, have sprung up in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Day By Day April 30, 2012 – Nudge,Nudge – Day By Day April 30, 2012 – Nudge,Nudge
    • After Last Night – WH Correspondent’s Dinner – Politically, the most interesting phenomenon last night was the dog jokes. The President himself made three jokes about eating dogs. This represents a victory for new media and especially for Jim Treacher, since liberal news sources like the New York Times and Jon Stewart had studiously tried to pretend that the dog controversy didn’t exist. Obama and Kimmel evidently recognized that Twitter made such pretense impossible. (The New York Times, however, is still holding out.)

      Events like last night’s always leave me feeling in need of a shower. Partly it is because there some truth to Kimmel’s joke, after noting that the room was full of politicians, members of the media and celebrities, that “Everything that is wrong with America is here in this room.” Partly is is due to the sense that everyone involved in the event is pretending. The politicians pretend to engage in self-deprecation that shows they don’t take themselves too seriously. The comics pretend that they are just trying to be funny, lampooning politicians impartially in search of laughs. But, even though some of the lines are indeed funny, the premise of the event is fundamentally false. In fact, politicians, comedians and even the celebrities present are pursuing an agenda that is both self-aggrandizing and political. That is why, I think, such events always leave me feeling unclean.

    • The Auto Bailout Bust – President Barack Obama has made the auto bailout a centerpiece of his reelection campaign, using it to bash Republican nominee Mitt Romney. But the tactic may backfire as the general election heats up, public opinion surveys suggest.

      Recent polling from Rasmussen indicates that 59 percent view the bailouts as a “failure” and only 44 percent think the bailouts were “good for America.”

      The administration has already written off $7 billion in taxpayer losses in the American takeover of Chrysler and General Motors; those losses are expected to climb as high as $23 billion—27 percent of the $85 billion spent on the bailout.

      While the bailout is widely credited with saving the two companies, increasing taxpayer losses have made it nearly as unpopular in 2012 as it was when Obama was elected. More than half of Americans still disapprove of the auto bailout compared with 61 percent in 2008.

    • On Second Thought, Maybe N.C. Was a Mistake – If national Democratic strategists chose Charlotte, N.C., for the party’s national convention because they liked the facilities, the hotel accommodations or the weather in early September, then I guess I can’t yet quibble with the choice.

      But if David Axelrod and the president’s other political advisers picked the Tar Heel State to make some broader political point, then they goofed.

      Simply put: North Carolina looks like a mess for Democrats.

    • Barnes & Noble to spin off digital Nook business, Microsoft will invest $300 million into it | The Verge – RT @verge: Barnes & Noble to spin off digital Nook business, Microsoft will invest $300 million into it
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-04-30 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-04-30
    • Untitled (http://getglue.com/Fullosseousflap/stickers/amc/the_killing_openings?s=ts&ref=Fullosseousflap) – I unlocked the The Killing: Openings sticker on @GetGlue!
    • Maybe no housing rebound for a generation: Shiller – The Housing market is likely to remain weak and may take a generation or more to rebound, Yale economics professor Robert Shiller told Reuters Insider on Tuesday.

      Shiller, the co-creator of the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index, said a weak labor market, high gas prices and a general sense of unease among consumers was outweighing low mortgage rates and would likely keep a lid on prices for the foreseeable future.

    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Day By Day April 29, 2012 – Man of Steal – Day By Day April 29, 2012 – Man of Steal
    • Sweet revenge: Dentist pulls ALL of ex-boyfriend’s teeth out after getting dumped  – NY Daily News – Sweet revenge: Dentist pulls ALL of ex-boyfriend’s teeth out after getting dumped  – NY Daily News
    • Sweet revenge: Dentist pulls ALL of ex-boyfriend’s teeth out after getting dumped  – NY Daily News – Sweet revenge: Dentist pulls ALL of ex-boyfriend’s teeth out after getting dumped  – NY Daily News
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-04-29 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-04-29
    • Sweet revenge: Dentist pulls ALL of ex-boyfriend’s teeth out after getting dumped  – NY Daily News – Sweet revenge: Dentist pulls ALL of ex-boyfriend’s teeth out after getting dumped 
    • Sweet revenge: Dentist pulls ALL of ex-boyfriend’s teeth out after getting dumped  – Revenge is a dish best served with novocaine.

      A dentist in Poland, dumped by her boyfriend, got payback by removing all of her former lover’s teeth — leading his new lady to dump him, too.

      Anna Mackowiak could face three years in jail after she agreed to treat her ex-boyfriend, Marek Olszewski, when he asked her to help with a toothache just days after he broke up with her.

      “I tried to be professional and detach myself from my emotions,” Mackowiak, 34, told the Daily Mail. “But when I saw him lying there I just thought, ‘What a bastard.’”

      Mackowiak then allegedly gave Olszewski, 45, a massive dose of anaesthetic and coldly plucked out his teeth one by one.

      She then wrapped his jaw in bandages to prevent him from opening his mouth — and then simply walked away.

      “I knew something was wrong because when I woke up I couldn’t feel any teeth and my jaw was strapped up with bandages,” Olszewski told the British newspaper.

      But he did not realize the horror of what happened until he got back to his Wroclaw apartment.

    • Political Cartoons / Obama is just too cool….. – Obama is just too cool…..
    • Amazon Softens Stance on Taxes – Amazon.com Inc. reached an agreement with Texas officials Friday to begin collecting sales taxes in the state starting in July and appears to be backing away from its long-held opposition to tax collection in states where it has warehouses and other facilities.
      With the deal, the Seattle-based company is on track to collect sales taxes in 12 states, which make up about 40% of the U.S. population, by 2016. Amazon currently collects taxes in five states. Since 2011, it has reached agreements with seven other states, including Texas, to begin tax collection over the next four years.
    • “Amazon tax” struck down in Illinois in boost for affiliates – GeekWire – “Amazon tax” struck down in Illinois in boost for affiliates
    • Amazon settles with Texas over sales tax – Amazon has reached another settlement over state taxes, this time with Texas.

      Reuters reports that the giant e-tailer will start collecting sales tax in Texas come July 1, as part of a settlement that requires Amazon to bring 2,500 jobs and $200 million in capital investment to the state over the next four years.

      In exchange for the jobs and money, Texas State Comptroller Susan Combs is dropping the state’s demand for $269 million to cover sales taxes from 2005 to 2009, Reuters reports.

      Amazon struck a deal with the state of Nevada earlier in the week whereby it will begin collecting sales taxes there on January 1, 2014. It also reached an agreement with California last September that gave it another year before it has to begin collecting sales taxes in that state.

      Things went the other way in Illinois yesterday, when a judge there called unconstitutional a law designed to let the state collect sales tax from out-of-state, online retailers.

    • “Amazon tax” struck down in Illinois in boost for affiliates – The state of Illinois has lost a lawsuit against the state’s attempt to collect sales tax from out-of-state, online retailers — a law often called the “Amazon tax.”

      The Performance Marketing Association, which represents affiliate marketers such as those working with Amazon, had challenged the 2011 law that created the Illinois Affiliate Nexus Tax. A Cook County Circuit judge ruled the law unconstitutional because, according to Crain’s Chicago Business, “simply having an affiliated company in the state that makes sales or refers customers to an online retailer doesn’t create enough of a presence, or nexus, for tax purposes.”

      The judge also said the law was unenforceable because of a federal Internet tax moratorium that is in place through 2014.

    • Gregory Flap @ Ronnie’s Diner – foursquare – 8 miler in the books. Now at Ronnie’s with Alice and Nancy (@ Ronnie’s Diner)
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-04-28 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-04-28
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » IN-Sen: Sarah Palin Endorses Richard Mourdock – IN-Sen: Sarah Palin Endorses Richard Mourdock
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Day By Day April 27, 2012 – Fantasy Friday-Public Served – Day By Day April 27, 2012 – Fantasy Friday-Public Served
    • CA-26: NRCC gives 3 ‘contender’ status – The National Republican Congressional Committee has given three GOP House challengers “contender” status, the third out of four steps in the “Young Guns” program to recruit new and viable Republican candidates.

      Republicans Tony Strickland in California, Jason Plummer in Illinois and Matt Doheny in New York were all elevated to the next level of the program Thursday.

      The candidates will face new benchmarks for fundraising and recruiting before attaining “Young Guns” status.

    • CA-26: Dog Is as Dog Does – How a live-free-or-die dude like Strickland came to be a born-again Nanny State zealot, however, is not so mysterious. It turns out he’s now running for a congressional seat in Ventura, and his chief Democratic rival, Julia Brownley, led the charge to ban plastic bags statewide while in the Assembly. Not only that, but Brownley is now pushing a much softer and kinder bill to define what constitutes a reusable bag. Brownley’s bill would require such bags be strong enough to carry 22 pounds more than 100 times for a distance of 175 feet. Rather than require a warning label designed to scare off possible users, Brownley’s bill would mandate bags to come with a tag identifying its country of origin and stating no lead, cadmium, other toxic heavy metals designed to sap one’s wits were used in its manufacture.

      Just remember there are 41 shopping days left between now and the June primary. I’ll do my part by shopping with a cross-contaminated, lead-based bag. You can spot me huffing by the broccoli section at Trader Joe’s. Please do not disturb. I already am.

    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Linda Parks and Her Cable Television ONLY Campaign Strategy – CA-26: Linda Parks and Her Cable Television ONLY Campaign Strategy
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: April 26, 2012 – The Morning Flap: April 26, 2012
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: April 24, 2012

    April 24, 2012 /

    A US Border vehicle drives along the US and Mexico border fence in Naco, Arizona, Photo: Reuters

    These are my links for April 23rd through April 24th:

    • For first time since Depression, more Mexicans leave U.S. than enter – A four-decade tidal wave of Mexican immigration to the United States has receded, causing a historic shift in migration patterns as more Mexicans appear to be leaving the United States for Mexico than the other way around, according to a report from the Pew Hispanic Center.

      It looks to be the first reversal in the trend since the Depression, and experts say that a declining Mexican birthrate and other factors may make it permanent.

    • Net Migration from Mexico Falls to Zero—and Perhaps Less | – The largest wave of immigration in history from a single country to the United States has come to a standstill. After four decades that brought 12 million current immigrants—more than half of whom came illegally—the net migration flow from Mexico to the United States has stopped—and may have reversed, according to a new analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center of multiple government data sets from both countries.

      The standstill appears to be the result of many factors, including the weakened U.S. job and housing construction markets, heightened border enforcement, a rise in deportations, the growing dangers associated with illegal border crossings, the long-term decline in Mexico’s birth rates and changing economic conditions in Mexico.

      The report is based on the Center’s analysis of data from five different Mexican government sources and four U.S. government sources. The Mexican data come from the Mexican Decennial Censuses (Censos de Población y Vivienda), the Mexican Population Counts (Conteos de Población y Vivienda), the National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (Encuesta Nacional de la Dinámica Demográfica or ENADID), the National Survey of Occupation and Employment (Encuesta Nacional de Ocupación y Empleo or ENOE), and the Survey on Migration at the Northern Border of Mexico (Encuesta sobre Migración en la Frontera Norte de México or EMIF-Norte). The U.S. data come from the 2010 Census, the American Community Survey, the Current Population Survey and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

    • California’s Demographic Revolution by Heather Mac Donald – California is in the middle of a far-reaching demographic shift: Hispanics, who already constitute a majority of the state’s schoolchildren, will be a majority of its workforce and of its population in a few decades. This is an even more momentous development than it seems. Unless Hispanics’ upward mobility improves, the state risks becoming more polarized economically and more reliant on a large government safety net. And as California goes, so goes the nation, whose own Hispanic population shift is just a generation or two behind.

