• Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: July 25, 2012

    President Obama thanking Terry Bean

    These are my links for July 24th through July 25th:

    • Obama Thanks ‘Gay-Porn Kingpin’– “I want to thank someone who put so much work into this event, Terry Bean,” President Obama said as the crowd began to cheer. “Give Terry a big round of applause.”Terry Bean is, according to the New York Post, a “gay-porn kingpin.””ONE of the ‘bundlers’ who has raised $50,000 to $100,000 for the Barack Obama presidential campaign is Terrence Bean, who once controlled the biggest producer of gay porn in America,” the Post reported in 2008, during the president’s first run the office. “Bean, the first gay on Sen. Obama’s National Finance Committee, is the sole trustee of the Charles M. Holmes Foundation, which owned Falcon Studios, Jock Studios and Mustang Studios, the producers of about $10 million worth of all-male pornography a year.”

    • Too Big To Fail, Obama and Dodd-Frank– The two-year anniversary of Dodd-Frank has come and gone, and Too Big To Fail is only growing.Sure, President Obama assured us the sweeping law would reform the sleaze and mindless risk-taking of the banking business — but all it’s given us is the certainty of future bailouts.Actually, that’s not fair: It’s also producing reams and reams of rules and regulations that force banks out of certain profitable lines of business, like proprietary trading, that had little to do with the shenanigans that led the financial crisis.But the biggest problem is the expansion of the largest single contributor to the banking collapse: The government’s protection of the remaining big financial institutions, a k a Too Big To Fail.The reason Too Big To Fail is so dangerous is that it provides a level of comfort to the Wall Street risk takers — enabling them to act like riverboat gamblers and simply bet more and more until the system comes crashing down, as it did four years ago. Why fear, when the taxpayer is on the hook for your losses?

      Dodd-Frank was supposed to end the bank-protection racket. Everyone from the president to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (who’s due up on Capitol Hill this week to discuss the law) to its chief sponsors, then-Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank, said so.

      They tell us the law makes certain that the next time the big banks take too much risk, there will no taxpayer bailout: The bankers (and those who trusted them) will have to pay for their risk-taking sins in bankruptcy court, just like any other business in America.

      Don’t buy it. A relatively open secret on Wall Street is that the megabanks that survived the financial crisis — JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo — are still very much protected by the federal government and the American taxpayer.

