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• Self-Reported Gun Ownership in U.S. Is Highest Since 1993- The new result comes from Gallup’s Oct. 6-9 Crime poll, which also finds public support for personal gun rights at a high-water mark. Given this, the latest increase in self-reported gun ownership could reflect a change in Americans’ comfort with publicly stating that they have a gun as much as it reflects a real uptick in gun ownership.
• The new result comes from Gallup’s Oct. 6-9 Crime poll, which also finds public support for personal gun rights at a high-water mark. Given this, the latest increase in self-reported gun ownership could reflect a change in Americans’ comfort with publicly stating that they have a gun as much as it reflects a real uptick in gun ownership.Republicans (including independents who lean Republican) are more likely than Democrats (including Democratic leaners) to say they have a gun in their household: 55% to 40%.
• While sizable, this partisan gap is narrower than that seen in recent years, as Democrats’ self-reported gun ownership spiked to 40% this year.Republicans (including independents who lean Republican) are more likely than Democrats (including Democratic leaners) to say they have a gun in their household: 55% to 40%. While sizable, this partisan gap is narrower than that seen in recent years, as Democrats’ self-reported gun ownership spiked to 40% this year.

• Polls: 12 House pickup chances for Democrats – New polls out Thursday of 12 House districts now held by Republicans in four states showcase some prime pickup opportunities for Democrats next year.
• The House Majority PAC, which can raise unlimited money to support Democratic candidates with an independent expenditure campaign, commissioned Public Policy Polling to survey 12 districts where the redistricting process has been completed.
• In every one, less than 50 percent of voters said they would like to see the incumbent Republican reelected next year. And a majority in all but one expressed a negative opinion of the Republicans in Congress.
• Ali Lapp, executive director of House Majority PAC, argues that “Republican control of the House is in serious jeopardy.”
• Redistricting in Arkansas, California, Illinois and Wisconsin – where PPP polled the dozen districts – could help Democrats.
• Some Republicans who have not faced competitive races in years now face serious trouble. Illinois Rep. Tim Johnson, for example, has been drawn by the Democratic legislature into a treacherous district where just 33 percent of voters would like to reelect him, according to the new poll, while 53 percent would prefer someone else.
• “Congressional Republicans have become very unpopular, very fast, across a very wide variety of districts and that’s going to make dozens of incumbent GOP members vulnerable for reelection next year,” PPP director Tom Jensen, a respected Democratic pollster, writes in a three-page memo.
• Democrats face a very heavy lift to get the 25 seats they need to regain a majority. That kind of turnover is rare, and Republicans have solidified their holds on certain seats in states where they controlled the redistricting process. Historically, the kind of turnover from the last three election cycles is very rare, yet polls like these give Democrats confidence.

• Can Mitt Romney afford to skip Iowa? – Mitt Romney holds a small lead in Iowa in a new poll.

• Which begs the question: At what point is he simply required to put his best foot forward in the Hawkeye State?
• The CNN/TIME Magazine poll shows Romney with a statistically insignificant lead on businessman Herman Cain, 24 percent to 21 percent, and is one of two major polls this month to show Romney with a small lead in Iowa. (The other being an NBC/Marist College poll from early in the month, before Cain really picked up steam.)
• Despite this, Romney has visited the state only three times this year and continues to dance around the concept of running a full-throated campaign in it. He skipped the Ames Straw Poll two months ago and, most recently, became the only major GOP presidential candidate who hasn’t sworn off Iowa (read: Jon Huntsman) to skip the state GOP’s Ronald Reagan Dinner.
• Romney’s campaign is smartly lowering expectations in a state that will be tougher than the others for him and that he doesn’t necessarily need; after all, the CNN poll shows he’s got a great chance at winning basically any of the early states (he leads in all of them), and his chances are especially good in New Hampshire and Nevada, the latter which CNN didn’t poll but has shown large leads for Romney.

• Is Perry dropping off the debating circuit? – It’s hard to believe that Texas Gov. Rick Perry would bug out of the debates, but that is what his campaign was hinting about yesterday. Politico reports: “Perry spokesman Mark Miner said the issue is using time wisely, and noted their campaign is not alone in that. ‘I think all the campaigns are expressing frustration right now,’ Miner told POLITICO. ‘We said we would do Michigan but the primaries are around the corner and you have to use your time accordingly.’?”