      The scale and speed of the Golden State’s ethnic transformation are unprecedented. In the 1960s, Los Angeles was the most Anglo-Saxon of the nation’s ten largest cities; today, Latinos make up nearly half of the county’s residents and one-third of its voting-age population. A full 55 percent of Los Angeles County’s child population has immigrant parents. California’s schools have the nation’s largest concentration of “English learners,” students from homes where a language other than English is regularly spoken. From 2000 to 2010, the state’s Hispanic population grew 28 percent, to reach 37.6 percent of all residents, almost equal to the shrinking white population’s 40 percent. Nearly half of all California births today are Hispanic. The signs of the change are everywhere—from the commercial strips throughout the state catering to Spanish-speaking customers, to the flea markets and illegal vendors in such areas as MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, to the growing reach of the Spanish-language media.

    • Are Hispanics moving up or down the social scale? – Arguably, Hispanics received the most benefit and the most harm from subprime lending during the Housing Bubble.

      A 2005 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York of 75,744 minority subprime loan borrowers found the largest percentage was Hispanic (15,647 loans or 20.7 percent). This study found no evidence of adverse pricing of subprime loans by race or ethnicity and minority borrowers paid lower rates.

      A 2008 study by the U.S. Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C. found Southern California was the hot spot for the most subprime loans in all of the United States in 2005. And out of the top 10 cities with the most subprime loans, six were in California (percent of Hispanic population in parentheses): Riverside (45 percent), Bakersfield (45.5 percent), Stockton (37.6 percent), Modesto (35.5 percent), Fresno (50.3 percent) and Visalia (46.0 percent). Where Hispanics got into trouble had more to do with home equity loans than primary home purchase loans.

      Hispanics were hit hardest with foreclosures after the Housing Bubble popped.

      If the Housing Bubble demonstrated anything, it is that Hispanics suffered not from too little, but too much, upward mobility by government-induced home ownership policies.

    • Boston Qualifying Rate Drops by a Third – Some interesting data-crunching from Ray Charbonneau, who blogs at Y42K?: If you compare the 2011 and 2012 fields of some major marathons, you’ll find the Boston qualifying rate on average has dropped by about a third. Charbonneau excludes the results from this year’s Houston Marathon—where qualifying rates actually went up—assuming that the Olympic Marathon Trials helped attract some higher-caliber athletes than the 2011 race. He also excludes results from this year’s exceptionally warm Boston Marathon and National Marathon in Washington, D.C., where qualifying rates dropped even more than a third. The stricter qualifying standards the B.A.A. put into place for the 2013 Boston Marathon (which went into effect last September) lowered qualifying times across all age groups by five minutes and 59 seconds. Based on Charbonneau’s results, this drop should eliminate about a third of all previous qualifiers.
    • Rethinking the Hispanic Vote – For Republicans, the illegal immigration litmus test, forcing conservative candidates to toe a hardline on the issue, could very well recede in the near future. A January Pew poll showed the number of Republicans considering illegal immigration as a top issue has plummeted, dropping from 69 percent in 2007 to 48 percent at the beginning of this year. The future Republican positioning on immigration could very well be closer to the policy views of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio than that of hardliners like Iowa Rep. Steve King.

      The long-term political implications are equally significant. Democrats have counted Hispanics as a pivotal part of their coalition, but there’s no guarantee that as first-generation immigrants assimilate, they will remain reliable partisan voters. Indeed, a complementary Pew Hispanic Center study, released last month, showed immigrants becoming more Republican the longer they’ve been in this country — a similar narrative to other first-generation ethnic groups.

    • Protest by Catholic activists may hamper Obama reelection bid – President Obama has seen his standing among Catholic voters, a crucial segment of the electorate, slip in recent weeks, and a looming confrontation with Catholic activists could make it worse.

      Democrats want voters this year to focus on what they have branded a war on women, but the flip side of the debate — the so-called war on religion — is not going away anytime soon.

      Earlier this month, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called for two weeks of public protest in June and July against what it sees as growing government encroachment on religious freedom.

      The protests are expected to include priests and nuns and thousands of Catholic parishioners. Some activists expect civil disobedience, which could lead to powerful images of priests and nuns being led away in hand restraints.

    • Capitol Alert: Measure to repeal death penalty in California qualifies for ballot – Capitol Alert: Measure to repeal death penalty in California qualifies for ballot
    • Pew: immigration from Mexico drops to net zero – Immigration from Mexico has reached a net zero, with as many Mexicans moving back to Mexico as are entering the United States, according to the Pew Research Center’s Jeffrey Passel, a highly regarded demographer who used data from both countries.

      The report released Wednesday cited several possible reasons, including, “the weakened U.S. job and housing construction markets, heightened border enforcement, a rise in deportations, the growing dangers associated with illegal border crossings, the long-term decline in Mexico’s birth rates and changing economic conditions in Mexico.”

    • California prisons detail plan to downsize, cut costs – The California prison system on Monday unveiled an extensive plan to cut spending by billions of dollars, close a prison and return inmates being housed out of state — all while meeting court-ordered benchmarks on medical care and overcrowding.

      In three years, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is expected to be 7.5% of the state’s total budget, down from an estimated 9.4% in the upcoming fiscal year. This is largely because of realignment, the process of sending low-level offenders to local jails instead of state prisons to comply with a court order to reduce chronic overcrowding.

      “California is finally getting its prison costs under control and taking the necessary steps to meet federal court mandates,” Gov. Jerry Brown said in a statement.

      Some parts of the state’s plan will require consent from the Legislature, and its success also hinges in part on court approval. Although the court ordered California to reduce its inmate population to 137.5% of prison capacity, the state expects to fall slightly short, at 141% — a difference of up to 6,000 inmates — by the June 2013 deadline.

      Corrections Secretary Matt Cate said the state will ask the court to raise its benchmark next year.

    • Measure to repeal death penalty in California qualifies for ballot – Californians voters going to the polls in November will again decide the fate of the death penalty.

      A measure to abolish the death penalty and replace it with a maximum sentence of life behind bars without parole has qualified for the Nov. 6 ballot, the Secretary of State confirmed today. The measure, backed by a coalition that includes the American Civil Liberties Union and some law enforcement and victims rights groups, would apply to inmates currently on death row.

      Supporters say capital punishment, which voters added to the state’s books in 1978, costs California more than $100 million a year while leading to very few executions because of the time it takes to go through the appeals process.

    • The politics of death penalty heads to November ballot – Almost 34 years to the day California voters decided that the state’s worst crimes should be punished by execution, the repeal of that same punishment will be back on the statewide ballot.

      State elections officials confirmed late Monday that an initiative to abolish capital punishment in California has qualified for the November ballot, with supporters having gathered more than enough voter signatures to call the question.

      The initiative would not only repeal the death penalty but would also convert the sentences of all 724 inmates currently on Death Row to life without the possibility of parole. It would further commit $30 million a year for three years to local law enforcement efforts on unsolved murder and rape crimes.

    • Medscape: Medscape Access – Medscape: Medscape Access
    • Poll: Obama ahead in battleground New Hampshire – CNN Political Ticker – CNN.com Blogs – RT @PoliticalTicker: Poll: Obama ahead in battleground New Hampshire –
    • Doctors say teens go to hospitals after drinking hand sanitizer – Doctors are warning parents about a dangerous new trend after six teenagers drank hand sanitizer and ended up in San Fernando Valley emergency rooms with alcohol poisoning.

      Teenagers are using salt to separate the alcohol from the sanitizer, doctors said.

      “It’s essentially a shot of hard liquor,” said Cyrus Rangan, director of the toxicology bureau for the Los Angeles County public health department and a medical toxicology consultant for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “All it takes is just a few swallows and you have a drunk teenager.”

      Although there have been only a few cases, Rangan said the practice could easily become a larger problem. Bottles of hand sanitizers are inexpensive and accessible and teens can find instructions on distillation on the Internet.

    • Medscape: Medscape Access – Unexplained Infant Deaths Often Linked to Bed Sharing
    • Medscape: Medscape Access – Big Tobacco Groups Fear Spread of Plain Packaging
    • Humor / Not the ol’ bag over the head trick…. – Not the ol’ bag over the head trick….
    • Unexplained Infant Deaths Often Linked to Bed Sharing – Among infants who have died suddenly and unexpectedly, most were sharing a sleep surface with another child or adult, and only one fourth were sleeping in a crib or on their back when found, according to a new report.

      Results were published in the American Journal of Public Health online April 19. The study was conducted by Patricia G. Schnitzer, PhD, from the Sinclair School of Nursing, University of Missouri, Columbia, and colleagues.

      According to the researchers, more than 4000 infants without prior known illness or injury die suddenly and unexpectedly each year in the United States.

      The researchers found that only about one fourth of infants were sleeping in a crib or on their back when found, but 70% were on a surface not intended for infant sleep, such as an adult bed. Of note, 64% of infants were sharing a sleep surface, and of those, nearly half were sleeping with an adult.

      One study limitation, among others, is the possible lack of generalizability because the data were as drawn from only 9 states.

      “Infants whose deaths were classified as suffocation or undetermined cause were significantly more likely than were infants whose deaths were classified as SIDS to be found on a surface not intended for infant sleep and to be sharing that sleep surface,” Dr. Schnitzer and colleagues note.

    • Big Tobacco Groups Fear Spread of Plain Packaging – The world’s top tobacco groups fear if new rules on plain packaging take hold in Australia and Britain they may spread to higher-growth and potentially more lucrative emerging markets and put a curb on their future profits growth.

      Health campaigners are pushing for tobacco companies to package their cigarettes in plain packs displaying the product name in a standard typeface and with graphic health warnings as a way of discouraging youngsters from taking up smoking.

      Australia aims to become the first nation in the world to force tobacco groups to sell cigarettes in these plain, brand-free packets by December this year, while Britain this week launched a three-month consultation over the issue.

    • Smoking Cessation Worth It Despite Dim Outcomes – Drugs and counseling to help patients stop smoking typically double the odds of success relative to solo cold-turkey attempts, but success rates still seldom exceed 20%, a researcher said here.

      The bottom-line message: “Keep trying,” said Michael K. Ong, MD, PhD, of the University of California Los Angeles, in a presentation at the American College of Physicians’ annual meeting.

      Existing approaches to smoking cessation will remain the best available for the foreseeable future, Ong suggested, and even though their effectiveness is modest at best, they are better than letting patients fend for themselves.

      He noted that clinicians are often reluctant to assist patients with these problems. A recent CDC survey found that only about half of smokers who saw a health professional in the previous year reported being advised to quit.

      An earlier survey identified a series of reasons that physicians had for not offering to help with smoking cessation, such as they’re too busy; the services are not billable; it’s a futile effort; and patients may be scared away.

    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Video: Rudy Giuliani Finally Endorses Mitt Romney on Eve of New York Primary Election – Video: Rudy Giuliani Finally Endorses Mitt Romney on Eve of New York Primary Election
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » President 2012 Poll Watch: Arizona in Play? – President 2012 Poll Watch: Arizona in Play?
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-Sen: Conservative California Republican Assembly Endorses Al Ramirez for U.S. Senate – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-Sen: Conservative California Republican Assembly Endorses Al Ra…
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-Sen: Conservative California Republican Assembly Endorses Al Ramirez for U.S. Senate – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-Sen: Conservative California Republican Assembly Endorses Al Ra…
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-Sen: Conservative California Republican Assembly Endorses Al Ramirez for U.S. Senate – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-Sen: Conservative California Republican Assembly Endorses Al Ra…
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-Sen: Conservative California Republican Assembly Endorses Al Ramirez for U.S. Senate – RE:  No, I don’t see much support out there for Dr. Orly.