    • California cities’ bankruptcies: Blame the housing bust– The reporting and commentary on the bankruptcies of California cities over the last month haven’t been journalism’s finest hour. From reading the voluminous accounts of the fiscal woes of Stockton and San Bernardino, you’d think that municipal unions and feckless city officials are primarily what led these cities down the path to fiscal ruin.But you’d be wrong. What bankrupted Stockton and San Bernardino were the most severe housing busts in the nation. What bankrupted those two cities were banks peddling subprime mortgages to poorly paid workers.That story has been missing from most accounts of the debacle, which instead focus on the preferred narrative of the right and center-right: that of fiscal irresponsibility and overpaid public employees. “Another city sinks in pension morass,” the Orange County Register editorialized. The problem common to the cities, wrote Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters, is that “elected leaders and appointed managers succumbed to hubris and political pressure, particularly from their employee unions.”Even most of the straightforward reporting has emphasized the errors of city managers and the burdens of having to pay city workers andBut that narrative is “Hamlet” without the prince. Yes, some elected and appointed officials were indifferent or insensible to their city’s fiscal plight. But lots of cities have negligent public officials, and even more have police officers and firefighters with those demonized defined-benefit pensions. What sets Stockton and San Bernardino apart is a far narrower set of circumstances: They were at the epicenters of the American housing bubble and the American housing bust.
    • To Move Polls, Romney Needs to Go Positive– Every once in a blue moon, a pollster asks exactly the right questions and brings some clarity to a number of important “big picture” issues in an election. Such is the case with the latest Pew poll. In particular, this survey helps us answer:– Is this election a choice or a referendum?
    • Marijuana Dispensaries Banned in L.A. Per City Council Vote– The L.A. City Council today voted to put an end to the city’s infamous and numerous marijuana dispensaries, citing neighborhood concerns and court rulings that have questioned a city’s right to regulate the retailers.Most of all, however, the council argued that L.A’s for-profit pot shop scene was never envisioned by state lawmakers whom the City Attorney says wanted to legalize the nonprofit growing and sharing of cannabis among the seriously ill.That interpretation, of course, is up for debate, but …… for now the city of L.A. is having things its way: No more weed retailers in the pot shop capital of the nation. Maybe. (See more below).At one point LA Weekly counted about 550 of them, and in light of a lack of city regulation, it seems that the number has remained fairly constant to us. In fact sources have told us that some rogue shops have taken advantage of City Hall’s lack of action –it has been trying to regulate dispensaries since at least 2007 — to open illicit pop-up shops that come and go quickly.
    • Gov. Scott Walker knocks Mitt Romney’s campaign– Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker criticized Mitt Romney’s campaign Wednesday for being too cautious and for assuming the election could just be a referendum on the president.“I think there’s a lot of caution. I think the mistake that they’ve made is the feeling like it can just be a referendum on the president,” said Walker, a Republican, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “It’s certainly a part of it for any incumbent, it’s got to be a referendum on, do you like or dislike, not just the president, but his policies… but there’s got to be something more. People don’t just vote somebody out, they’ve got to vote somebody in
    • Nearly one in 10 employers to drop health coverage– About one in 10 employers plan to drop health coverage when key provisions of the new health care law kick in less than two years from now, according to a survey to be released Tuesday by the consulting company Deloitte.Nine percent of companies said they expect to stop offering coverage
      to their workers in the next one to three years, the Wall Street Journal reported. Around 81 percent said they would continue providing benefits and 10 percent said they weren’t sure.
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-07-25 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-07-25
    • California Appeals Court Upholds Proposition 13 – Yet Again – California Appeals Court Upholds Proposition 13 – Yet Again
    • Brian Ross at ABC News – Hitting the Lazy Button – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Brian Ross at ABC News – Hitting the Lazy Button
    • Flap’s California Morning Collection: July 24, 2012 – Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Morning Collection: July 24, 2012
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Daily Extraction: Guatemala Hands On Extraction Courses with Dr. Tommy Murph – The Daily Extraction: Guatemala Hands On Extraction Courses with Dr. Tommy Murph
    • The Morning Flap: July 24, 2012 – Flap’s Blog – The Morning Flap: July 24, 2012
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: June 7, 2012

    Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker

    These are my links for June 6th through June 7th:

    • Walker Changes Attitudes on Public Employee Unions– The results are in, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has beaten Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in the recall election. That’s in line with pre-election polling, though not the Election Day exit poll. Even before the results came in, we knew one thing, and that is that the Democrats and the public employee unions had already lost the battle of ideas over the issue that sparked the recall, Walker’s legislation to restrict the bargaining powers of public employee unions.That’s supported by a Marquette University poll showing 75 percent of Wisconsin voters favoring increases in public employees’ contributions for health care and pensions. It also showed 55 percent for limiting collective bargaining for public employees and only 41 percent opposed.
    • Forget Wisconsin. The Unions’ Biggest Loss Was in California– Bad news for teachers and other public-sector employees: America is more than ready to cut your pensions and benefits. While most politicos had been focusing this week on the Wisconsin recall, an election 2,100 miles away in San Jose, Calif., may be a bigger harbinger of the kind of austerity voters are developing a taste for.In this city of about a million residents an hour south of San Francisco,voters on Tuesday approved arguably the country’s boldest pension cuts. San Jose’s Democratic mayor, Chuck Reed, has been grappling with ballooning pension costs that have increased from $73 million to $245 million in the last decade. Retirement costs already consume more than 20% of the city’s general fund, which helps explain why Reed was pushing San Jose to pass Measure B,which would give voters the power to approve increases in pension benefits and give the city the power to suspend automatic 3% annual raises during a fiscal crisis. The measure would also make workers contribute half the cost of their pensions; employees currently pay $3 for every $8 the city contributes, and the city is financially responsible for any shortfalls. Also included are provisions to curb the abuse of disability benefits. It’s a tough package —and will certainly be challenged in court because it changes benefits not only for future workers, something everyone agrees is legal, but for current ones as well. Nonetheless, voters passed it by a stunning margin of 69.5% in favor, 30.4% opposed. A pension reform measure also passed in San Diego.
    • Romney: Obama slowed recovery to push Obamacare– In an appearance in Texas Wednesday, Mitt Romney charged that President Obama “knowingly slowed down the recovery in this country…in order to put in place Obamacare.” The president’s action, Romney said, “deserves a lot of explaining.”Speaking to an audience at USAA, an insurance and financial services company headquartered in San Antonio, Romney cited a book, “The Escape Artists: How Obama’s Team Fumbled the Recovery,” by the liberal journalist Noam Scheiber. In the book, Scheiber discussed Obama’s thinking on the question of whether, early in his term, to focus more attention on passing a national health care law or to devote more energy to bringing about economic recovery. As Scheiber put it, Obama saw health care as a bigger long-term accomplishment. “There was a strain of messianism in Barack Obama, a determination to change the course of history,” Scheiber wrote. “And it was this determination that explained his reluctance to abandon his presidential vision.” So health care it was.”I always admired the president’s courage for recognizing that fifty years from now people would remember that all Americans had health care,” former Obama economic adviser Larry Summers told Scheiber. “And even if pursuing health care affected the pace of the recovery, which was unlikely in my view, people wouldn’t remember how fast the recovery from this recession was.”
    • Senator Asks DOJ to Investigate SWAT-ting Attacks on Conservative Bloggers– A number of conservative bloggers allege they have been targeted through the use of harassment tactics such as SWAT-ting (fooling 911 operators into sending emergency teams to their homes), in retaliation for posts they have written, and now Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., has stepped into the matter. He has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder urging him to investigate the SWAT-ting cases to see if federal laws have been violated.”I am writing with concern regarding recent reports that several members of the community of online political commentators have been targeted with harassing and frightening actions. Any potentially criminal action that incites fear, seeks to silence a dissenting opinion, and collaterally wastes the resources of law enforcement should be given close scrutiny at all levels,” Chambliss wrote in the letter.
    • Exit poll: Wisconsin in play in November – The Wisconsin exit poll evidently reported the race for governor in the recall ballot as 50%-50%. With 92% of the vote in, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s excellent website reports the score as 54%-46% Walker. Let’s say that’s the final results: only 13% of precincts from Milwaukee County and 3% of precincts from Madison’s Dane County —the Democrats’ two reservoirs of big majorities—remain uncounted. It has been emblazoned on mainstream media that the exit poll also showed Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney in the state 51%-45%. But if you think the exit poll was 4% too Democratic—and that’s in line with exit poll discrepancies with actual vote results over the last decade, as documented by the exit poll pioneer, the late Warren Mitofsky*—that result looks more like 49%-47% Romney. Or assume the remaining Milwaukee County precincts whittle Republican Governor Scott Walker’s margin over Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to 53%-47%, which looks likely, the Obama-Romney numbers would look like 48%-48%
    • Rendell: Wisconsin recall a ‘dumb political fight’ for labor to pick– Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) ripped the unions and activists who charged forward in trying to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) on Wednesday, calling the push a political blunder.”It was a dumb political fight — I would have waited until Walker’s reelection,” Rendell told The Hill when asked if the recall push had been a mistake. The former governor and head of the Democratic National Committee pointed to exit polls that showed a number of independents and Democrats who opposed Walker’s policies nonetheless voted for him because they opposed a recall.
    • Barney Frank: Dems, unions made ‘big mistake’ in pushing for Wisconsin recall– Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) slammed unions and liberal activists for pushing to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R).”I think the people on the Democratic side made a big mistake and the funding thing was a big deal,” Frank told The Hill Wednesday afternoon, alluding to Republicans’ big cash advantage in the race. “My side picked a fight they shouldn’t have picked. The recall was upsetting to people, the rerun of the election with [Democratic Milwaukee Mayor] Tom Barrett — it’s not a fight I would have picked.”
    • Obama frets after ‘terrifying’ recall vote– President Obama will need to double down on his efforts to keep Wisconsin safely in his column after Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) resounding victory in Tuesday’s recall election.Every Democratic presidential candidate since Walter Mondale in 1984 has won Wisconsin, but the Obama campaign “can’t view Wisconsin as being in the bank for them,” said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “They’re definitely going to have to put more effort here than they were initially planning.”Political observers say Obama remains the odds-on favorite to win Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes, a sentiment reflected in exit polls showing the president leading Mitt Romney by a healthy margin.
    • Romney narrows gender– Mitt Romney has significantly narrowed the gender gap with President Obama despite massive Democratic attacks on the GOP over a variety of issues.As recently as April, Obama led Romney by 18 percent among women voters in a USA Today/Gallup poll of 12 swing states. The huge advantage with women gave Obama an overall edge of 9 percent.Recent polls show Romney has sliced into that lead.
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-06-07 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-06-07
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: How Will Dentistry Be Affected By ObamaCare – The Affordable Care Act? – How Will Dentistry Be Affected By ObamaCare – The Affordable Care Act?
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow – RE:  LInda Parks proved to be the weakest candidate. Now, Strickland will face the full money and labor machine of th…
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: June 6, 2012 – The Morning Flap: June 6, 2012
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: June 6, 2012

    Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker last night

    These are my links for June 5th through June 6th:

  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: June 5, 2012

    Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker casts his ballot Tuesday, June 5, 2012, in Wauwatosa, Wis. Walker faces Democratic challenger Tom Barrett in a special recall election

    These are my links for June 4th through June 5th:

  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: June 4, 2012

    These are my links for June 1st through June 4th:

  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: June 1, 2012

    These are my links for May 31st through June 1st:

  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: May 29, 2012

    These are my links for May 25th through May 29th:

  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: May 17, 2012

    These are my links for May 16th through May 17th:

    • Romney presses Obama on debt with aid of prop clock– Mitt Romney continued to drive a debt-oriented message here on Wednesday morning, extending his “prairie fire” of debt metaphor with the assistance of a prop.In a nod to the independent voters who pushed the Sunshine State into the Democratic column in 2008, Romney noted that both parties were responsible for pushing the debt to the “incomprehensible” levels – which were represented on a giant prop debt clock behind him.
    • Harvard’s ‘woman of color’– The curious case of the Native American roots — or lack thereof — of Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren just keeps getting curiouser.Now the New England Historical Genealogical Society, which originally announced they found evidence of Warren’s Cherokee heritage, has revised its finding.Tom Champoux, spokesman for the society, said “We have no proof that Elizabeth Warren’s great great great grandmother O.C. Sarah Smith either is or is not of Cherokee descent.”
    • Dems in despair on Wisconsin– On Monday, local party officials began complaining bitterly about the lack of resources national Democratic groups are committing to the recall effort in Wisconsin. “We are frustrated by the lack of support from the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Governors Association,” a top Wisconsin Democratic Party official told The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent.Back in January, the complaints were coming from the other end: National Democrats were irked that labor unions and others planned to spend tens of millions of dollars to recall Gov. Scott Walker —leaving less for President Obama’s re-election drive and congressional contests.But amid increasingly poor polling numbers for Walker’s challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Democrats and their allies at the national level seem to be re-thinking their commitment to the Wisconsin race. NBC’s Chuck Todd asked recently if the DNC would be sending more cash to help Barrett; the answer from Stephanie Cutter, Obama’s deputy campaign manager, was strongly noncommittal: “I don’t know the answer to that question, on the money.”

      A new Public Policy Polling poll shows Walker up on Barrett by 50 percent to 45 percent, the same margin PPP found a month ago, and similar to other recent polls.

    • Why I Think Obama Is Losing– So what’s the answer? Obama’s big problem, I think, is that he is no longer the president he said he would be. Above all, he’s stopped trying to be that president.The astonishing enthusiasm for Obama in 2008 rested heavily on his promise to change Washington and unify the country. You can argue about whose fault it is that Washington is even more paralyzed by tribal fighting than before–in my view, it’s mostly (though not entirely) the GOP’s fault. For whatever reason, Obama failed to bring the change he promised. That would be forgivable, so long as he was determined to keep trying. But he isn’t determined to keep trying. His campaign message so far boils down to this: You just can’t work with these people. I tried, they’re not interested, so it’s war. If they want bitter partisan politics, they can have it.My instinct tells me this is a losing strategy.
    • Health care reform: GOP preps plan for ruling on law– House Republican leaders are quietly hatching a plan of attack as they await a historic Supreme Court ruling on President Barack Obama’s health care law.If the law is upheld, Republicans will take to the floor to tear out its most controversial pieces, such as the individual mandate and requirements that employers provide insurance or face fines.
    • Senate Democrats Achieve a New Standard of Irresponsibility– The Senate voted on five budgets today, at theinsistence of Republican senators. The result was revealing: no Senate Democrat voted in favor of any budget. This is consistent, of course, with the fact that the Democrat-led Senate has refused to adopt a budget, in violation of federal law, for the last three years. Still, it is a little shocking to see that not a single Democrat was willing to vote in favor of any budget, even the most irresponsible.President Obama’s budget fared the worst; it lost, 99-0. This means that the presidents FY 2013 budget has now been rejected by the House and Senate by a combined vote of 513-0. Earlier today, as Paul noted in a post a little while ago, Obama demanded a “serious bipartisan approach” to the nation’s budgetary crisis. Bipartisan? He can’t even get a single Democrat to support his radically irresponsible proposals.
    • Obama budget defeated 99-0 in Senate– President Obama’s budget suffered a second embarrassing defeat Wednesday, when senators voted 99-0 to reject it.Coupled with the House’s rejection in March, 414-0, that means Mr. Obama’s budget has failed to win a single vote in support this year.Republicans forced the vote by offering the president’s plan on the Senate floor.