• I am not aware of any other candidate thinking of fleeing the chance for free airtime to sell himself or herself to the American people. Should Perry back out after a series of awful debate outings, the message would plainly be: This is too hard for me.
• Perry is big on sport metaphors and has said his low standing in the polls won’t send him home at halftime. But if he absents himself from the debates, especially the foreign policy debate on Nov. 15, the unmistakable message is that he really isn’t ready for prime-time.

Enjoy your morning!

Tags: GOP, Guns, Iowa, Mitt Romney, Pinboard Links, Polling, Rick Perry

Flap’s links for October 23rd through October 26th:

• How Rick Perry’s Tax Plan Would Affect You- Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, today released some details on his flat tax proposal. The plan would give Americans the option of determining their taxes based on an alternate system that has one tax rate and fewer deductions.We asked the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, to help calculate how Mr. Perry’s proposal might affect different kinds of American families. Roberton Williams, a senior fellow there, kindly crunched some numbers using what’s known about the new proposal.

  The chart below shows a few different types of families — single, married with children, head of household with children, and retired — and what kind of tax liabilities they would face under current law and under Mr. Perry’s alternative system:

• Pizza Magnate Leads GOP Presidential Pack In Ohio, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Romney Stalled As Perry Vanishes- Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain has jumped to the front of the line among GOP presidential contenders with 28 percent support among Ohio Republicans. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is second with 23 percent, while Texas Gov. Rick Perry is almost at the bottom of the pile with 4 percent.Cain leads a three-man race with 40 percent, followed by Romney at 33 percent and Perry at 10 percent.

  President Barack Obama’s job approval rating and re-elect numbers remain underwater among Ohio voters, who disapprove 51 – 43 percent and say 49 – 44 percent the president does not deserve a second term, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

  Despite his negative scores, the president leads potential Republican challengers:

  47 – 39 percent over Cain;
  45 – 41 percent over Romney;
  47 – 36 percent over Perry.

 

• Paul Ryan’s ‘Politics of Division’ Speech – “Saving the American Idea: Rejecting Fear, Envy and the Politics of Division”

 

By Paul Ryan
October 26, 2011 — The Heritage Foundation
Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Thank you so much, Ed, for that kind introduction.

We’re here today to explore the American Idea, and I can’t think of a better venue for this topic. The mission of the Heritage Foundation is to promote the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

These are the principles that define the American Idea. And this mission has never been timelier, because these principles are very much under threat from policies here in Washington.

The American Idea belongs to all of us – inherited from our nation’s Founders, preserved by the countless sacrifices of our veterans, and advanced by visionary leaders, past and present.

What makes America exceptional — what gives life to the American Idea — is our dedication to the self-evident truth that we are all created equal, giving us equal rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And that means opportunity.

The perfection of our union, especially our commitment to equality of opportunity, has been a story of constant striving to live up to our Founding principles. This is what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said, “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.”

This commitment to liberty and equality is something we take for granted during times of prosperity, when a growing economic pie gives all Americans the opportunity to pursue their dreams, to provide brighter futures for their kids, or maybe just to meet their families’ needs.

 

• @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-10-26 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-10-26 #tcot #catcot

 

 

• Dilbert October 25, 2011 – Succession Plan? » Flap’s California Blog – Scott Adams and Dilbert listen to Alice who is always right…..especially about MOSS!
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• Flap’s Dentistry Blog: Federal Government Medical Panel Recommends HPV Vaccine for Boys – Gardasil for Boys may be hard to accept….:

 

 

• California GOP Should Go After SB 202 » Flap’s California Blog – California GOP Should Go After SB 202

 

 

• California Man Pleads Guilty to Threatening Senator Barbara Boxer | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Disagree with the politicians but definitely do NOT threaten them….:

 

 

• Video of the Day: San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee – 2 Legit 2 Quit » Flap’s California Blog – Fear the mustache…..Ed Lee is 2 Legit 2 Quit:

 

 

• California Rep Laura Richardson to Face Full House Ethics Investigation | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – California Rep. Laura Richardson facing another ethics investigation….:

 

 

• Flap’s California Morning Collection: October 25, 2011 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Morning Collection: October 25, 2011

 

 

• President 2012 GOP Poll Watch: Another Good Week for Herman Cain But Watch Out for Newt | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – In Wisconsin and Nevada, Herman Cain doing well against Romney, but watch out for Newt…:

 

 

• Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: October 25, 2011 – The Morning Drill: October 25, 2011

 

 

• Mexico Consular ID Cards Now Accepted as Valid Identification in Sonoma County » Flap’s California Blog – Mexico Consular ID Cards Now Accepted as Valid Identification in Sonoma County

 

 

• Why Rick Perry is flirting with birtherism – The Washington Post – Why Rick Perry is flirting with birtherism? – because he does not want to be nor should be President #tcot

 

 

• Rick Perry: My Tax and Spending Reform Plan – WSJ.com – Rick Perry’s Tax and Spending Reform Plan: And, voters care why? Remember Ponzi Scheme? #tcot

 

 

• Coffee Drinking Associated with Decreased Risk of Skin Cancer? | Smiles For A Lifetime – Temporary (Locum Tenens) Dentistry – Coffee Drinking Associated with Decreased Risk of Skin Cancer?