      But, does it matter much who the candidate is, when runnin…

    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Linda Parks Fights Back Against Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee – CA-26: Linda Parks Fights Back Against Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: April 23, 2012 – The Morning Flap: April 23, 2012
    • AT&T wields enormous power in Sacramento – As the sun set behind Monterey Bay on a cool night last year, dozens of the state’s top lawmakers and lobbyists ambled onto the 17th fairway at Pebble Beach for a round of glow-in-the-dark golf.

      With luminescent balls soaring into the sky, the annual fundraiser known as the Speaker’s Cup was in full swing.

      Lawmakers, labor-union champions and lobbyists gather each year at the storied course to schmooze, show their skill on the links and rejuvenate at a 22,000-square-foot spa. The affair, which typically raises more than $1 million for California Democrats, has been sponsored for more than a decade by telecommunications giant AT&T.

      At the 2010 event, AT&T’s president and the state Assembly speaker toured Pebble Beach together in a golf cart, shaking hands with every lawmaker, lobbyist and other VIP in attendance.

      The Speaker’s Cup is the centerpiece of a corporate lobbying strategy so comprehensive and successful that it has rewritten the special-interest playbook in Sacramento. When it comes to state government, AT&T spends more money, in more places, than any other company.

    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-Sen: Conservative California Republican Assembly Endorses Al Ramirez for U.S. Senate – CA-Sen: Conservative California Republican Assembly Endorses Al Ramirez for U.S. Senate
    • Flap’s California Morning Collection: April 23, 2012 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Morning Collection: April 23, 2012 via @flap
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: April 20, 2012

    April 20, 2012 /

    President Barack Obama speaks at the southern site of the Keystone XL pipeline, on March 22, in Cushing, Oklahoma. Obama was pressing federal agencies to expedite the section of the Keystone XL pipeline between Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast.

    These are my links for April 19th through April 20th:

    • Obama faces defeat on Keystone pipeline – While much of the political world obsesses over Twitter fights and Seamus the dog, Barack Obama has set himself up for a high-profile defeat on one of the most important issues of the campaign.

      The president has put his feet in cement in opposition to the Keystone oil pipeline. But on Capitol Hill, more and more Democrats are joining Republicans to force approval of the pipeline, whether Obama wants it or not.

      The latest action happened Wednesday, when the House passed a measure to move the pipeline forward. Before the vote, Obama issued a veto threat. The House approved the pipeline anyway — by a veto-proof majority, 293 to 127. Sixty-nine Democrats abandoned the president to vote with Republicans. That’s a lot of defections.

      When the House voted on the pipeline in July of last year, 47 Democrats broke with the president. Now that it’s an election year and the number is up to 69, look for Republicans to hold more pipeline votes before November. GOP leaders expect even more Democrats to join them.

    • Tommy Christopher: Don’t Say Obama Is Not Working, Or You Are a Racist – Ah, good old Tommy Christopher. Don’t criticize the black president, you damn racists!

      Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney rolled out a new accessory at a speech in Ohio today, delivering his remarks in front of a black banner that said “Obama Isn’t Working,” which is also the name of a website his campaign set up several months ago (in case you didn’t get the message from the banner, it was also on the front of Romney’s podium).

      The slogan is a multiple entendre, but one of those entendres, intentionally or not, is evocative of a nasty racial stereotype about black men.

    • Flap’s California Morning Collection: April 20, 2012 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Morning Collection: April 20, 2012 via @flap
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Montana Democrat Governor Brian Schweitzer Calls Out Mitt Romney’s Mormon “Polygamy” Past – Montana Democrat Governor Brian Schweitzer Calls Out Mitt Romney’s Mormon “Polygamy” Past
    • Brian Schweitzer: Mitt Romney’s ‘Family Came From a Polygamy Commune in Mexico’ – The Daily Beast – Some Civility: Democrat Montana Gov Brian Schweitzer: Mitt Romney’s ‘Family Came From a Polygamy Commune in Mexico’
    • Mitt Romney’s challenge: Convincing GOP he can win – An increasing number of Democrats are taking potshots at President Obama’s healthcare law ahead of a Supreme Court decision that could overturn it.

      The public grievances have come from centrists and liberals and reflect rising anxiety ahead of November’s elections.

    • High Testosterone – Charlie Cook – NationalJournal.com – RT @nationaljournal: Cook: Romney’s Got Men in the Bag; Time to Focus on Women.
    • Democrats expressing buyers’ remorse on Obama’s healthcare law – An increasing number of Democrats are taking potshots at President Obama’s healthcare law ahead of a Supreme Court decision that could overturn it.

      The public grievances have come from centrists and liberals and reflect rising anxiety ahead of November’s elections.

    • Matthew Tully: Daniels has a few suggestions | Indianapolis Star | indystar.com – RT @chucktodd: Mitch Daniels critiques Romney for not talking enough about folks who haven’t yet “achieved.” // #of …
    • RNC looks to Facebook for political edge – CNN Political Ticker – CNN.com Blogs – RT @PoliticalTicker: RNC looks to Facebook for political edge
    • Romney’s Father Came from “Polygamy Commune” – Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) told the Daily Beast that Mittt Romney would have a “tall order to position Hispanics to vote for him” even though his father was born in Mexico.

      Schweitzer admitted that it is “kinda ironic given that his family came from a polygamy commune in Mexico, but then he’d have to talk about his family coming from a polygamy commune in Mexico, given the gender discrepancy.”

      Schweitzer noted that women are “not great fans of polygamy, 86 percent were not great fans of polygamy. I am not alleging by any stretch that Romney is a polygamist and approves of [the] polygamy lifestyle, but his father was born into [a] polygamy commune in Mexico.”

    • Mickey Kaus: No Romney Immigration Pivot Needed – Thank You! – No Pivot Needed: Mitt Romney has taken a harder line on illegal immigration than expected, which has led many commentators to declare that the primaries have hurt his chances by drawing him too far in that direction (costing him support among Latino voters, especially). Yet today’s Quinnipiac poll finds Romney favored over Obama on the issue of … immigration (by a margin of 43% to 39%, about the same lead that Romney has on “the economy”). He’s ahead by fifteen points on the immigration issue among independents. … So why is a “pivot” on immigration needed, again? … What good is Hispandering if it wins Romney New Mexico but costs him Ohio? …
    • AD-38: Scott Wilk Announces Republican Assembly Endorsements » Flap’s California Blog – AD-38: Scott Wilk Announces Republican Assembly Endorsements via @flap
    • California Lottery “Lady Luck” Ad Under Fire from Legislative Women’s Caucus » Flap’s California Blog – California Lottery via @flap
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » California Fair Political Practices Commission Chairwoman Ann Ravel Calls for Blogger Political Disclosure – California Fair Political Practices Commission Chairwoman Ann Ravel Calls for Blogger Political Disclosure
    • The 2012–13 California Budget: Unwinding Redevelopment – On February 1, 2012, all redevelopment agencies in California were dissolved and the process for unwinding their financial affairs began. Given the scope of these agencies’ funds, assets, and financial obligations, the unwinding process will take time. Prior to their dissolution, redevelopment agencies (RDAs) received over $5 billion in property tax revenues annually and had tens of billions of dollars of outstanding bonds, contracts, and loans.

      This report reviews the history of RDAs, the events that led to their dissolution, and the process communities are using to resolve their financial obligations. Over time, as these obligations are paid off, schools and other local agencies will receive the property tax revenues formerly distributed to RDAs.

      The report discusses these major findings:

      Although ending redevelopment was not the Legislature’s objective, the state had few practical alternatives.
      Ending redevelopment changes the distribution of property tax revenues among local agencies, but not the amount of tax revenues raised.
      Decisions about redevelopment replacement programs merit careful review.
      The decentralized process for unwinding redevelopment promotes a needed local debate over the use of the property tax.
      Key state and local choices will drive the state fiscal effect.
      The report recommends the Legislature amend the redevelopment dissolution legislation to address timing issues, clarify the treatment of pass–through payments, and address key concerns of redevelopment bond investors.

    • California Recovery: No, It Is Not East vs. West – There are two reasonable measures of recovery, jobs and real estate values. You can forget the real estate values measure. Values throughout California are down from pre-recession highs. They are down a lot. Only San Francisco and Marin counties, with median home prices down 27.7 percent and 32.3 percent, respectively, have seen net median home price declines of less than 40 percent. Monterey and Madera counties top the state in median home price declines, in excess of 67 percent.

      So let’s use jobs. An area has recovered if it has as many jobs today as it had at the beginning of the recession, December 2008.

      We monitor 37 California MSAs. Combined they represent about 96 percent of California’s population. By jobs, only one of California’s larger MSAs has recovered, and that county does not fit the story. Not only is Kings County not on the ocean, it doesn’t even border or have a naturally occurring year-round piece of water. Kings County, with 37,700 jobs, has about 900 more jobs than it had at the beginning of the recession. Still, Kings County’s unemployment rate is 17 percent. Some recovery!

    • Power of Direct Mail to Qualify Initiatives Highlighted in Brown’s Desperate Move – Jerry Brown’s decision to mail petitions in support of his tax Increase ballot measure, discussed by George Skelton in a recent column, was made out of fear or desperation. Fear that the street gathered signatures would fall short of those needed, or desperation because they know there will otherwise be a shortfall.

      For Brown the last minute decision to go with a compromise initiative prohibited a choice on the use of direct mail. However, foolishly for most ballot measure proponents, fear or desperation is now the moving factor in virtually all use of large-scale ballot qualification petition mailings.

      Even when time permits, ballot measure proponents rarely even test mailed petitions. Why? Because it is just so bloody easy to place one call to any of several very capable companies that handle every aspect of paid signature qualification. For the consultants, no muss, no fuss, virtually no work and probably the same fees will be realized. And it is an easy sell to the measure’s proponents, as the initial cost of paid signature gathering is often lower. Paid signatures are the conventional, accepted way to go…no need to think or act outside the box.

      But the hidden price paid is very dear indeed!

      My former partners Arnold Forde and Stu Mollrich and I started using mailed petitions as a first option, and were the first to entirely qualify ballot measures by mail. The reason we did so was simply because it so much better served our client’s interests.

    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: Periodontal Disease Causing Heart Disease: Not Worth Stressing Out About It – Periodontal Disease Causing Heart Disease: Not Worth Stressing Out About It
    • Police: Woman arrested for biting during parking spot fight in San Francisco – San Jose Mercury News – Not More Dog Stuff – no, wait…Police: Woman arrested for biting during parking spot fight in San Francisco
    • Christie Would Help Romney the Most – Abs. Correct RT @politicalwire: New poll finds the running mate who would help Mitt Romney the most is Chris Christie
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Video: Civility in the Wisconsin Recall of Scott Walker? Uh No… – Video: Civility in the Wisconsin Recall of Scott Walker? Uh No…
    • Penis picture, gay sex descriptions among sexual harassment allegations against NC Democrat – A bombshell letter from the former North Carolina Democratic Party (NCDP) communications staffer to now-former NCDP Executive Director Jay Parmley detailing the allegations of sexual harassment has surfaced.