      Democrats disputed that it was actually the president’s plan, arguing that the slim amendment didn’t actually match Mr. Obama’s budget document, which ran thousands of pages. But Republicans said they used all of the president’s numbers in the proposal, so it faithfully represented his plan.

    • Republicans Weigh Rev. Wright Attack Against Obama– A group of Republican strategists and a conservative billionaire have devised an advertising attack on President Obama that highlights his connection to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a controversial figure in the 2008 campaign, The New York Times reports.The $10 million plan, which is still being weighed, was overseen by Republican media consultant Fred Davis and was commissioned by Joe Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade, who is increasingly using his fortune to impact this year’s election. A super PAC affiliated with Ricketts played a major role in Nebraska’s Republican primary on Tuesday.“The world is about to see Jeremiah Wright and understand his influence on Barack Obama for the first time in a big, attention-arresting way,” reads a proposal by the group, which was obtained by The Times.
    • Scott Walker leads in new Wisconsin recall poll – The Washington Post – RT @FixRachel: Walker leads in new Wisconsin recall poll, GOP has edge in enthusiasm
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Flap Listed as 2012 Top Dentist in Social Media – Flap Listed as 2012 Top Dentist in Social Media
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: May 16, 2012 – The Morning Flap: May 16, 2012
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: Gregory Flap Cole Named Top Dentist in Social Media for 2012 – Gregory Flap Cole Named Top Dentist in Social Media for 2012
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Day By Day May 16, 2012 – Board Meeting – Day By Day May 16, 2012 – Board Meeting
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: May 1, 2012

    Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker raises $13 Million since January

    These are my links for April 30th through May 1st:

    • Ex-CIA counterterror chief says Pelosi ‘reinventing the truth’ about waterboarding – In an explosive memoir released today, former CIA counterterrorism chief Jose Rodriguez provides new evidence that Rep. Nancy Pelosi lied when she declared she had not been briefed about the use of waterboarding.

      Recall that in a Capitol Hill news conference three years ago, Pelosi (D-Calif.) vehemently denied being told about the use of waterboarding at a CIA briefing in September 2002. “We were not — I repeat — were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used,” Pelosi said. She later changed her story, telling reporters, “We were told explicitly that waterboarding was not being used.” She claimed she learned about the use of waterboarding the following year, only after other lawmakers were told by the CIA. “I wasn’t briefed, I was informed that somebody else had been briefed about it,” she said.

    • Elizabeth Warren’s embattled campaign: Cherokee tie found 5 generations ago – Desperately scrambling to validate Democrat Elizabeth Warren’s Native American heritage amid questions about whether she used her minority status to further her career, the Harvard Law professor’s campaign last night finally came up with what they claim is a Cherokee connection — her great-great-great-grandmother.

      “She would be 1⁄32nd of Elizabeth Warren’s total ancestry,” noted genealogist Christopher Child said, referring to the candidate’s great-great-great-grandmother, O.C. Sarah Smith, who is listed on an Oklahoma marriage certificate as Cherokee. Smith is an ancestor on Warren’s mother’s side, Child said.

      The missing link comes after Warren’s embattled campaign faced sharp questions about her Native American background in the wake of Herald stories that showed both Harvard Law School and Warren herself had touted her tribal lineage and claimed she was a member of a minority for years.

    • Norman Ornstein to the Press Corps: Stop Covering the GOP Fairly to Stop Their Success – Norman Ornstein is the in house pet liberal at the American Enterprise Institute who they let out of his cage once in a while to lament the free market, conservatives, and the like. I’m not sure why groups like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute ever allow their supposed scholars to team up with the Brookings Institute, but whenever they do it results in intellectual underwear stains for both organizations.

      In today’s quasi-bipartisan inane ramblings, Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institute want the Washington Press Corps to know the GOP is extremist, destroying the country, and they should all stop paying attention to the GOP or treating them with balance.