 

 

• MLB accuses Frank McCourt of ‘looting’ $189 million from Dodgers – latimes.com – > Without a doubt RT @KNX1070: MLB accuses Frank McCourt of ‘looting’ $189 million from Dodgers

 

 

• t.co / Twitter – RT @RasmussenPoll: Obama: Strongly Approve: 18%… Strongly Disapprove 40%… Approval Index: -22… Total Approval: 44%… …

 

 

• Day By Day October 25, 2011 – Tits Up | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Day By Day October 25, 2011 – Tits Up #tcot #catcot

 

 

• @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-10-25 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-10-25 #tcot #catcot

 

 

• President 2012: Rick Perry Proposes 20 Percent Flat Tax | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – But, will a 20% Flat Tax make any difference in Iowa, South Carolina and Florida for Rick Perry?
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• Poll Watch: 32% Have Favorable View of Occupy Wall Street | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Not much support out there for Occupy Wall Street – Wall Street though is a different matter…:

 

 

• SF ballot measures: will courts revisit pensions? – One of two competing pension measures on the San Francisco ballot next month is said by opponents to be an illegal assault on the “vested rights” of public employees, a cost-cutting plan certain to be overturned by the courts.

 

The measure does not raise the issue that the Little Hoover Commission and others say urgently needs a new look by the courts: whether the pensions of current workers not yet earned by time on the job can be cut.

But Measure D by Jeff Adachi, the city public defender, does raise the annual payments employees must make toward their pensions without bargaining or providing an offsetting benefit.

“As written, D raises contribution rates on current employees, but fails to include offsetting reductions in good economic times when the city’s costs are reduced,” said a ballot pamphlet rebuttal written by Mayor Ed Lee and others. “D is not only unfair, legal experts say it’s unlawful and will be invalidated by the courts, leaving taxpayers with zero savings.”

In a ballot pamphlet reply, Adachi urges voters not to let the opponents “scare” them: “Last year, a San Francisco Superior Court ruled that the city could change the contribution rates of its employees in order to protect the fiscal integrity of the system, which is what Prop D does.”

Whether voter approval of Measure D on Nov. 8 would result in a court ruling making a significant statewide change in case law is not clear.

Many legal experts, but not all, believe that a series of past court rulings mean that pensions promised state and local government employees on the date of hire cannot be cut without providing other benefits of equal value.

 

• President 2012 Obama Jam: Another Fundraising Day and Another Obama Traffic Jam for Los Angeles | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – T-Minus 3 Hours and Counting for Obama Jam – LA:

 

 

• Poll: In North Carolina, Obama Beats Cain by 80 With Black Voters – Oh, he’s losing overall, and I’m not trying to hide that with the headline, but the racial crosstab is what really jumps out to me from the new Civitas poll in North Carolina. Civitas polled 600 voters, of whom 126 were black. That’s a decent-sizes sample. Obama easily crushes Cain with those voters, carrying blacks 86 percent to 6 percent. (Only 8 black voters in this sample said they’d vote for Cain.) John McCain only got 5 percent of the black vote here in 2008 — Cain barely improves on it!
  What explains this? When I was writing this piece about Cain and Tea Partiers, I spent some time on black news sites, seeing what was being written about the surprise Republican frontrunner. It was overwhelmingly negative. If you were to get all of your info on Cain from black news sites, you’d mostly learn that the guy didn’t participate in the Civil Rights movement, wasn’t immediately offended by Rick Perry’s “Niggerhead” rock, and wanted the Secret Service to call him “cornbread.” Just yesterday, Toure spat out a remarkable amount of bile in a piece explaining why, as a black voter, he despises Cain.
  Cain is a clown. You see it in the way he constantly mollifies white audiences with self-effacing, racialized comedy that borders on minstrelsy (referring to himself as “black-walnut ice cream” or suggesting that the Secret Service call him “Cornbread”)… Cain is what I long imagined the first Black President would be like: a Republican who many Blacks find unctuous.
  Toure could have continued on with the central liberal complaint about black conservatives — that they are used to appeal to guilty-feeling whites, not to do anything for blacks.

