links for 2010-05-06

I was intrigued when I saw this Tweet from Carly Fiorina:

Hmm, sounds like Team DeVore just called Palin a Sheepdog… Generating fake outrage over endorsement #casen

…so I decided to check out the reaction of Chuck DeVore's campaign team to Governor Palin's endorsement of Carly Fiorina in the California Senate primary. And yes, they did indeed send out a press release using that terminology.

This grassroots movement is actually a grassroots movement. Carly Fiorina thinks she can find the sheepdog to corral the sheep.
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Put a fork in DeVore and Trevino. This dynamic duo are DONE.

Republican U.S. Senate Candidate Debate Drinking Game

Take half a sip or shot depending on your beverage preference every time: (we feel the half-shot is important to avoid total inebriation within the first 20 minutes of the debate):
> Any candidate uses the term "fiscal conservative"
> Chuck DeVore or Tom Campbell reference their respective pocket Constitutions
> Chuck DeVore and Tom Campbell compliment, praise or otherwise seek to uplift one another
> Carly says, "Chuck, you know that's not true…"
> Any candidate says they are the best one to beat Boxer
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Folks will be pretty drunk by the end of the hour

If you're inclined to see Palin as a genius, either an evil one or a nice one, you'd argue that she's endorsing Fiorina because she wants a combined ticket of moderates (Meg W., Carly F.) to lose the gubernatorial and Senate races, (thereby further angering California Republicans, driving them to the right, preventing Mitt Romney from having an endorser (Whitman) as governor, leaving them hungry for a conservative — Palin. Somehow, this theory also extends to preventing other conservatives from getting endorsements in states like California. This theory has been proposed to me, and I must say, it tangles a few synapses.

I'd prefer the shorter, simpler explanation: Palin wants to a pick a winner, she wants to go where her supporters are, and she might simply just enjoy Fiorina's sparking personality.
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Very good read of California politics

I’d like to tell you about a Commonsense Conservative running for office in California this year. She grew up in a modest home with a school teacher dad, worked her way through several colleges, and then entered an arena where few women had tread. Through a combination of hard work, perseverance, and common sense, she proved the naysayers wrong to reach the top of her field, where she led with distinction – facing hard truths, making tough decisions, and showing real leadership through a rocky transition period. Where others had failed, her company had weathered the storm and settled on a stronger new foundation.

Her name is Carly Fiorina, and I’m proud to endorse her for U.S. Senate.
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This will make Carly Fiorina the GOP nominee

American officials said Wednesday that it was very likely that a radical group once thought unable to attack the United States had played a role in the bombing attempt in Times Square, elevating concerns about whether other militant groups could deliver at least a glancing blow on American soil.
Officials said that after two days of intense questioning of the bombing suspect, Faisal Shahzad, evidence was mounting that the group, the Pakistani Taliban, had helped inspire and train Mr. Shahzad in the months before he is alleged to have parked an explosives-filled sport utility vehicle in a busy Manhattan intersection on Saturday night. Officials said Mr. Shahzad had discussed his contacts with the group, and investigators had accumulated other evidence that they would not disclose.

Sources tell CBS News that would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad appeared on a Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list – Traveler Enforcement Compliance System (TECS) – between 1999 and 2008 because he brought approximately $80,000 cash or cash instruments into the United States.

TECS is a major law enforcement computer system that allows its approximately 120,000 users from 20 federal agencies to share information. The database is designed to identify individuals suspected of or involved in violation of federal law.
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Good Job, Big Sis and Obama

Carly Fiorina has been the CEO of technology giant Hewlett-Packard, studied six languages, traveled the world to assist rural women in economic development, produced a best-selling book and battled breast cancer.

Now she is engaged in what may be her biggest challenge yet – a combative California Republican primary race for U.S. Senate.

Not bad for someone who describes herself as a "scared, shy, goody-two-shoes child" whose family moved so often she went to five different high schools, and whose father said she would "never amount to anything" when she dropped out of Stanford Law School.
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Gad – it was UCLA Law School. The SF Chronicle cannot even get basic facts straight.