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The Morning Flap: May 9, 2012
The Morning Flap: These are my links for May 7th through May 9th:
- Wave of violence in Germany over party’s use of anti-Muslim cartoons– GERMANY is beginning to regret its decision to allow a far-right political party to display anti-Muslim cartoons near mosques as part of an electioneering campaign.Spikes in violence at recent gatherings – including a major riot on Saturday that left two police officers seriously injured with stab wounds – have triggered fears of more bloodshed.Courts in Germany took the view that cartoon images of the Prophet Mohammed and Allah – both outlawed under Islam – were acceptable in a country where freedom of expression is enshrined in the constitution. But with resistance growing to the tactics of the radical Pro NRW party, Germany is looking to defuse tensions.More than 100 people were arrested at the protest in Bonn on Saturday where the police officers were stabbed in the legs; a further 27 officers were injured. One man has been charged with trying to incite the deaths of three policemen among the crowd of 600 Salafist Muslim demonstrators outside the King Fahd Academy in Bonn.The far-right Pro NRW party has said it intends to send activists to 25 mosques in the run-up to the state election in North Rhine-Westphalia on 13 May, staging protests in Cologne, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Aachen, Wuppertal and Solingen.
- Roots of Lugar’s Defeat Began Back Home – The tea party, an unsteady movement that was beginning to resemble a wayward ship in 2012, found its north star in Indiana on Tuesday night.
State Treasurer Richard Mourdock defeated six-term Sen. Richard Lugar in the Republican primary, a victory owing to the incumbent’s inept campaign, the outside groups that lashed him on the air, and a story about his out-of-state residency that would not go away. But well before those issues got a foothold, a grassroots-driven, local movement to unseat Lugar was well under way.
Sixteen months ago, a collection of tea party organizers met in the city of Tipton. Their goal was to address flaws in the movement that were exposed in 2010, when infighting and competing agendas largely driven by national groups and consultants hindered its ability to make lasting gains. What resulted was “Hoosiers for a Conservative Senate,” a network of 60 tea party groups dedicated to retiring Lugar.
“We didn’t have the unity [in 2010]. Once we built the foundation of unity, we went out and educated people about Lugar’s voting record,” said Monica Boyer, one of the group’s cofounders.
The group endorsed Mourdock after a September straw poll showed that he was the preferred choice of conservative activists. National groups like the Tea Party Express that in 2010 were responsible for the rise of Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Joe Miller in Alaska had yet to enter fray in a major way. The national group FreedomWorks had met with Boyer’s organization, but it didn’t jump in with full force until Mourdock emerged as the consensus candidate. - Elizabeth Warren Ancestor Rounded Up Cherokees For Trail of Tears –
- Will gay marriage haunt Obama in November?– Gay marriage is in the news — because Vice President Joe Biden put it there. He let the genie out of the bottle and got ahead of his boss on an issue the president has been trying to straddle for the last year and a half.President Obama’s coalition — minority voters and young voters — have very different views about gay marriage, evidenced in 2008 in California, when young voters came out to oppose an amendment that would ban gay marriage, while African Americans supported it.And then there’s the money, according to the Washington Post, one in six bundlers — the people who raise the big bucks for the Obama campaign — is gay. They are still raising money for a man who continues to twist himself into a pretzel over gay marriage, and whose White House still can’t figure out how to message it. Why? Because they believe wholeheartedly that he actually supports gay marriage, and if re-elected he will come out in full support of it and flip his position.
- Christie won’t say whether he’ll seek re-election –
- Why Dick Lugar lost –
- Lugar unloads on ‘unrelenting’ partisanship –
- Carville: Wake up Democrats; you could lose –
- Obama ‘disappointed’ by North Carolina same-sex marriage ban– President Obama’s campaign said he was “disappointed” that North Carolina voters approved a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in the state.”The President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same sex couples,” Obama North Carolina campaign spokesman Cameron French said, in a Tuesday statement on the vote over Amendment 1.