      Nothing says marginal extremism like holding the US House, most statehouses, most governorships, and a plurality of national party ID.

    • Elizabeth Warren has lost her standing as chief female savior – Oh Liz, Liz, my heart is broken.

      We on the Estrogen Express thought we’d finally found our Golden Girl.

      And now?

      This could be your Seamus moment.

      This could be the beginning of your end — like when Rim Tim Tim Murray rope-a-doped about releasing his cellphone calls.

      I just can’t shake the ridiculous image of you, Liz — a blue-eyed blonde almost as pasty white as me — letting yourself be described as a minority professor, a Native American, for years.

      You’ve played the Indian card. You’ve grabbed for minority cred without enduring the minority grief. It’s poached diversity. It’s glommed onto, what, five generations removed, assuming there were some facts way, way back when, as your campaign aides claimed last night.

      How long before wise guys in feathered headdresses start dancing around parking lots at your events? Somebody told me yesterday your campaign needs to lie low and “circle the wagons.” Whoops. That same someone quickly realized it was the pioneers who circled the wagons when your Cherokee ancestors were blazing across the prairie on the warpath.

      Here’s the problem for you, Liz: We’re not talking some elaborate, arcane, confusing financial irregularity here that nobody can understand. Everybody gets this. It’s letting everyone think you’re something that you’re not. It’s letting stand the idea that you’re part of an aggrieved class of people. It’s a sin of omission, which is not as bad as a sin of commission — like, you know, the typical political ploy of pumping up resumes with fake claims of combat heroism and purple hearts. But it’s a huge problem nonetheless.

    • IN-Sen: Indiana – Is it already over? – The PAC that was supporting Richard Lugar, the American Action Network, has pulled its ads. They officially come down today. “We’ve decied to let this race play out,” Dan Conston, spokesman for the group, confirms. The group spent about two-thirds of the $600,000 it booked. Republican thinking is that they are coming to grips with the idea that state Treasurer Richard Mourdock is the very likely nominee, and the party now doesn’t want to damage him. Strategists say Lugar didn’t started campaigning in earnest until too late and waited too long to define Mourdock. They didn’t know what to do with him.
    • Walker raises $13 million since January – Gov. Scott Walker raised an unprecedented $13.2 million over three months to fight off the recall bid against him, outdistancing his Democratic challengers and driving home the challenge they will have in beating the Republican incumbent.

      Crisscrossing the country on fundraising trips, Walker has raised more than $25 million since January 2011 and has $4.9 million in cash on hand – numbers unlike any that have been seen for a political candidate in Wisconsin. Two-thirds of Walker’s money came from out of state.

      His stores of cash dwarf what his Democratic rivals have raised. But a report filed Monday showed an independent group supporting Democrat Kathleen Falk received $4.5 million, nearly all of it from unions and about a third of it from out of state.

      Walker’s fundraising is on par with that of second-tier presidential candidates. For instance, Rick Santorum raised $18.5 million between Jan. 1 and March 31, and Newt Gingrich raised a little less than $10 million during that period.

      Walker has been able to raise so much because of the national appeal he developed with conservatives after his high-profile fight with labor unions and a quirk in Wisconsin law that allows unlimited fundraising while recalls are pending.

      Conservative billionaire Diane Hendricks gave Walker $500,000. Hendricks co-founded Beloit-based ABC Supply, a roofing wholesaler and siding distributor, with her husband, Ken, who died in a 2007 fall.

      Her donation was the single largest ever to a gubernatorial candidate in the state and tied the $500,000 given to Walker over recent months by Bob Perry, owner of Houston-based Perry Homes and a chief backer of the Swift Boat Veterans ads against Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 race for president.

    • Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg on New Facebook Organ Donation Tool – ABC News – Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg on New Facebook Organ Donation Tool – ABC News
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: May 1, 2012 – The Morning Drill: May 1, 2012
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: May 1, 2012 – Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: May 1, 2012
    • Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg on New Facebook Organ Donation Tool – ABC News – Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg on New Facebook Organ Donation Tool – ABC News
    • McCain on Bin Laden raid: ‘The thing about heroes, they don’t brag’ – Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) continued to hammer the Obama re-election team over its use of the death of Osama bin Laden in a campaign commercial, echoing Mitt Romney’s statement that any president – including Jimmy Carter – would have made the same call.

