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links for 2010-09-24
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Today the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, a leading voice on Latinos and conservatism, announced a 42-city bus tour of California that will span 32 counties and more than 2,500 miles. The tour, which starts on September 27 and runs through October 6, will encourage Latinos to vote their values and support California Senate Candidate Carly Fiorina.
"For too long, Latinos have supported candidates who spurn their core values," said Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles. "Candidates like Barbara Boxer, an outspoken advocate for abortion who opposes the protection of traditional marriage, and who hampers job creation and a stronger economy with big government policies."
The tour will feature rallies in Los Angeles and San Diego, and will coincide with a series of three ads airing on Spanish-language radio starting Monday. The ad campaign is the second phase of a $1 million independent expenditure galvanizing Latinos
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Boxer, once considered one of the safest Democrats this cycle, is locked in her toughest re-election bid yet. Fiorina's entrance into the race, combined with the tough atmosphere for Democrats, has put this race on the map for the GOP while the Democrats hope it will be part of the firewall that prevents Republicans from winning a Senate majority.
Fiorina, however, still starts at a disadvantage. She is trailing Boxer 47% to 41% in a new Field poll out Friday, and Republicans always face an uphill fight in California, a state where Democrats have a 13-point registration edge. Since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) won re-election in '06, GOP registration has dropped 5%. "If she does win," a Republican strategist said, "It'll turn conventional wisdom on its ear."
But, as Republicans tell you, there is a path for Fiorina, albeit a narrow one. And with that, here is how Fiorina can upset Boxer in November.
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This is Fred Davis, hi-def political provocateur. You have probably never heard his name. Your senator probably has. A pioneering imagemaker in modern politics, Davis injects Hollywood glamour, and a dose of the bizarre, into the staid, paint-by-numbers formula of campaign advertisements. His ads are unforgettable. His candidates win races. So many politicians seek his services that he has to turn away business.
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The owner of an Oxnard metal-casting company and his son, an executive with the firm, have been charged with knowingly employing illegal immigrants, authorities said Friday.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials Thursday arrested Wayne Haddox, 67, owner of Masters in Metal, and Dennis Haddox, 37, the company’s vice president, authorities said.
The charges grew from a 2007 investigation when ICE investigators allegedly found 16 employees at the company had false permanent resident alien cards, also known as green cards. The company told investigators the workers had been fired.
Later, officials said, they received information that two of the employees had remained on the payroll and Wayne Haddox told them to go find “good” Social Security numbers.
The charges carry a maximum of six months in federal prison.
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While the millions of illegal aliens remain free.Wonderful!
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A Justice Department prosecutor, defying his superiors by testifying at a U.S. Civil Rights Commission hearing Friday into the department’s handling of a voter-intimidation case against a fringe African American militant group, blasted “senior political appointees” at Justice for “gutting” the case.
In his opening testimony, prosecutor Christopher Coates also suggested he was working against a dominant Justice Department culture which discouraged enforcement of civil rights laws in a “race-neutral” way that would protect whites as well as blacks.
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So far this week, we have examined Senator Barbara Boxer’s purchasing of endorsements, the five-figure expenses tied to her jaunts to do “official business” at beach resorts, her 143 bounced checks for more than $40,000 in three years, and massive payments to her family from campaign funds. (Notice that you don’t need to be a conservative Republican to find any of these issues troubling.)
Today, we examine the possibility that Boxer is… not really in touch with what is going on around her.
There was a revealing moment last month when Barbara Boxer, meeting with the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board, offered a vivid, compelling anecdote… that simply didn’t happen.
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Read it all
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U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel Clears Path for California Executions to Resume – But Will They?
The newly renovated San Quentin Prison Death Chamber
AP PhotoWell, for now – or should I say until Monday afternoon, California executions as per state and federal law can proceed.A federal judge in San Jose gave the go-ahead today for next week’s scheduled execution of a convicted murderer from Riverside County, which would be the state’s first execution in nearly five years.
U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel, who blocked lethal injections at San Quentin State Prison in February 2006 because of haphazard procedures, untrained staff and the potential of inflicting excruciating pain, said revised state regulations and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling had removed constitutional obstacles to renewed executions.