      In the letter, dated Dec. 8, 2011 — which local news outlet WRAL first published with redactions of alleged victim Adriadn Ortega’s name — Ortega alleges that Parmley “frequently gave me unwanted shoulder rubs despite my verbal objections” and that Parmley “often solicited my opinion on his clothes.”

      “He would point both hands to his crotch area and ask me how his crotch looked in those pants that day,” Ortega wrote, adding that Parmley “would frequently pretend to punch my crotch and make a popping noise with his mouth.”

      “On July 28, 2011, the executive director discussed, in detail, his sexual activities from the past when he was living in South Carolina,” Ortega then said. “In addition, he discussed in detail his sexual activities from when he moved to North Carolina, where he solicited sex from gay websites such as [REDACTED].”

      The next day — on July 29, 2011 — Ortega alleged that Parmley “showed me a picture of a penis.”

    • Cantor: GOP will expand majority – House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Thursday he is confident that Republicans will not just hold but will expand their majority in the lower chamber in November.

      “I’m very bullish on the House,” Cantor said at an event in downtown Washington. “I am very confident that we will strengthen our majority.”

      The second-ranking House Republican said he believes the GOP will be on offense in 30 to 40 districts with the goal of adding to its 242 House seats. His comments stand in contrast to those of many political analysts, who project that Democrats will gain seats in November but fall short of wresting back control of the House.

    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » President 2012: The Coming Conservative Landslide? – President 2012: The Coming Conservative Landslide?
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: April 19, 2012 – The Morning Flap: April 19, 2012
    • Marco Rubio Says He Would Turn Down VP Slot If Asked – Sen. Marco Rubio said today he would decline any offer from Mitt Romney to be a part of the GOP ticket this fall.

      “I don’t want to be the vice president,” the Florida Republican said during an interview with Major Garrett of the National Journal.

      “So, if Mitt Romney asks, you will you say no?” Garrett asked.

      “Yes. But you know he’s not going to ask. That doesn’t work. He’s watching this interview right now,” Rubio, 40, responded.

      Rubio even went as far as suggesting another U.S. Senator for Romney to consider in his VP vetting – Ohio Senator Rob Portman.

      “The bigger point is we’ve got a lot of really talented people out there that Mitt Romney can get to pick from. And I think a lot, Senator Rob Portman would be a phenomenal choice for vice president, that’s where I would encourage him to look because I’m enjoying my service in the senate.”

      Rubio’s name is often floated in the top tier list of potential vice presidential candidates, but the Florida senator has not been shy about his disinterest in the position. Rubio instead says he wants to focus on advancing policy in the senate, joking that if he were running as vice president, he’d have to answer a lot of questions about dogs, a topic which has consumed both parties in the past week.

    • Obama and Romney campaigns go to dogs with canine cracks – NYPOST.com – Ha Ha Bam Bites Dog RT @jamestaranto: The Sean Delonas cartoon is sublime.
    • Rubio: Arizona Immigration Law is Not Model for Nation – Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Thursday that he did not view Arizona’s crackdown on illegal immigration as a “model,’’ distancing himself from presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who has embraced the legislation.

      The Cuban-American senator, who spoke at The University of Phoenix/National Journal’s Next America’ forum in Washington, D.C., is viewed as a top name on Romney’s vice presidential shortlist.

      Rubio said he understood why frustration with illegal immigration led Arizona to pass a law allowing local police to demand proof of citizenship. He also disagreed with the Obama administration’s contention that the law is unconstitutional. But he added, “I do not believe (laws like the one in Arizona) should be a model for the country.’’

      As a Senate candidate in 2010, Rubio vacillated on the Arizona law. He initially expressed some concerns but later said he would have voted for it.

      Rubio’s reservations about the law come at a time when polls show the Republican Party facing a yawning deficit of support among Hispanic voters. Both national parties have launched national campaigns to reach out to the Hispanic community, the fastest growing part of the electorate and the key to victory in a number of swing states.

      Democrats have been zealously attacking Republican opposition to the DREAM Act, potentially popular legislation that would grant citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants who go to college or enroll in the military. In recent weeks, Rubio has started countering the criticism by proposing an alternative that would allow these children to obtain legal status but not citizenship.

    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: April 19, 2012 – The Morning Drill: April 19, 2012
    • Untitled (http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/19/4425366/calderon-family-looks-to-extend.html#mi_rss=State%20Politics) – Calderon family looks to extend legacy in California Legislature #catcot
    • Rasmussen Consumer Index – Rasmussen Reports™ – RT @RasmussenPoll: 13% Rate U.S. #Economy As Good or Excellent…
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Day By Day April 19, 2012 – What is it Good For? – Day By Day April 19, 2012 – What is it Good For?
  • Pinboard Links,  The Afternoon Flap

    The Afternoon Flap: April 13, 2012

    April 13, 2012 /

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

    • Obama Family Tax Shelter – First family transfers wealth, avoids taxes – President Obama and his wife, Michele, gave a total of $48,000 in tax-free gifts to their daughters, according to tax records made public on Friday.

      The president and his wife separately gave each daughter a $12,000 gift under a section of the federal tax code that exempts such donations from federal taxes.

      There is nothing illegal about the president’s taking advantage of this tax shelter, but it does raise eyebrows given that he has lamented the myriad tax exemptions used by the wealthy—“millionaires and billionaires” like himself—to pay less in taxes. He has yet to propose a comprehensive plan to reform the byzantine tax code.

      The Obama’s tax return indicates that the gifts, likely for their daughter’s college educations, began in 2007, when the maximum exemptible amount was $24,000 per couple. The maximum exemption has since increased to $26,000 per couple.

      The Obamas paid a total federal tax rate of 20.5 percent on a gross adjusted income $789,674, which would typically fall within the top federal rate of 35 percent. According to an analysis of the president’s tax return, he may have paid a lower rate than his secretary despite making more than eight times as much money as she did.

      His most recent tax proposal—the so-called “Buffett Rule”—would increase taxes on about 4,000 millionaires and raise about $4.7 billion in new revenue per year, enough to cover about 0.4 percent of the projected budget deficit in 2012. Though the rule would apparently not hit the president himself.

    • Obama Releases Taxes, Does Not Qualify for Buffett Rule – President Obama earned $789,674 in 2011, the White House announced on Friday. However, with this income, he does not even qualify for the so-called Buffett Rule that he has promoted relentlessly and the Senate will take up on Monday.

      The Buffett Rule calls for those making over $1 million a year to pay a minimum tax rate, named after billionaire Warren Buffett. The president did earn over $1 million in previous years–$1.7 million in 2010 and $5.5 million in 2009.

      The president paid $162,074 in taxes with an effective federal income tax rate of 20.5 percent, according to the returns.

      The release, four days before Tuesday’s tax deadline, capped a week in which the president repeatedly spoke about the obligation of the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes. It also provided Obama’s campaign the opportunity to once again jab Republican Mitt Romney for his refusal to release more information on his tax-paying history.

      The Obamas adjusted gross income was their lowest income since 2004 when he wrote his best-selling memoir, “Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.” This was the first year since 2006 that the Obama family income dipped below $1 million. In 2010, his adjusted gross income was $1.7 million; in 2009, it was $5.5 million.

    • Human Rights Campaign Quietly Removes Illegally Obtained Tax Information from Website – Following the release yesterday of proof by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the source of leaked confidential donor information, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) removed from its website all reference to NOM’s un-redacted 2008 1099 tax form, which it had previously posted. The action by the Human Rights Campaign comes within a day of NOM’s attorneys contacting them and demanding they remove the material is a clear indication of the seriousness of the criminal activity that has occurred.

      “They now realize that they have done something tremendously wrong here or they would not have removed the references,” NOM President Brian Brown said today. “A felony has been committed and the Treasury Department must investigate who within the IRS has committed it, and whether people with the Obama Administration or the HRC are co-conspirators in the criminal release of our confidential tax return. We demand that federal authorities immediately launch an investigation into this crime. This is not a routine leak of some obscure document. We’re talking about someone in the Obama Administration’s IRS releasing to a group headed by President Obama’s national co-chair the private tax return containing confidential donor information of their main opponent. This is reminiscent of Watergate, and the American people are entitled to know the truth of what has occurred.”

    • NC Dem official sexually harrassed staffer; Party fears credibility ‘doomed’ – A former North Carolina Democratic Party staffer was sexually harassed by a party official, made a financial settlement with the party and signed a non-disclosure agreement to keep the incident quiet.

      “If this hits the media, the Democratic Party, our candidates, and our credibility are doomed in this election,” reads one email exchange between state Democratic leaders.

      An email chain between those Democratic leaders, obtained by The Daily Caller, indicates the executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party, Jay Parmley, and the alleged sexual harassment victim both signed non-disclosure agreements.

      The email chain does not make clear who was guilty of the harassment, the status of that individual’s employment with the Democratic Party or the identity of the victim.

      State Democratic Party spokesman Walton Robinson did not respond to The Daily Caller’s request for comment on the matter.

    • Statement by ALEC in Response to the Outpouring of Support in Wake of Intimidation Campaign Against Its Members – Ron Scheberle, Executive Director of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), issued the following statement today in response to the support the organization has received in response to the intimidation campaign against its members:

      “Over the last 24 hours, ALEC has been inundated with letters of support from elected officials, community leaders and concerned citizens in response to the intimidation campaign launched by a coalition of extreme liberal activists committed to silencing anyone who disagrees with their agenda.

      “I am thankful for the support and want to take this opportunity to remind people what we are facing:

      “First, the people now attacking ALEC and its members are the same people who have always pushed for big-government solutions. Our support for free markets and limited government stands in stark contrast to their state-dependent utopia. This is not about one piece of legislation. This is an attempt to silence our organization and it has been going on for more than a year.

      “Second, ALEC is one of America’s premier ideas laboratories when it comes to advocating free market reforms. We are a target because our opponents believe they have the opportunity to attack an effective, successful organization that promotes free-market, limited government policies that they disagree with. We work to promote the Freedom of Choice in Health Care initiative against ObamaCare’s individual mandate. We support fair tax policies and tort reform. This is an all-out intimidation campaign designed to promote government-based solutions rather than the free-market principles that we have seen work.

      “Finally, now more than ever, America needs organizations like ALEC to foster the discussion and debate of policy differences in an open, transparent way and not fall back on bullying, intimidation and threats.”

    • What’s Color of Change hiding about itself? – Coca Cola executives who recently decided to stop supporting the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) did so in response to demands from an obscure left-wing activist group, Color of Change (COC). So were executives of giant candy-maker Mars, Inc. when they announced a similar decision earlier today.

      That is why Color of Change may be the most powerful group in America you’ve never heard about.

      The demand that Coke, Mars and other corporate donors stop making contributions to ALEC – a long-established conservative legislative group that researches and writes model legislation that is often adopted by state legislatures – is only the latest COC campaign to hit a nerve.

      Previous COC successes include pushing advertisers on Glenn Beck’s Fox News Show to withdraw their ads, a campaign that played a role in the cable news and opinion network’a decision to drop the controversial production in June 2011.

      Others who have felt the wrath of COC include now-former MSNBC opinion analyst Patrick Buchanan, Fox Business News anchor Eric Bolling, Lou Dobbs when he was on CNN, and the late Andrew Breitbart.

