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Giuliani Notes: California Rep. Ed Royce Endorses Rudy
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks at a Republican fundraiser in Newport Beach, Calif., Saturday, March 24, 2007. Giuliani was endorsed by U.S. Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif.
Raymond Puzio, right, greets Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani as he sat down at a table before being introduced at a Republican fundraiser in Newport Beach, Calif., Saturday, March 24, 2007.
The Mayor will be attending a private fundraiser tomorrow in Montecito (Santa Barbara) California.
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Technorati Tags: RudyGiuliani
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John McCain Watch: McCain Won’t Meet Fundraising Goals
Republican presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, center, talks with Linda and James Clark of Monroe, N.H. after speaking at a town hall style meeting Saturday, March 24, 2007 in Littleton, N.H. Linda said that she is solidly behind McCain, while James is leaning toward supporting McCain but is still researching the field.
McCain: We Won’t Meet Fundraising Goals
Sen. John McCain said his presidential campaign would not meet its fundraising goals this quarter, and his campaign advisers acknowledged that ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney may wind up raising more.
“We’re going to pay a price for it because we got a late start,” McCain told reporters in New Hampshire. “We’re not going to meet the goals we had.” He later said he did not know whether Romney would outpace him, but his advisers did not downplay that possibility. They also did not rule out finishing first.
McCain contends that his exploratory committee’s opening in December and the rush of the busy holiday season did not allow his campaign to begin fundraising in earnest until January. But once that month began, owing in part to a busy Senate schedule, McCain attended only two fundraisers and only two in February. There are twenty scheduled for all of this month, and another twenty in April.
“These are moments, none of which at the end of the day impact winning the nomination,” said John Weaver, McCain’s chief strategist. “We’re on track to do that. Every campaign would trade places with us. We wouldn’t trade places with anyone else.”
The six month fundraising figure out in mid-July is a more accurate figure. But, why is McCain lowering expectations?
Flap expects good fundraising totals by all of the top three candidates.
But, McCain has been fading in the polls and Romney has had a campaign that never really has caught fire.
And Giuliani is keeping pace with good solid fundraising and excellent poll numbers.
What can this all mean?
Flap will tell you around the last week of July.
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John McCain Watch: The ANSWER ? to McCain Blames Club for Growth for Loss of Senate Majority
John McCain Watch: McCain Blames Club for Growth for Loss of Senate Majority
John McCain Watch: Age and Health Questions Plague McCain
John McCain Watch: I’ll Close GITMO
John McCain Watch: Iraq Could End His Career
President 2008 Watch: Arnold Schwarzenegger – No Presidential Primary Endorsement
John McCain Watch: The Blame Game
Technorati Tags: JohnMcCain
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Iran Watch: Iran to Try Brits for Spying?
Iran ‘to try Britons for espionage’
FIFTEEN British sailors and marines arrested by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards off the coast of Iraq may be charged with spying.
A website run by associates of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, reported last night that the Britons would be put before a court and indicted.
Referring to them as “insurgentsâ€, the site concluded: “If it is proven that they deliberately entered Iranian territory, they will be charged with espionage. If that is proven, they can expect a very serious penalty since according to Iranian law, espionage is one of the most serious offences.â€
The warning followed claims by Iranian officials that the British navy personnel had been taken to Tehran, the capital, to explain their “aggressive action†in entering Iranian waters. British officials insist the servicemen were in Iraqi waters when they were held.
The penalty in Iran for espionage is death.
But, what is the REAL FLAP here?
1. Is this an annoying repeat of the 2004 capture of British troops? The Brits were accused of spying, blindfolded, paraded around on Iranian television, did not appear in court and were freed after three days.
2. Retribution for United Nations Security Council nuclear sanctions approved today?
Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, the chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, left, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right, review an honor guard, at a base of the Basij paramilitary, in Tehran, Iran, in this Sunday, Oct. 30, 2005, photo.
3. A Cold-War type trade of soldiers? Fifteen Brits for the five Iranian Quds Revolutionary Guards captured in Iraq by American forces.
4. Official Iranian terrorist policy? The tactic had been approved by Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, who warned last week that Tehran would take “illegal actions†if necessary to maintain its right to develop a nuclear program.