      “I say any president, Jimmy Carter, anybody, any president would have, obviously, under those circumstances, done the same thing.  And to now take credit for something that any president would do is indicative of take over campaign we’re under — we’re — we’re seeing…So all I can say is that this is going to be a very rough campaign,” McCain told Fox News in an interview set to air Monday night. “And I’ve had the great honor of serving in the company of heroes.  And, you know the thing about heroes, they don’t brag.”

    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Day By Day May 1, 2012 – DrEvil – Day By Day May 1, 2012 – DrEvil
    • Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg on New Facebook Organ Donation Tool – ABC News – Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg on New Facebook Organ Donation Tool – ABC News
    • British lawmakers: Rupert Murdoch ‘not a fit person’ to lead – Darius Dixon – POLITICO.com – RT @politico: Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is “not a fit person” to run News Corp., British lawmakers say:
    • The Tea Party’s Moment – The Tea Party movement shook up the Congressional campaign landscape in 2010, electing a slew of unconventional candidates, pushing Republican candidates rightward, all while upsetting a few establishment favorites in the process.

      But the next month could prove to be even more consequential for the movement, with major Senate primaries coming up, pitting conservative favorites against candidates backed by the GOP establishment. Already Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., is looking like the underdog against Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock in the state’s May 8 primary. Meanwhile, three other insurgent conservatives are looking to pull off upsets by winning their party’s nomination in Texas, Utah, and Nebraska

    • Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg on New Facebook Organ Donation Tool – ABC News – RT @jaketapper: RT @rickklein: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg on New Facebook Organ Donation Tool ( …
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-01 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-01
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: April 30, 2012 – The Morning Drill: April 30, 2012
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » President 2012: Romney Might Convince Me to Accept Vice Presidency – Chris Christie – President 2012: Romney Might Convince Me to Accept Vice Presidency – Chris Christie
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » President 2012: Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani Team Up on Bin Laden Anniversary Date – President 2012: Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani Team Up on Bin Laden Anniversary Date
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-30: Rep Howard Berman Receives Two Important Endorsements Today – CA-30: Rep Howard Berman Receives Two Important Endorsements Today
    • Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Protests in May Day Resurgence- Bloomberg – Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Protests in May Day Resurgence
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: April 30, 2012 – The Morning Flap: April 30, 2012
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: April 18, 2012

    These are my links for April 17th through April 18th:

    • The $5 Trillion Man: Debt Has Increased Under Obama by $5,027,761,476,484.56 – In the 39 months since Barack Obama took the oath of office as president of the United States, the federal government’s debt has increased by $5,027,761,476,484.56.

      Although he has served less than a term, Obama is now the first American president to see the federal government’s debt increase by more than $5 trillion during his time in office.

      During the full eight years that George W. Bush served as president, the federal government’s debt increased by $4,899,100,310,608.44. (Rising from $5,727,776,738,304.64 to $10,626,877,048,913.08.)

      The $5,027,761,476,484.56 that the debt has increased during Obama’s presidency equals $16,043.39 for every one of the 313,385,295 people the Census Bureau now estimates live in the United States.

    • Panetta says he regrets cost of trips home – Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday he regrets the cost to taxpayers for his weekend trips to his Carmel Valley home, but says it’s important “just to get your mind straight and your perspective straight.”
      Panetta said he’d try to find some savings, with each round trip costing approximately $32,000.
      “I regret … that it does add costs that the taxpayer has to pick up,” Panetta said during a Pentagon briefing Monday, speaking publicly for the first time about the flight costs. “A taxpayer would have to pick up those costs with any secretary of state or secretary of defense. But having said that, I am trying to look at what are … the alternatives here that I can look at that might possibly be able to save funds and, at the same time, be able to fulfill my responsibilities, not only to my job, but to my family.”
      The Associated Press earlier this month detailed the costs of the 27 roundtrip flights home Panetta has taken since he became Pentagon chief last July, as well as the amount he has reimbursed the government for the trips.
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Day By Day April 18, 2012 – The Game – Day By Day April 18, 2012 – The Game
    • Walker makes his case before Illinois Chamber of Commerce – Gov. Scott Walker came to the capital city of Illinois on Tuesday to make the case that he should be retained as Wisconsin’s chief executive.

      He told the Illinois Chamber of Commerce that Wisconsin made the tough decisions to close its budget deficit, while Illinois continued to be burdened by an $8.5 billion deficit despite a 66% increase in the personal income tax rate.