    • Video, Social Boost US Mobile Content Consumption – eMarketer – RT @katieharbath: 42.6% of mobile phone users will log in to social net sites via mobile at least monthly by 2014 –
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-04-13 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-04-13
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » President 2012 Poll Watch: Mitt Romney 46 Vs. Barack Obama 44% – President 2012 Poll Watch: Mitt Romney 46 Vs. Barack Obama 44%
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Video: President Obama Throws Democratic Party Consultant Hillary Rosen Under the Bus – Video: President Obama Throws Democratic Party Consultant Hillary Rosen Under the Bus
    • Axelrod expresses no qualms at targeting Rosen, a ‘friend’ – CNN Political Ticker – CNN.com Blogs – RT @PoliticalTicker: Axelrod expresses no qualms at targeting Rosen, a ‘friend’ –
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: April 12, 2012 – The Morning Flap: April 12, 2012
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Video: Charles Manson Parole Hearing – Parole Denied – Video: Charles Manson Parole Hearing – Parole Denied
    • 72% of Americans Follow Local News Closely – Nearly three quarters of Americans (72%) report following local news closely “most of the time, whether or not something important is happening.” Local newspapers are by far the source they rely on for much of the local information they need.

      One-third of local news enthusiasts (32%) say it would have a major impact on them if their local newspaper no longer existed, compared with just 19% of those less interested in local news. Most likely to report a major impact if their newspaper disappeared are local news followers age 40 and older (35%), though even among younger local news followers 26% say losing the local paper would have a major impact on them.

      Local news enthusiasts are more likely than others to prefer newspapers for almost all of 16 topics that were asked about in a survey, with the exception of weather and breaking news. Three-in-ten or more local news enthusiasts prefer newspapers for following crime, local politics, community events, or arts and culture. About one-quarter prefer newspapers when seeking information about local schools, taxes, government activity, other local business, and housing issues. Two-in-ten primarily use newspapers for following restaurants, job openings, or local zoning issues.

      While this seems to be positive news for local newspapers, in many cases the reliance on newspapers is heaviest among local news enthusiasts age 40 and older, while younger local news followers rely more heavily on other sources. Specifically, among local news enthusiasts under age 40, the internet is the preferred source for eight of the 16 topics asked about, including:

      Local restaurants, clubs and bars
      Other local businesses
      Schools and education
      Local politics
      Jobs
      Housing
      Arts and cultural events
      Community or neighborhood events

    • Barrett & Falk Won’t Say How They Would Have Balanced Wisconsin’s Budget – Democrats have hammered Wisconsin governor Scott Walker over the past year for cutting nearly one billion dollars in state aid to school districts as part of his plan to close the state’s $3.6 billion deficit. Democratic anger with Walker’s budget cuts is a huge reason why Walker is facing a recall election on June 5. But the two leading Democrats vying to replace Walker, Dane county executive Kathleen Falk and Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, were unwilling to say Wednesday night how they would have balanced the budget or even how much they would have cut from the state’s education budget.

      “Education is the top funding priority for the state budget,” Falk said at a Democratic candidate forum in Madison on Wednesday night. “I do not support public dollars for private school vouchers.”

      But when asked how much state aid to local school districts should have been cut in last year’s budget, Falk told THE WEEKLY STANDARD: “Well, nobody’s going to answer that, needless to say. But I have a track record as county executive what I’ve done, which was shared sacrifice.”

      During follow-up questioning, Falk refused to give even a ballpark figure of how much education funding she would have cut:

    • COMMENTARY: Dis-United Wisconsin? – Finally, the stage is set for the June 5 production of the one-show-only recall election of Gov. Scott Walker.

      There is one problem — one the scriptwriters camping in the capitol rotunda a year ago and the producers in their union halls and party offices forgot: the all-important casting of the candidates who will take over the governor’s job if Walker is indeed recalled.

      The auditions are proving a messy affair for all involved.

      Wisconsin’s largest teacher’s union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, or WEAC, and the state chapters of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, had settled on former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk.

      Then Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett stepped up, crowding Falk for the spotlight. To add insult to his last-second entrance, Barrett — who lost to Walker 52-46 for governor in 2010 — has been racking up major endorsements from such party establishment types as former U.S. Rep. Dave Obey, D-District 7, and former Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton.

      Some are calling the Falk-Barrett showdown evidence of a Democratic Civil War, but that’s only if you include Internet videos as the modern-day equivalent of cannon fire. No, what’s going on right now is more like the beginning of a four-week knife fight. The winner will not just take on Walker in June. He or she and his or her backers will run the Democratic Party in the Badger State.

      AFSCME never wanted Barrett as a candidate, reportedly telling him not to run in a meeting between the mayor and various union leaders. It’s also furious with Barrett for deploying the very reforms Walker made available through Act 10 — making changes in City of Milwaukee employee health-care and pension contributions without having to have them collectively bargained. In doing so, he helped cut $25 million from Milwaukee’s budget over the past year, all without raising taxes.

    • Obama on Why Michelle Was a Working Mom (at $316K Per Year): ‘We Didn’t Have the Luxury for Her Not to Work’ – Speaking Friday at what the administration called “The White House Forum on Women and the Economy,” President Barack Obama said that after his two daughters were born, he and his wife—both Harvard Law School graduates—could not afford the “luxury” of having her stay home with the children.

      In 2005, when Obama began serving in the U.S. Senate (and his daughters turned 4 and 7), he and his wife were earning a combined annual income of $479,062. Barack Obama was paid a salary of $162,100 by the U.S. taxpayers, and Michelle Obama was paid $316,962 to handle community affairs for the University of Chicago Medical Center.

  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: March 6, 2012

    March 6, 2012 /

    These are my links for March 2nd through March 6th:

  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: March 1, 2012

    March 1, 2012 /

    These are my links for February 29th through March 1st:

  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: February 29, 2012

    February 29, 2012 /

    A Barred Owl is shown near Mount Vernon, Va. To save the endangered spotted owl, the Obama administration is moving forward with a plan to shoot barred owls, a rival bird that has shoved its smaller cousin aside. The plan is the latest government attempt to protect the northern spotted owl, the meek, one-pound bird that sparked an epic battle over logging in the Pacific Northwest two decades ago.

    These are my links for February 28th through February 29th:

    • Rules Chairman Dreier announces retirement after 16 House terms – House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) on Wednesday morning announced from the House floor that he would not seek reelection this year.

      “We all know that this institution has an abysmally low approval rating, and the American people are asking for change in Congress, and so I’m announcing today that I will leave the Congress at the end of this year,” the 16-term member joked.

    • Students, police clash in Spanish city Barcelona – Spanish students angry over austerity measures have clashed with police in Barcelona and set fire to garbage containers.

      Police said officers in riot gear charged against a crowd of students outside the stock market in Spain’s second largest city in the country’s northeast and made an unspecified number of arrests. They had broken away from a larger rally of thousands of striking students.

      The fire set to the containers spread to a car and protesters smashed a bank window.

      Some later made their way toward the University of Barcelona and took refuge in a plaza inside the campus.

    • Obama administration plan would kill rival bird to save spotted owl – To save the imperiled spotted owl, the Obama administration is moving forward with a controversial plan to shoot barred owls, a rival bird that has shoved its smaller cousin aside.

      The plan is the latest federal attempt to protect the northern spotted owl, the passive, one-pound bird that sparked an epic battle over logging in the Pacific Northwest two decades ago.

    • Catholic school fires gay teacher planning wedding – The Rev. Bill Kempf, St. Ann’s pastor, said in an emailed statement that the parish was “recently informed by one of its teachers of his plan to unite in marriage with an individual of the same sex. With full respect of this individual’s basic human dignity, this same-sex union opposes Roman Catholic teaching as it cannot realize the full potential a marital relationship is meant to express. As a violation of the Christian Witness Statement that all Catholic educators in the Archdiocese of St. Louis are obliged to uphold, we relieved this teacher of his duties.”

      The Christian Witness Statement, which educators sign when applying for Archdiocese work, says all who serve in Catholic education should, among other requirements, “not take a public position contrary to the Catholic Church” and “demonstrate a public life consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church.”

      The Roman Catholic Church does not condemn homosexuals who remain “chaste,” but it takes a strong stance against same-sex marriage and homosexual acts.

      Robin said his partner did, indeed, sign a witness statement. “We just didn’t realize we were making a ‘public’ stand,” Robin said. “There’s nothing that’s been hidden about our relationship at any point. I go to the staff parties. I show up at the school concerts. … It doesn’t matter until somebody with the Archdiocese is sitting in the room.”

    • Romney Camp Will Haunt Santorum With Robocall Story – Mitt Romney’s campaign will spend the next two weeks reminding Republicans around the country of Rick Santorum’s last-minute attempt to convince Democrats to vote for him her ein Michigan, a Romney aide said Tuesday night.
      “It’s a major issue. [Santorum is] trying to pass himself off as the true conservative in the race, but he’s supporting the liberal Democrat line against Governor Romney,” said Ryan Williams, a spokesman for the Romney campaign.
      He added of Santorum’s efforts to find Democratic help in the state’s open primary: “This isn’t going anywhere.”
      A campaign aide said Romney may even work Santorum’s courting of Democrats into Romney’s stump speech going forward.
    • Worried Dems pressing Obama on gas prices – Congressional Democrats are ramping up pressure on President Obama to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to prevent rising gas prices from threatening the economy and their election-year prospects.

      They are growing anxious that the price of fuel could reverse their political fortunes, which had been improving due to signs of growth in the economy.

      Republicans have hammered Democrats on the price spike, repeatedly noting that gas prices — now at $3.72 per gallon for regular — have doubled since Obama won the White House. 

    • AD-38 Video: Patricia McKeon Tells the Tea Party Why She is Running for the California Assembly » Flap’s California Blog – RE: Dude, Patricia McKeon is an embarrassment to the Republican Brand.

      No, wonder GOP registration has fallen to 30…

    • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-02-29 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-02-29
    • Day By Day February 29, 2012 – Par for the Course | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Day By Day February 29, 2012 – Par for the Course
    • Romney’s sigh of relief – Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball – Phew!

      The sound you hear is the loud sigh of relief from the Romney campaign. A great deal was on the line in the oddest of places — the state of his birth, the state where his dad served as governor, the state he won against John McCain four years ago. A few months ago, no one could have imagined Mitt Romney being hard-pressed in Michigan, and yet it happened.

      Rick Santorum may have lost by a few points, but he scored a moral victory by making Romney work for the Wolverine State. This was a real contest that Santorum might have won had Romney not put the pedal to the metal. After all, based on pre-primary surveys and exit polling, Santorum won the actual Election Day vote, suggesting both that Romney’s superior organization delivered for him again in absentee balloting but also that among the party faithful who simply showed up on Election Day, Romney continues to have considerable problems.

    • 53% of Self-Identified Democrats Voted for Santorum – CBS News’ Exit Poll finds that 9 percent of respondents identified themselves as Democrats. Among that group, 3 percent voted for New Gingrich, 17 percent each for Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, and 53 percent for Rick Santorum.
    • How Can Twitter Possibly Help Small Businesses? | Networking Exchange Blog – How Can Twitter Possibly Help Small Businesses? | Networking Exchange Blog
    • Analysis: Super Tuesday won’t help clear up GOP race – Analysis: Super Tuesday won’t help clear up GOP race
    • Romney regains footing, shifts focus to Obama – Romney regains footing, shifts focus to Obama
    • Memo to Republicans: Ignore Ron Paul at your peril – Memo to Republicans: Ignore Ron Paul at your peril
    • Today in Research: Universal Flu Vaccines Might Actually Work – The Atlantic Wire – Health – The Atlantic – RT @TheAtlanticHLTH Minty nicotine mouth sprays may help smokers quit:
    • Christie As VP Doesn’t Help Romney – Quinnipiac University Poll – Romney will need to balance his ticket with either Marco Rubio, Susan Martinez, Gary Sandoval or Rand Paul
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-02-29 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-02-29
    • Can You Balance California’s Budget? » Flap’s California Blog – Can You Balance California’s Budget?
    • President 2012: Mitt Romney Wins the Michigan Primary Election | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012: Mitt Romney Wins the Michigan Primary Election
    • Update: Romney Wins Michigan – President 2012: Mitt Romney Wins Big in Arizona – Michigan Too Close to Call | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Update: Romney Wins Michigan – President 2012: Mitt Romney Wins Big in Arizona – Michigan Too Close to Call
    • The Mounting Minuses at Google+ – WSJ.com – To hear Google Inc. Chief Executive Larry Page tell it, Google+ has become a robust competitor in the social networking space, with 90 million users registering since its June launch.