5. Actions of Chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, General Yahya Rahim Safavi, who is pissed that some of his people have recently defected to the West and that United Nations sanctions are affecting his personal finances?
Admiral Sir Alan West, the former head of the Royal Navy, dismissed suggestions that the British boats might have been in Iranian waters. West, who was first sea lord when the previous arrests took place in June 2004, said satellite tracking systems had shown then that the Iranians were lying and the same was certain to be true now.
Stay tuned…..
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Iran Watch: British Troops Transported To Tehran
Iran Watch: Are Seized British Troops Hostages?
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad Cancels United Nations Appearance
Iran Watch: Iran Seizes British Sailors in Iraq Waters
Technorati Tags: Iran, Iraq, Britain, UnitedKingdomYahyaRahimSafavi
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Iran Nuclear Watch: United Nations Security Council Approves New Iran Sanctions
Acting US Ambassador to the United Nations Alejandro Wolff speaks during a UN Security Council meeting on broader sanctions against Iran at the United Nations in New York. The UN Security Council Saturday slapped new sanctions on Iran to pressure Tehran into suspending its sensitive nuclear program which some powers fear masks a bid to develop atomic weapons.
AP: U.N. unanimously approves Iran sanctions
The U.N. Security Council unanimously voted Saturday to impose new sanctions against
Iran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium — a move intended to show Tehran that defiance will leave it increasingly isolated.The moderately tougher sanctions include banning Iranian arms exports, and freezing the assets of 28 people and organizations involved in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.
About a third of those are linked to the Revolutionary Guard, an elite military corps.
“This resolution sends an unambiguous signal to the government and people of Iran … that the path of nuclear proliferation by Iran is not one that the international community can accept,” said British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry.
In December, the 15-member Security Council ordered all countries to stop supplying Iran with materials and technology that could contribute to its nuclear and missile programs. It also ordered a freeze on assets of 10 key Iranian companies and 12 individuals related to those programs.
Iran has vowed the sanctions will only motivate it further to pursue nuclear power, a message Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was expected to deliver to the Security Council. Mottaki made the trip instead of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who claimed he canceled his appearance because the U.S. failed to deliver his visa in time. The U.S. said it had issued the visa promptly.
YAWN
More FECKLESS United Nations sanctions.
Soon Iran and President Ahmadinejad will be bloviating about Iran’s nuclear rights.
When Israel and the United States have had enough of the diplomacy and as uranium enrichment continues, a military strike will be initiated to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Stay tuned……..
A protestor stands outside the United Nations (UN) headquarters on 21 March, calling for a democratic and nuclear-free Iran.
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Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad Cancels United Nations Appearance
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Warns It May Ignore International Nuclear Regulations
Iran Nuclear Watch: Russia Delivers Ultimatum to Iran Over Uranium Enrichment
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad Faces Off With United Nations
Iran Nuclear Watch: New Iran Nuclear Sanctions Headed to United Nations
Iran Nuclear Watch: Russia Postpones Nuclear Plant Launch Over Payments
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad – Iran Won’t End Nuke Program
Iran Nuclear Watch: IAEA – Iran Has Expanded Uranium Enrichment
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Refuses to Halt United Nations Demand to Halt Uranium Enrichment
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Attack Plans Revealed
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Will NOT Suspend Uranium Enrichment
Iran Nuclear Watch: Too Late to Halt Iran’s Nuclear Bomb?
The Natanz uranium enrichment complex in Natanz is pictured in this January 2, 2006 satellite image.
Technorati Tags: Iran, Ahmadinejad
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Los Angeles Times Watch: GrazerGate FLAP Part IV
Tim Rutten responds – Los Angeles Times: These rules we live by
IT’S been nearly half a century since even a whiff of scandal or implication of misconduct attached itself to The Times’ editorial pages. That’s what makes the resignation of the section’s editor, Andr–s Martinez, and its aftermath a melancholy rather than merely curious affair.
For the record, a substantial number of my more than 35 years at The Times were spent on the paper’s editorial pages — first as an assistant editor of the op-ed page, then as editor of Opinion and, finally, as an editorial writer. I was 24 when I first joined the section, and I vividly recall how daunting it was to be surrounded by vastly more experienced colleagues, many of them genuinely distinguished. I also remember being struck with how an attention to ethics wove itself through even the most mundane parts of our daily work and by — what seemed at the time — a fairly stultifying insistence on propriety.