      “The simple reality is, Illinois and Wisconsin, like nearly every other state, had big deficits to deal with. In our case, it was a $3.6 billion deficit. . . . And we looked around, other states are going to make poor decisions, we want to avoid that in Wisconsin,” Walker said.

      “We avoided a tax increase,” he said, recalling how after Illinois passed its increase, he came to Chicago with a bumper sticker that read, “Escape to Wisconsin.”

      “When you raise taxes on individuals, on businesses, that wealth, opportunity and jobs go somewhere else,” he said.

      Walker was greeted with three standing ovations from the crowd of 250 business leaders assembled at the President Abraham Lincoln Hotel and Conference Center.

    • The Campaign Against Systemic Sleaze: Team Romney Needs A Broom Pin – Solyndra. Fast and Furious. EPA and the Sacketts. Now GSA and the Secret Service.

      The federal government is suffering from systemic sleaze, the sort of excess that builds and builds and builds and then flows over from every corner. Chicago rules came to town and the result is a catastrophe for ethics in the public sector, a catastrophe which has many manifestations across the country in state and local government as well, with vast pension outlays resulting from swetheart deals with public employee unions and enormous expenditures on special interests and self-serving contracts, the sort of sleaze that reached a crescendo in the City of Bell, California scandals of last year.

    • Find Out How Fit You Are at Runner’s World – RT @runnersworld: How’s your overall fitness? These tests will help you determine what you need to work on.
    • Romney says ‘vast left wing conspiracy’ in media is attacking him – Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said a “vast left wing conspiracy” in the media was working with the Obama campaign to coordinate attacks against him.

      “There will be an effort by the quote vast left wing conspiracy to work together to put out their message and to attack me,” Romney said in an interview with Breitbart.com. “They’re going to do everything they can to divert from the issue people care about, which is a growing economy that creates more jobs and rising incomes. That’s what people care about.”

    • Voters like President Obama to lead but prefer Romney on economic issues – A smattering of new polls shows an important divide developing: Voters like Mitt Romney on the economy but not much else. Meanwhile, they like President Obama on everything else but not nearly as much on the economy.

      So far, polls are showing a consistent, compelling divide between President Obama and the likely Republican nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R). Romney often runs stronger than Obama on the question of who can better handle the economy, yet Obama’s favorability rating is usually higher — sometimes dramatically higher.

      In other words, they like Obama leading the country, Romney running it.

      The evidence is ample.

    • Bill Clinton enters 2012 race — to back his wife’s supporters – The congressional candidates former President Clinton is supporting in 2012 have something in common: They all backed his wife’s presidential bid four years ago.

      Sources close to Clinton said he wants to help those who put themselves on the line to support the former first lady’s campaign for the White House. But with Hillary Clinton serving in the Obama administration and Chelsea Clinton working for NBC News, Bill Clinton is the only member of the family in a position to hit the campaign trail.

    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-04-18 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-04-18
    • Conservatives Respond To Seamus-Gate: Barack Obama Ate A Dog – Business Insider – RT @businessinsider: Now Everyone’s Talking About How Barack Obama Ate A Dog by @grace_lightning #tcot
    • Obama Bites Dog | Dreams From My Father – Hey, if we’re going to talk about how presidential candidates treated dogs decades ago, let’s talk about how presidential candidates treated dogs decades ago.

      Can you name the author of this quote?

      “With Lolo, I learned how to eat small green chill peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and, away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy). Like many Indonesians, Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths. He explained that a man took on the powers of whatever he ate: One day soon, he promised, he would bring home a piece of tiger meat for us to share.”

    • Memeorandum Colors 2012: Visualizing Bias on Political Blogs | Epicenter | Wired.com – Memeorandum Colors 2012: Visualizing Bias on Political Blogs | Epicenter |
    • Wired.com – Memeorandum Colors 2012: Visualizing Bias on Political Blogs | Epicenter |
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Video: President 2012: Who Will Be Mitt Romney’s Vice President? – Video: President 2012: Who Will Be Mitt Romney’s Vice President?
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: Oral Rinse Shown to Significantly Reduce Plaque – Oral Rinse Shown to Significantly Reduce Plaque
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The AFternoon Drill: April 17, 2012 – The AFternoon Drill: April 17, 2012
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » President 2012 Poll Watch: Romney 48% Vs. Obama 43% – President 2012 Poll Watch: Romney 48% Vs. Obama 43%
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: April 17, 2012 – The Morning Flap: April 17, 2012