      But those numbers mask what’s really going on at Google+.

    • President 2012: Mitt Romney Wins Big in Arizona – Michigan Too Close to Call | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012: Mitt Romney Wins Big in Arizona – Michigan Too Close to Call
    • World business, finance, and political news from the Financial Times – FT.com – Democrats grow confident of House win –
    • Democrats grow confident of House win – FT.com – Democrats grow confident of House win
    • Democrats grow confident of House win – Democrats say they are optimistic that they can regain control of the House of Representatives in the November election, an outcome that would mark a sharp reversal from the thumping defeat dealt to the party in 2010.

      “We’ve gone from a gale force wind against us to a sustained breeze at our backs,” said Steve Israel, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, on Tuesday.

    • Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe to retire in blow to GOP – In announcing her plans, Snowe, 65, emphasized that she is in good health and was prepared for the campaign ahead. But she said she was swayed by the increasing polarization in Washington.

      “Unfortunately, I do not realistically expect the partisanship of recent years in the Senate to change over the short term,” Snowe said in a statement. “So at this stage of my tenure in public service, I have concluded that I am not prepared to commit myself to an additional six years in the Senate, which is what a fourth term would entail.”

      Snowe’s retirement represents a major setback for the GOP’s efforts to regain a majority in the Senate. As a moderate Republican, she may be the party’s only hope to hold a seat in the strongly blue state.

      Republicans did get some traction in the state in 2010, including electing Republican Paul LePage as governor.

      But in a more neutral political environment, and in a federal race, Democrats will be heavy favorites to steal this seat from Republicans — their best pickup opportunity in the country, for sure.

    • Low Michigan turnout blamed on little interest, ballot confusion | Detroit Free Press | freep.com – Low Michigan turnout blamed on little interest, ballot confusion
    • AD-38: Patricia McKeon Answers Questions from The Simi Valley Tea Party » Flap’s California Blog – AD-38: Patricia McKeon Answers Questions from The Simi Valley Tea Party
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The National Association of Dental Laboratories Honors Award Winners at Vision 21 Meeting in Las Vegas – The National Association of Dental Laboratories Honors Award Winners at Vision 21 Meeting in Las Vegas
    • The Afternoon Flap: February 28, 2012 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – The Afternoon Flap: February 28, 2012
    • President Obama Suggests Romney Shoveling ‘A Load of You-Know-What’ – As Michigan Republicans headed to the polls Tuesday morning, President Obama delivered an aggressive defense of the bailout of the auto industry and his presidency in general, harshly criticizing GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney – though he never mentioned him by name.

      “I’ve got to admit, it’s been funny to watch some of these folks completely try to rewrite history now that you’re back on your feet,” the president said to a raucous crowd at the United Auto Workers Convention. “The same folks who said if we went forward with our plan to rescue Detroit, ‘you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.’”

    • Reid blasts Romney on Senate floor – There’s no mistake who Harry Reid’s political target is as Republican voters head to the polls today in Arizona and Michigan.

      On Monday, the Senate majority leader held a conference call blasting GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney for touting endorsements from immigration “extremists” like Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. And on the Senate floor Tuesday, Reid attacked Romney’s opposition to President Barack Obama’s bailouts that many credit for saving the Detroit auto industry.

      “I’m sorry to say that life support system that the Detroit auto industry was surviving on, Republicans wanted to pull the plug. One man who is now seeking the Republican nomination for president of the United States said, ‘We should kiss the automobile industry goodbye,’” Reid said, without naming Romney.

      “He called the death of American auto manufacturers ‘virtually guaranteed,’ another direct quote. And so he argued we should just let Detroit go bankrupt,” he added. “But he wasn’t alone. Republicans in this chamber agreed, many of them agreed, Democrats weren’t willing to give up on American manufacturing” and manufacturing jobs.

    • The Michigan primary: Five counties to watch – Voters in Michigan head to the polls today, carrying the fate of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s presidential bid in their hands. Win Michigan and, as expected, Arizona, and Romney almost certainly reasserts himself as the clear frontrunner in the Republican race. Lose Michigan and the calls for Romney to reconsider his candidacy will begins. It’s that simple.
    • Low Michigan turnout blamed on little interest, ballot confusion – Turn-out in today’s presidential primary election looks to be about the same or less than it was four years ago, according to a sampling of clerks in key precincts the Free Press is using to analyze the vote.

      “The absentee voter ballot requests are pretty much the same as last time,” said Farmington Hills City Clerk Pam Smith. “We’re right on par with that and we’re planning for that kind of turnout.”

      Smith said there were no reported problems at precincts this morning and she expected to get updates later in the day on how many people voted in person.

  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: February 23, 2012

    February 23, 2012 /

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

    • Rand Paul Says ‘It Would Be An Honor’ if Romney Asked Him to Be VP – Kentucky’s junior senator says it would be an honor to be considered as a possible running mate for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

      Senator Rand Paul first discussed his higher aspirations at the beginning of this year. He said he wouldn’t close the door on being a Vice Presidential candidate. After a speech in Louisville today, Paul held that door firmly open, saying he wants to be part of the national debate.

      Paul’s name has swirled as a possible pick that would give Romney points with the Tea Party. When asked directly what he would say if Romney made the offer, Paul tried to punt.

      “I don’t know if I can answer that question, but I can say it would be an honor to be considered,” he said.

    • Flap’s California Morning Collection: February 23, 2012 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Morning Collection: February 23, 2012
    • New Anti-Obesity Drug Qnexa Receives FDA Advisory Panel Approval | Smiles For A Lifetime – Temporary (Locum Tenens) Dentistry – New Anti-Obesity Drug Qnexa Receives FDA Advisory Panel Approval
    • Bonuses given after raises at Solyndra – Washington Times – Several of the nearly two dozen employees at bankrupt solar panel maker Solyndra LLC who were approved for bonuses Wednesday had months earlier received pay raises as high as 70 percent, a fact the company never disclosed in its request for bonus cash.

      The company’s bankruptcy attorneys sought permission for the bonuses in a court hearing, arguing that the extra cash is needed to keep key employees from fleeing only to be replaced by more expensive outside consultants.

      With little chance of stable employment and officials moving to liquidate assets, the workers needed to wind down the company have little incentive to stay, the Solyndra attorneys argued.

      But an attorney for fired Solyndra workers railed against the plan, saying several of the proposed bonus recipients had received significant salary increases even after the company went bankrupt.

    • Romney not winning over grumpy pundits – Right Turn – The Washington Post – The media’s coverage, unless you are Mitt Romney, is almost comical in their aversion to him and exaggerated portrayal of him as unlikable. You’d never guess it from the media, both mainstream and conservative, but Republican voters like Romney quite a lot.

      The Post-ABC News poll reports that 69 percent of Republicans have a favorable impression of him, the highest among all the GOP contenders. Even among “very conservative voters” he draws a 62 percent favorable rating. Rick Santorum scores a 74 percent rating (although this may change after his dreadful debate performance), but the numbers suggest that these voters don’t dislike Romney. They simply like (or liked) Santorum better.

      In part, voters see perhaps what the right-wing bloggers, with visions of flat taxes and privatized Social Security ( i.e., ideal but unachievable conservative purity) dancing in their heads, miss: Romney is running on a rather conservative agenda. Not hardcore or angry conservatism, but definitely right of center.

    • President 2012 Poll Watch: Romney and Santorum Within Striking Distance of Obama in National Polling | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012 Poll Watch: Romney and Santorum Within Striking Distance of Obama in National Polling
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: February 23, 2012 – The Morning Drill: February 23, 2012
    • AD-38: Scott Wilk Formally Announces California Assembly Campaign » Flap’s California Blog – AD-38: Scott Wilk Formally Announces California Assembly Campaign
    • Video: Santorum on No Child Left Behind: I took one for the team » The Right Scoop – – Video: Santorum on No Child Left Behind: I took one for the team » The Right Scoop –
    • Santorum Keeps Lead in Michigan – A new American Research Group poll in Michigan finds Rick Santorum continues to lead the GOP presidential field with 38%, followed by Mitt Romney at 34%, Ron Paul at 12% and Newt Gingrich at 7%.
    • Day By Day February 23, 2012 – Shotgun Wedding | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Day By Day February 23, 2012 – Shotgun Wedding
    • Los Angeles News and Video for Southern California – KTLA.COM – KTLA 5 – ktla.com – Illegal Immigrants Driver’s Licenses: LAPD Chief Backs Driver’s Licenses for Illegal Immigrants –
    • Illegal Immigrants Driver’s Licenses: LAPD Chief Backs Driver’s Licenses for Illegal Immigrants – ktla.com – Illegal Immigrants Driver’s Licenses: LAPD Chief Backs Driver’s Licenses for Illegal Immigrants –
    • National (US) Poll * February 23, 2012 * American Voters Hum, ‘happy Da – Quinnipiac University ? Hamden, Connecticut – RT @PounderFile: Q Poll: “Voters Support 64 – 23 Percent The Proposed Keystone Pipeline”
    • Senate Democrats hammer opponents over social issues – The Hill’s Ballot Box – Senate Democrats hammer opponents over social issues – The Hill’s Ballot Box
    • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-02-23 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-02-23
    • Colonoscopy May Halve Colon Cancer Deaths, Long Term Study – Colonoscopy May Halve Colon Cancer Deaths, Long Term Study
    • Mitt Romney DESTROYED Rick Santorum Last Night – Mitt Romney DESTROYED Rick Santorum Last Night
    • Once-hot Santorum up in smoke –
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-02-23 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-02-23
    • Santorum campaign suggests Mitt Romney may have done deal to make Ron Paul his running mate – After tonight’s debate, in which Ron Paul and Mitt Romney repeatedly attacked Rick Santorum over his 16-year record in Congress, the former Pennsylvania hinted that something nefarious was going on.

      “You have to ask Congressman Paul and Governor Romney what they’ve got going together,” Santorum told reporters in the spin room in Mesa, Arizona. “Their commercials look a lot alike and so do their attacks.”

      Santorum’s top strategist John Brabender went even further, charging that the two men had “joined forces” and were coordinating attacks against his man

      “Clearly there’s a tag team strategy between Ron Paul and Mitt Romney. For all I know, Mitt Romney might be considering Ron Paul as his running mate. Clearly there is now an alliance between those two and you saw that certainly in the debate.”

      The was also coordination in their attack ads, he charged. “Ron Paul for all practical purposes has pulled out of Michigan. Correct? Where’s he running negative ads against Rick Santorum? Michigan.

      “It was interesting to me that if you watch Ron Paul when he came into the debate wrote negative things about Rick Santorum down because when he started to get questions he would immediately pick up his paper and start mentioning Santorum stuff.”

      He added: “What is amazing to me this shows a remarkable ability by Romney, who has already proven to be the most negative man in history on TV, now he’s even training his opponents to be negative for his benefit and actually I think that takes remarkable skill.”