 

 

• Will Steve Jobs’ final vendetta haunt Google? – The depths of Jobs’ antipathy toward Google leaps out of Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Apple’s co-founder. The book goes on sale Monday, less than three weeks after Jobs’ long battle with pancreatic cancer culminated in his Oct. 5 death. The Associated Press obtained a copy Thursday.
  The biography drips with Jobs’ vitriol as he discusses his belief that Google stole from Apple’s iPhone to build many of the features in Google’s Android software for rival phones.
  It’s clear that the perceived theft represented an unforgiveable act of betrayal to Jobs, who had been a mentor to Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and had welcomed Google’s CEO at the time, Eric Schmidt, to be on Apple’s board.
  Jobs retaliated with a profane manifesto during a 2010 conversation with his chosen biographer. Isaacson wrote that he never saw Jobs angrier in any of their conversations, which covered a wide variety of emotional topics during a two-year period.
  After equating Android to “grand theft” of the iPhone, Jobs lobbed a series of grenades that may blow a hole in Google’s image as an innovative company on a crusade to make the world a better place.
  “I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs told Isaacson. “I’m going to destroy Android because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go to thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death because they know they are guilty.”
  Jobs then used a crude word for defecation to describe Android and other products outside of search.
  Android now represents one of the chief threats to the iPhone. Although iPhones had a head start and still draw huge lines when new models go on sale, Android devices sold twice as well in the second quarter. According to Gartner, Android’s market share grew 2 1/2 times to 43 percent, compared with 17 percent a year earlier. The iPhone’s grew as well, but by a smaller margin — to 18 percent, from 14 percent.
  Both Google and Apple declined comment to The Associated Press when asked about Jobs’ remarks.
  Jobs’ attack is troubling for Google on several levels.

 

 

• Untitled (http://www.magellanstrategies.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Magellan-Nevada-2012-Republican-Presidential-Caucus-Survey-Release-102411.pdf) – > Perry < Newt RT @jamiedupree New poll from Nevada has Romney 38, Cain 26, Gingrich 16, Paul 7, Perry 5, Bachmann2 pdf

 

 

• Flap’s California Morning Collection: October 24, 2011 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Morning Collection: October 24, 2011

 

 

• President 2012 Poll Watch: 62% of Americans Would Scrap the Electoral College | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012 Poll Watch: 62% of Americans Would Scrap the Electoral College #tcot #catcot

 

 

• Bisphenol A (BPA) Exposure In Utero Linked to Behavior and Emotional Problems in Children? | Smiles For A Lifetime – Temporary (Locum Tenens) Dentistry – Bisphenol A (BPA) Exposure In Utero Linked to Behavior and Emotional Problems in Children?

 

 

• Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: October 24, 2011 – The Morning Drill: October 24, 2011

 

 

• Dilbert October 23, 2011 – How Many? » Flap’s California Blog – Happy Monday everyone with a little Dilbert from the Sunday papers….:

 

 

• Day By Day October 24, 2011 – Walking the Dogs | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Day By Day October 24, 2011 – Walking the Dogs #tcot #catcot

 

 

• @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-10-24 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-10-24 #tcot #catcot

 

 

• Blog.com — What’s your story? – Flap’s Links and Comments for October 22nd through October 23rd #tcot #catcot

 

 

• Flap’s Blog.Com Links and Comments for October 22nd through October 23rd | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s Links and Comments for October 22nd through October 23rd #tcot #catcot

 

Tags: Paul Ryan, Polling, Rick Perry, The Morning Flap

A fairly routine, generic ad featuring the jobs theme that Perry has been emphasizing since the start of his campaign.

There is no mention of his “new” economic plan featuring a 20% flat income tax which he rolled out the other day.

So, move along folks….. no 2 Legit 2 Quit here.

Tags: President 2012, Rick Perry

Tags: President 2012, Rick Perry

Tags: Mitt Romney, President 2012, Rick Perry

Tags: Mitt Romney, President 2012, Rick Perry

Yeah, not too smart.

Put it this way, Cain, Bachmann, Santorum and the rest would be thrilled for Perry to talk about immigration all day long. Perry, probably out of personal pique, doesn’t seem to understand that his real problem is not Romney but the other Tea Party-friendly candidates who have eaten his lunch and taken his voters.

Tags: Mitt Romney, President 2012, Rick Perry