Suffer through the rest of the self-righteous piece, if you must.
So, who are you going to believe? Martinez or Rutten?
Does it even matter?
Flap at this point has come to agree with Nicki Finke:
And Nikki Finke puts a tremulous finger on the real infection: “Sanctimonious newsroom reporters and editors acting all holier-than-thou about journalism ethics, even though they never complained about the impropriety of their ousted editor Dean Baquet’s behind-the-scenes cozying up to a Billionaire Boys Club of potential local buyers for the LA Times. An editorial editor who oversaw the opinion/Op-ed pages spiralling into irrelevancy, in part because Spring Street’s 2nd floor now panders to neo-con and libertarian and other fringe ideologues whose main qualifications for being published there seem be that they’re all palsy-walsy with each other.”
Days of Our Times indeed………
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Los Angeles Times Watch: GrazerGate FLAP Part III
Los Angeles Times Watch: GrazerGate FLAP Part II
Los Angeles Times Watch: Andres Martinez Quits Over GrazerGate FLAP
Technorati Tags: LosAngelesTimes, AndresMartinez, BrianGlazer, KellyMullens
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Iran Watch: British Troops Transported To Tehran
The 15 British navy personnel detained in the Gulf have been transferred to Tehran to explain their “aggressive action,” according to reports.
AFP: British sailors admit entering Iran waters: Iran military
Fifteen British sailors and marines detained off Iraq by the Iranian navy have admitted illegally entering Iranian waters, senior Iranian commander General Alireza Afshar said Saturday.
“They are currently being questioned and have admitted to violating the territorial waters of the Islamic repubic,” Afshar, the official spokesman of the army chief of staff, told the semi-official Fars news agency.
He told the Arabic language service of state television: “We have solid evidence that they were detained in our territorial waters. They themselves have confessed and admitted their mistake.”
Pajamas Media has a great round-up of the UK-Iran crisis.
In the meantime, the United Nations Security Council is set to vote harsher sanctions against Iran for their nuclear program.
Stay tuned……..
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Iran Watch: Are Seized British Troops Hostages?
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad Cancels United Nations Appearance
Iran Watch: Iran Seizes British Sailors in Iraq Waters
Technorati Tags: Iran, Iraq, Britain, UnitedKingdom
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Los Angeles Times Watch: GrazerGate FLAP Part III
Kevin Roderick has the latest POOP on the GrazerGate Flap.
I’ll post a selection of other emails about the latest twists in the dramedy known as the Los Angeles Times over the weekend. O’Shea, Martinez, Brian Grazer and David Hiller (left to right) plus Kelly Mullens all come up on Saturday’s “Deadline L.A.” at noon on KPFK. Mark Lacter of LA Biz Observed and I discuss the Times situation with hosts Barbara Osborn and Howard Blume. Meanwhile, Radar Online’s John Cook (a former Tribune staffer) talks about O’Shea’s own complications from sleeping with a prominent PR executive — his wife, a manager of media relations for Chicago’s Field Museum.
Patterico asks what’s really going on here? And then proceeds to tell us. He is SPOT ON!
A cabal of staffers in the newsroom tries to influence the direction of the opinion page, some for “ideological†reasons. Martinez resists this attempt at interference.
Then, a cabal of staffers, including at least two well-known left-leaning ideologues, lean on the editor to take an extreme action on a non-scandal — knowing that such drastic action would be an effective way to humiliate Martinez.
Do you think there is any overlap or coordination between the first cabal of staffers and the second? I do.
Do you think this was a legitimate scandal that merited the extreme actions taken by the paper? I don’t.
I think there’s something else going on here. Tim Cavanaugh describes me as sniffing out a “left-wing coup,†and that’s about what I think has happened here.
So, is it Christmas in July?
You bet and stay tuned for more presents from Spring Street.
Andrés Martinez, left, resigned as Los Angeles Times editorial page editor, saying he had been undermined by his publisher, David Hiller.
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Los Angeles Times Watch: GrazerGate FLAP Part II
Los Angeles Times Watch: Andres Martinez Quits Over GrazerGate FLAP
Technorati Tags: LosAngelesTimes, AndresMartinez, BrianGlazer, KellyMullens
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Day By Day by Chris Muir March 24, 2007