      The Romney campaign ridiculed the notion there was any coordination. “If ever there was an iconoclast who got up there and said what he believed it’s Ron Paul,” said Stuart Stevens, Romney’s chief strategist.

    • Falk: Pay for worker training with corporate taxes – Recall candidate Kathleen Falk wants to increase taxes on multi-state companies to pay for worker training.

      The plan would roll back tens of millions of dollars in spending cuts for the Wisconsin Technical College System as well as a corporate tax cut passed by Republicans last year. Falk, a Democrat and former Dane County executive, is seeking to challenge Gov. Scott Walker in a likely recall election.

      “My ‘Invest in Success’ plan will create jobs and spur economic growth by supporting what worked in Wisconsin for 100 years – investing in education and training workers through our technical college system,” Falk said in a statement.

      To help balance the state budget, Walker and GOP lawmakers in June of last year cut nearly $73 million, or 25%, from the Technical College System budget over two years. To undo part of that, Falk wants to roll back a tax cut on multi-state corporations approved by Walker and GOP lawmakers in the budget.

    • California Poll Watch: Rival Tax Increase Measures Blocking Jerry Brown » Flap’s California Blog – California Poll Watch: Rival Tax Increase Measures Blocking Jerry Brown
    • Capitol Alert: Sen. Sharon Runner announces she won’t run for re-election – California Sen. Sharon Runner announces she won’t run for re-election
    • California Sen. Sharon Runner announces she won’t run for re-election – Republican Sen. Sharon Runner, who is awaiting a lung transplant for a rare autoimmune disease, announced today that she will not seek re-election in November.

      Runner has been absent from the upper house since January, when she disclosed that complications related to her condition required her to work outside of Sacramento. She said today that she expects to make a full recovery and will focus on “business and philanthropic efforts” after leaving office.

      “Serving the people of our community over my lifetime has been an amazing blessing and I am so very thankful for their support throughout each of my elections and my tenure in office,” Runner said in a statement. “In the coming years, I will be working on behalf of the community that I love, but not in the role as an elected official.”

    • Untitled (http://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/misc/AZpolls/AZ120219/Republican%20Primary%202012/Complete%20February%2022nd%202012%20Arizona%20NBC%20News-Marist%20Poll%20Tables.pdf) – RT @HotlineJosh: Buried in NBC AZ poll: Immigration hurting Obama Only 57% of DEMS approve; 29/57 approval w/ indies
    • President 2012: GOP Debate in Arizona Tonight – A Season Finale? | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012: GOP Debate in Arizona Tonight – A Season Finale?
    • The Morning Flap: February 22, 2012 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – The Morning Flap: February 22, 2012
    • Poll Watch: Obese Americans Report Higher Rates of Daily Pain | Smiles For A Lifetime – Temporary (Locum Tenens) Dentistry – Poll Watch: Obese Americans Report Higher Rates of Daily Pain
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: Newly Identified Oral Bacteria Linked to Heart Disease – Newly Identified Oral Bacteria Linked to Heart Disease
    • Obama’s Dividend Assault – A plan to triple the tax rate would hurt all shareholders – WSJ.com – President Obama’s 2013 budget is the gift that keeps on giving—to government. One buried surprise is his proposal to triple the tax rate on corporate dividends, which believe it or not is higher than in his previous budgets.

      Mr. Obama is proposing to raise the dividend tax rate to the higher personal income tax rate of 39.6% that will kick in next year. Add in the planned phase-out of deductions and exemptions, and the rate hits 41%. Then add the 3.8% investment tax surcharge in ObamaCare, and the new dividend tax rate in 2013 would be 44.8%—nearly three times today’s 15% rate.

      Keep in mind that dividends are paid to shareholders only after the corporation pays taxes on its profits. So assuming a maximum 35% corporate tax rate and a 44.8% dividend tax, the total tax on corporate earnings passed through as dividends would be 64.1%.

    • Why Obama’s corporate tax plan is a total bust – The current U.S. economic recovery is arguably the worst in modern American history. Incomes are flat, housing is moribund, and the past three years have seen the longest stretch of high unemployment in this country since the Great Depression. Yet President Barack Obama—with the backing of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner—has the temerity to propose a corporate tax reform plan that would actually raise the tax burden on American business by $250 billion over a decade (and de facto on workers, too) without lowering rates to an internationally competitive level. This is a terrible, terrible plan:

      1. The Obama-Geithner plan would lower the statutory corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 35 percent, currently the second-highest among advanced economies. But that would still leave the combined U.S. corporate tax rate—state and federal—at 32.2 percent, far above the OECD combined average of 25 percent. The U.S. combined rate would be a bit below slow-growing Japan and France but above the U.K. and Germany. That’s not nearly good enough. Canada just lowered its corporate tax rate, for instance, to 15 percent. So instead of having the second highest corporate tax rate in the world, the United States would probably be fourth behind Japan, France, and Belgium.

    • Chris Christie tells Warren Buffett: ‘Shut up’ – Chris Christie has heard enough about Warren Buffett, and in typical fashion, the New Jersey governor had a certain blunt way of putting it.

      “He should just write a check and shut up,” Christie said Tuesday on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight.” “Really, and just contribute. The fact of the matter is that I’m tired of hearing about it. If he wants to give the government more money, he’s got the ability to write a check — go ahead and write it.”

    • Racial Preferences Redux – The Supreme Court revisits discrimination and government – When the Supreme Court last upheld racial preferences in college admissions, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote that she “expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.” That was 2003. By agreeing to hear a challenge to the University of Texas’s admissions policies yesterday, the Justices may have pushed up that deadline.
    • Dependency Is On The Rise, Despite Gov’t Attempts To Tell Us Things Are Getting Better – The government is at full throttle to present the economy as improving especially in light of the upcoming election. At the same time, there has been a stunning rise in dependency as most recently presented by the Heritage Foundation.

      Heritage defines dependency as significantly depending on the government for help in two of the following basic expense items: housing, food, shelter, income security or higher education.

      At the end of 2007, Heritage conservatively estimates there were 59.4 million Americans significantly dependent on the government.

      By the end of 2010, this number had risen to 67.3 million, an increase of nearly 8 million. It is likely that another two or three million were added in 2011, for a net increase of 10 million to 11 million over the past four years.

      It is not a coincidence that the number of people participating in the labor force has comparably declined over the same period.

    • Flap’s California Morning Collection: February 22, 2012 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Morning Collection: February 22, 2012
    • California rates health plans on quality measures – California’s largest health plans have improved their care for diabetic patients, but many need to do better at treating children with throat infections, testing for lung disease and helping people overcome drug and alcohol addictions.

      These are among the findings of the 11th annual report card released Wednesday by the state Office of the Patient Advocate.

      The report card is meant to give consumers an easy-to-use tool to compare the quality of care delivered by the state’s nine largest health maintenance organizations, six largest preferred provider organizations and 212 medical groups.

      Each plan is ranked in categories of care with one to four stars, depending on how well it meets national standards or how its members rate it in such areas as ease of getting appointments and customer service.

      “Publicly reporting is one tool to keep plans accountable,” said Sandra Perez, director of the Patient Advocate’s Office.

      “The report card helps educate everyone on what types of treatment they should be receiving from their health plan,” she said.

      As in previous years, Kaiser Permanente outshone its competitors, receiving the top ranking of four stars in most categories. Most other HMO or PPO plans had no categories with four stars.

      Among medical groups, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation also earned top scores, with four stars in both patient rankings and meeting national standards of care.

    • CA-30: Sen Barbara Boxer Endorses Rep Howard Berman » Flap’s California Blog – CA-30: Sen Barbara Boxer Endorses Rep Howard Berman
    • Tightening Arizona Race Heightens Pressure on Romney – With polls showing Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum within the margin of error of each other in Arizona and Michigan, both candidates have some tough decisions to make ahead of the states’ primaries on Tuesday.

      Just a few weeks ago, Romney seemed headed for big wins in both races. Now he finds himself trailing Santorum in his native Michigan, and Santorum creeping up on him in Arizona. That means the top rivals have to carefully figure out how to best divide their time and energy over the next six days.

    • Obama to propose lowering corporate tax rate to 28 percent – President Obama on Wednesday plans to propose a major overhaul of the nation’s corporate tax code, an election-year gambit that is likely to draw a contrast over a key policy issue with the Republicans vying to replace him.

      Obama will propose lowering the nation’s corporate tax rate to 28 percent. At the same time, however, he will seek to increase the amount of revenues raised overall through corporate taxation by eliminating numerous deductions and loopholes that save companies tens of billions of dollars a year on their tax bills, according to a senior administration official.

    • Chris Christie: Rick Santorum’s Satan Comments Are Relevant – Rick Santorum says his 2008 comments that “Satan has set his sights on the United States of America”  are “not relevant” to the 2012 presidential race, but Chris Christie told me on “GMA” that Santorum is wrong.
      “Listen, I think anything you say as a presidential candidate is relevant. It is by definition relevant. You’re asking to be president of the United States. I don’t think [Santorum’s] right about that. I think it is relevant what he says. I think people want to make an evaluation, a complete evaluation of anyone who asks to sit in the Oval Office,” the New Jersey governor said.
      Adding to the religious discussion on the campaign trail, yesterday Santorum said he would “defend everything” he says and Mitt Romney said the Obama administration has “fought against religion.”
      But Christie doesn’t think a debate over religion is a conversation the Republican Party wants to engage in.
      “Do I think it’s the things we should be as a party talking about and emphasizing at the moment? No,” he said.
    • Valerie Jarrett: ‘People Who Receive that Unemployment Check Go Out and Spend It and Help Stimulate the Economy’ – This evening, speaking at North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina, White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said that folks getting and spending unemployment checks is a healthy thing . . . because it stimulates the economy:
  • Pinboard Links,  The Afternoon Flap

    The Afternoon Flap: December 22, 2011

    December 22, 2011 /

    Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas speaks during a campaign stop in Fort Madison, Iowa, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2011

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

    • Grappling With Ron Paul’s Racist Newsletters – Did you know about the racist newsletters published in the late 1980s and early 1990s under Ron Paul’s name? As the Texas Congressman surges in the GOP primary, the story of the newsletters is garnering headlines, as it did during his 1996 House campaign and his 2008 presidential run. He’s always insisted that he didn’t write the egregiously offensive material, and long ago repudiated it (though not as soon as he should have). Is this an old story voters will look beyond, like Newt Gingrich’s affairs? Or a new story for the vast majority of voters and the plurality of journalists who are less familiar with Paul than the other GOP frontrunners? Is it coming up now “for political reasons”? Or because it’s a legitimate subject of inquiry despite having been aired before in the media?

      It seems to me that the story’s reemergence was inevitable and necessary to fully inform primary voters about their choices. This level of scrutiny is rightly what comes with contending for the presidency.

    • Mayor Calls For Budget Cuts To Offset Millions In Occupy LA Costs – The City of Los Angeles reportedly faces millions of dollars in expenses brought about by the Occupy LA movement.

      City agencies have been ordered to calculate what was spent on the Occupy LA protests.

      Repairs to City Hall’s lawn where the Occupy group set up camp on Oct. 1 will require an estimated $400,000. The police action to clear out the encampment on Nov. 30 cost more than $700,000.

      Additional expenses are attributed to hauling away debris from the camp, and cleaning up graffiti that defaced City Hall marble walls and trees.