- Lugar loss has lessons for Republicans, Democrats –
- Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Day By Day May 7 & 8, 2012 – Base Voters – Day By Day May 7 & 8, 2012 – Base Voters
- Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-08 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-08
- Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Day By Day May 6, 2012 – Phat Future – Day By Day May 6, 2012 – Phat Future
- Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » President 2012 Poll Watch: Obama and Romney in a Dead Heat – President 2012 Poll Watch: Obama and Romney in a Dead Heat
- Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » President 2012 Poll Watch: Race Close in 12 Swing States – President 2012 Poll Watch: Race Close in 12 Swing States
- Capitol Alert: Tobacco firms chip in another $15 million against Prop 29 – RT @CapitolAlert: Tobacco firms chip in another $15 million against Prop 29
- Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: May 7, 2012 – The Morning Flap: May 7, 2012
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The Morning Flap: May 7, 2012
These are my links for May 4th through May 7th:
- Germany says renegotiating EU pact ‘not possible’– The German government on Monday ruled out reworking the European Union’s fiscal pact despite calls to do so by French president-elect Francois Hollande.”It is not possible to renegotiate the fiscal pact,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert told a regular news conference.He noted that 25 of the 27 EU member states had already signed the accord imposing strict budgetary discipline in March after major wrangling.
Hollande has called for a shift in strategy toward more growth-oriented measures including more public spending.
But Seibert said Merkel would not accept “deficit spending” to feed economic expansion, and believed in “growth through structural reforms” such as reducing the cost of job creation as pursued by Germany over the last decade.
Yet he dismissed suggestions that the apparently conflicting policies would put Merkel on a collision course with Germany’s closest ally, insisting she was ready for an open dialogue.
“We will see what proposals and ideas he has and go from there,” Seibert said, referring to Hollande.
He noted that Merkel was also a firm believer in promoting growth as a path out of the debt crisis.
“Growth is not a new issue but rather the second pillar of our fiscal policy, and not just since yesterday,” he said.
- Hollande faces battle with Berlin over growth– Fresh from the election campaign, president-elect Francois Hollande faces a new battle with France’s European partners, in particular Germany, to add a growth pact to balance the EU’s new compact on strict budgetary discipline.The handover of power by Nicolas Sarkozy should take place by May 15 at the latest, but the Socialist will immediately begin consultations with EU partners on his emblematic campaign initiative, according to his advisors.The goal is to advance the proposal on a growth compact to the stage of a memorandum that would be transmitted to European capitals for consideration by the end of the month.
The fiscal compact treaty requiring cutting deficits and debt was signed at the beginning of March by 25 EU states and has already been ratified by several.
- Socialist Hollande triumphs in French presidential poll– François Hollande has won France’s presidential election, giving the country its first Socialist president in almost two decades, exit polls showed Sunday.According to Ipsos polling institute, the left-wing candidate took 51.7% of the vote to incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy’s 48.3%.Celebrations are underway at the iconic Place de la Bastille in central Paris, the same spot where the last Socialist to win a presidential election, François Mitterrand, celebrated his first victory back in 1981.
- Vice President Marco Rubio? –
- Twitter plays outsize role in 2012 campaign –
- Fortune 500 2012: Annual ranking of America’s largest corporations from Fortune Magazine –
- Schwarzenegger vs. GOP, for old times’ sake –
- Why the Obama Campaign Is So Confident About Beating Romney –
- Untitled (http://getglue.com/Fullosseousflap/stickers/amc/the_killing_keylela?s=ts&ref=Fullosseousflap) – I unlocked the The Killing: Keylela sticker on @GetGlue!
- Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-06 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-06
- Gregory Flap @ Ronnie’s Diner – foursquare – Only 10 miles for me today, but it was sunny for a change. (@ Ronnie’s Diner w/ 2 others)
- Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-05 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-05
- Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » California FPPC’s Ann Ravel Backs Off Blogger Campaign Disclosure – California FPPC’s Ann Ravel Backs Off Blogger Campaign Disclosure
- Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Democrat Super PAC Up With Ad for Julia Brownley – CA-26: Democrat Super PAC Up With Ad for Julia Brownley
- Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Michael Ramirez: Barack Obama’s Forward? – Michael Ramirez: Barack Obama’s Forward?
- Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » In-Sen: Richard Mourdock Leads Sen. Richard Lugar By 10 Points – In-Sen: Richard Mourdock Leads Sen. Richard Lugar By 10 Points
- Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: May 4, 2012 – The Morning Flap: May 4, 2012
- Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Economic Growth Stalls as Unemployment Decreases to 8.1% – Economic Growth Stalls as Unemployment Decreases to 8.1%
- Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: May 4, 2012 – The Morning Drill: May 4, 2012
- Germany says renegotiating EU pact ‘not possible’– The German government on Monday ruled out reworking the European Union’s fiscal pact despite calls to do so by French president-elect Francois Hollande.”It is not possible to renegotiate the fiscal pact,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert told a regular news conference.He noted that 25 of the 27 EU member states had already signed the accord imposing strict budgetary discipline in March after major wrangling.