    • Romney refines comments about deporting Obama’s uncle – Mitt Romney was more nuanced Thursday when questioned about radio show comments he made regarding deporting President Barack Obama’s uncle.

      According to The Hill, the former Massachusetts governor was asked by radio host Howie Carr if Onyango Obama, who is allegedly in violation of his immigration status and was arrested for drunk driving this summer, should be deported.

      In the Wednesday interview, Romney said the law must be followed.

      “Well, if the laws of the United States say he should be deported, and I presume they do, then of course we should follow those laws,” he said.

      Asked to clarify those comments in a press conference Thursday, Romney said his stance was not affected by the man’s relationship to the president.

    • Bush I: Read my lips, Romney’s the best choice – Former President George H.W. Bush, while stopping short of a formal endorsement, declared that Mitt Romney was the “best choice” for Republicans in 2012.

      The Houston Chronicle reports:

      “I think Romney is the best choice for us,” former President Bush told the Houston Chronicle this week. “I like Perry, but he doesn’t seem to be going anywhere; he’s not surging forward.”

      Bush said he had known Romney for many years and also knew his father, George Romney, a former Republican governor of Michigan who ran for president in 1968.

      Bush said he supported Romney because of his “stability, experience, principles.

      He’s a fine person,” he said. “I just think he’s mature and reasonable – not a bomb-thrower.”

    • Huffington Post Miami accused of over-aggregating – When Huffington Post Miami launched late last month, Arianna Huffington promised to “dig deeper in an effort to tell the stories of all the people who make up this unique city.”

      And how many Miami-based HuffPo journalists are doing that? Two, according to Bill Cooke. He reports that Miami Herald staffers are complaining that the HuffPo duo are rewriting their newspaper stories for Huffington Post Miami.

      Miami Herald managing editor Rick Hirsch declined to discuss this with Cooke. “I’ll say what I have to say directly to the Huffington Post. There are some things we’ll be discussing soon.”

    • McConnell offers a way out of the payroll tax cut thicket – As I predicted, the perennial adult in Washington, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), has stepped forward with a way out of the payroll tax box into which the House Republicans have climbed. He sent out this statement:

      “The House and Senate have both passed bipartisan bills to require the President to quickly make a decision on whether to support thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs through the Keystone XL pipeline, and to extend unemployment insurance, the temporary payroll tax cut and seniors’ access to medical care. There is no reason why Congress and the President cannot accomplish all of these things before the end of the year. House Republicans sensibly want greater certainty about the duration of these provisions, while Senate Democrats want more time to negotiate the terms. These goals are not mutually exclusive. We can and should do both. Working Americans have suffered enough from the President’s failed economic policies and shouldn’t face the uncertainty of a New Year’s Day tax hike. Leader Reid should appoint conferees on the long-term bill and the House should pass an extension that locks in the thousands of Keystone XL pipeline jobs, prevents any disruption in the payroll tax holiday or other expiring provisions, and allows Congress to work on a solution for the longer extensions.”

    • Ron Paul’s story changes on racial comments – Rep. Ron Paul has tried since 2001 to disavow racist and incendiary language published in Texas newsletters that bore his name, denying he wrote them and even walking out of an interview on CNN Wednesday. But he vouched for the accuracy of the writings and admitted writing at least some of the passages when first asked about them in an interview in 1996.

      Some issues of the newsletters included racist, anti-Israel or anti-gay comments, including a 1992 newsletter in which he said 95% of black men in Washington “are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.”
      Paul told TheDallas Morning News in 1996 that the contents of his newsletters were accurate but needed to be taken in context. Wednesday, he told CNN he didn’t write the newsletters and didn’t know what was in them.

    • Video: Ron Paul in 1995: Say, have you read my newsletters? – Mitt Romney can breathe a sigh of relief, because Andrew Kaczynksi has shifted his attention to Ron Paul this week. Andrew dug up a 1995 interview with C-SPAN, a year before running for Congress after a decade out of office. Paul tells C-SPAN that he was ready after the long hiatus to return to Washington, but that’s not the big catch in this clip. Starting at 1:45, Ron Paul explains that his private sector efforts are keeping him too busy — and starts plugging his newsletters:
    • What Ron Paul Thinks of America – Ron Paul’s supporters are sure of one thing: Their candidate has always been consistent—a point Dr. Paul himself has been making with increasing frequency. It’s a thought that comes up with a certain inevitability now in those roundtables on the Republican field. One cable commentator genially instructed us last Friday, “You have to give Paul credit for sticking to his beliefs.”

      He was speaking, it’s hardly necessary to say, of a man who holds some noteworthy views in a candidate for the presidency of the United States. One who is the best-known of our homegrown propagandists for our chief enemies in the world. One who has made himself a leading spokesman for, and recycler of, the long and familiar litany of charges that point to the United States as a leading agent of evil and injustice, the militarist victimizer of millions who want only to live in peace.

    • (404) http://t.co/ceSW4wND%E2%80%9D – Shocker Flip Flop Mitt strikes again “@ByronYork: Romney changes stance on Iraq invasion. #tcot
    • Flipper: Romney changes stance on Iraq invasion – Romney’s statement on MSNBC is not only a change from what he said on Fox a few days ago.  It’s also a change from his position during his first run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2007-2008.  In a January 2008 GOP debate in Florida, Romney was asked, “Was the war in Iraq a good idea worth the cost in blood and treasure we have spent?”  Romney answered: “It was the right decision to go into Iraq. I supported it at the time; I support it now.”
    • Paul abandons interview concerning controversial newsletters – Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) took off his microphone and left a contentious interview on Wednesday when a CNN reporter asked repeatedly about racist articles published in his newsletter in the 1980s and 1990s.

      “It’s been going on 20 years that I’ve been pestered about this and CNN does it every time,” Paul said, clearly adjitated by the line of questioning. “When are you going to wear yourself out?”

      The Texas congressman said that the articles – which did not carry a byline – were written by his publishing staff and that he did not know about them at the time.

      “I didn’t write them, I didn’t read them at the time, and I disavow them. That is the answer,” Paul said.

      When CNN reporter Gloria Berger defended her questioning as legitimate – noting that some of the articles were “pretty incendiary” – Paul began to remove his microphone.

      The newsletters, mainly a forum for essay’s on Paul’s brand of libertarianism, once referred to Martin Luther King Jr. as “the world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours” and who “seduced underage girls and boys.”

      In another article, the author writes that “given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.” 

    • Mitt Romney Says ‘Yes’ To Deporting President Obama’s Uncle – Presidential candidate Mitt Romney told a Boston talk radio host on Wednesday that he supports the deportation of President Obama’s Kenyan-born uncle who was arrested this fall on drunken driving charges in Massachusetts.
      When asked by Boston radio personality Howie Carr whether the president’s relative, Onyango Obama, should be deported, Romney said, “the answer is ‘yes.’”
      “Well, if the laws of the United States say he should be deported, and I presume they do, then of course we should follow those laws,” Romney said. “And the answer is ‘yes.’”
      When Carr brought up Onyango Obama case, Romney first sought clarification: “Who is Uncle Omar, Howie?” the former Massachusetts governor asked the radio host.
      Carr explained that the uncle, nicknamed “Omar,” was recently arrested in Framingham, Mass.
      “Now he’s claiming he’s got a Social Security number and drivers’ license and no one knows how he got them,” Carr told Romney, “but they’re apparently legit even though he’s in the country illegally.” (Onyango Obama had reportedly defied a 1992 deportation order.)
    • Oh My! Gingrich Challenges Romney to Debate – In an interview with NBC News, Newt Gingrich responded to Mitt Romney’s comments that he can’t take the heat of negative ads.

      Said Gingrich: “I’ll tell you what. If he wants to test the heat, I’ll meet him anywhere in Iowa next week, one-on-one, 90 minutes no moderator, just a timekeeper. He wants to try out the kitchen? I’ll debate him anywhere. We’ll bring his ads, and he can defend [them].”

    • Ron Paul Storms Out Of CNN Interview – Ron Paul walked out of an interview with CNN’s Gloria Borger, following a heated exchange over the controversy regarding racist newsletters sent in his name during the 1990s. Borger asked the Congressman if he had ever read the newsletters. “Did you ever object when you read them?”

      “Why don’t you go back and look at what i said yesterday on CNN and what I’ve said for 20 something years. 22 years ago? I didn’t write them, I disavow them, That’s it.”

      “But you made money off them,”

      “I was still practicing medicine,” Paul responded. “That’s probably why I wasn’t a very good publisher, I had to make a living.”

    • Tom Del Beccaro, Chairman of the California Republican Party Response to ProPublica Report – “The ProPublica report vindicates my repeated contention that the redistricting process was hijacked. That report, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. The corruption of the process went far beyond what was disclosed in that report. No fair minded person can now say the process or the result was fair. I am calling for an immediate and thorough investigation, by Congressional and State authorities, to get to the bottom of this obviously corrupted process. Beyond that, the Congressional and Senate lines as drawn by the Commission should not be used in any way for the upcoming elections.”
    • How Democrats Fooled California’s Redistricting Commission – This spring, a group of California Democrats gathered at a modern, airy office building just a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. The meeting was House members only — no aides allowed — and the mission was seemingly impossible.

      In previous years, the party had used its perennial control of California’s state Legislature to draw district maps that protected Democratic incumbents. But in 2010, California voters put redistricting in the hands of a citizens’ commission where decisions would be guided by public testimony and open debate.

    • Democrats skew redistricting effort to their benefit, investigation finds – California’s congressional Democrats ran a secret effort earlier this year to manipulate the work of the independent citizen’s panel that drew the state’s new political districts, foiling the intent of reformers who sought to remove the redistricting process from the control of party bosses.

      Democrats met behind closed doors at the party’s Washington, D.C. headquarters, hired consultants, drew their ideal districts and presented maps to the panel through proxies who never disclosed their party ties or “public interest” groups created specifically for the purpose. In many cases, the panel responded by doing just what the Democrats wanted.

      The New York-based nonprofit investigative foundation ProPublica released findings Wednesday from a months-long reconstruction of the Democrats’ stealth redistricting strategy, relying on internal memos, emails, interviews and map analysis.

      The success of the strategy has Democrats projecting they may pick up as many as seven congressional seats in 2012 under new district boundaries adopted last summer, far more than had been expected originally.

      “Every member of the Northern California Democratic Caucus has a ticket back to D.C.,” crowed one internal memo. “This is a huge accomplishment that should be celebrated by advocates throughout the region.”

    • All the Companies Supporting SOPA, the Awful Internet Censorship Law—and How to Contact Them – Who’s officially on the record backing what could be the worst thing to ever happen to the internet? All of these companies listed below. Don’t take our word for it—this list comes straight from Congress. Just FYI.

      If you want to get in touch, we’ve provided a contact list below. Maybe you want to let them know how you feel about SOPA.

    • Shocker: Californa Democrats Manipulated Citizen’s Redistricting Commission » Flap’s California Blog – Shocker: Californa Democrats Manipulated Citizen’s Redistricting Commission
    • Rove: Republicans should fold in payroll tax cut standoff – The Hill’s Video – RT @TheRReport: Rove: Republicans should fold in payroll tax cut standoff
    • (404) http://t.co/Q5Xc08br%E2%80%9D – IDIOTS “@politico: .@marincogan reports: GOP frosh dig in hard on payroll tax cut:
    • NRSC Outraises Democratic Committee in November : Roll Call Politics – RT @rollcall: NRSC Outraises Democratic Committee in November. via @RollCallAbby
    • The Afternoon Flap: December 21, 2011 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – The Afternoon Flap: December 21, 2011