Fogel acknowledged that he has not yet reviewed the state’s amended procedures to determine whether they still pose a risk of violating the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
But he said the condemned inmate, Albert Greenwood Brown, could avert that risk by choosing to be executed with a single drug – a heavy dose of the sedative sodium pentothal – rather than the three-drug combination California has used in past executions.
The potential for excruciating pain comes from the second and third drugs, paralytic and heart-stopping chemicals, if the sedative fails to work properly. Fogel noted that Ohio and Washington state have used one-drug executions on nine prisoners in the last year without reported difficulties.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that Kentucky’s lethal injection procedures, using the same chemicals as California and most other states, met constitutional standards. The court said a prisoner would have to present a “demonstrated risk of severe pain” to challenge an execution with those drugs.
Brown is scheduled to be executed at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. Fogel said he would issue a stay if Brown chose a one-drug execution and the state refused to use that method. He gave Brown until 6 p.m. Saturday to make that choice.
State lawyers spelled out procedures for a possible one-drug execution in a court filing earlier his week but said they were not conceding that the procedure would comply with state law.
So, the people of California spend almost a $ 1 million (more than $800,000) for a new death chamber and countless employee hours for new procedures and retraining so the inmate has a choice of a one drug cocktail or the old standard method?
WTF?
Doesn’t anyone see this is a charade by Judge Fogel?
Judge Fogel obviously does NOT support the death penalty as a matter of personal conscience or whatever and has used every opportunity to throw up roadblocks. Interesting, that the Judge is so disinterested that he has not even toured the new facility or read the training manual. I would consider this judicial misfeasance if not out right neglect.
Anyway, Albert Greenwood Brown has until tomorrow night to decide if he wants a one drug execution or the three drug execution. If he chooses one drug and the State of California balks (says they are not ready to comply) then a stay is immediately granted. However, Judge Fogel’s order states that if Brown chooses one drug then he would have to waive his rights under state law which is the subject of a Marin County lawsuit which is pending.
Then, on Monday, a Marin County State of California judge will be asked to halt the execution while a lawsuit challenging the new lethal injection regulations is pending. Of course. Judge Fogel’s ruling today can be appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
I still would not hold my breath that there will be any California executions next week or anytime soon.
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California Executions to Resume? Albert Greenwood Brown Would Be Next
California Executions May Resume By the End of 2008
Michael Morales Watch: US Supreme Court Upholds Lethal Injection Executions
Michael Morales Watch: Lethal Injection Hearings Delayed Again
Michael Angelo Morales Watch: New San Quentin Death Chamber Under Construction
Michael Angelo Morales Watch: Execution Postponed INDEFINITELY
Michael Angelo Morales Watch: Execution Tonight?
Michael Angelo Morales Watch: Execution Delayed by Doctor Walk Out
Michael Angelo Morales Watch: United States Supreme Court Refuses to Halt Morales Execution
Michael Angelo Morales Watch: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Denies Clemency Petition
Michael Angelo Moreno Watch: State Agrees to Place Anesthesia Expert in Death Chamber
Michael Angelo Morales Watch: Federal Judge May Delay Execution
Michael Angelo Morales Watch: Ventura County Judge Asks California Governor Schwarzenegger for Clemency
Michael Angelo Morales Watch: Kenneth Starr to Assist Death Row Clemency Bid -
CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer’s Senate Junkets Become an Issue in Campaign
Carly Fiorina is ridiculing Senator Barbara Boxer and the numerous junkets she has taken during her eighteen year tenure as a United States Senator.Since 2000, Barbara Boxer has had to go on 18 special-interest funded trips to such far-flung destinations as Honolulu, Hawaii; Punta Mita, Mexico; the Grand Cayman Islands and Florence, Italy – just to name a few.
Her visits to these exotic locations uniquely qualify her to recommend the Five Places to See Before You Retire. We’re guessing she’s thrilled she had the chance to see these places before the people of California send her into retirement on November 2.
After you read our travel guide, be sure to visit RetireBarbaraBoxer.com to make your recommendation to the Senator on where she should retire.
But, seriously, the issue is NOT that flippant.
Senate travel can be important for fact-finding but junkets are not – especially if private special interests are paying the tab. I mean what are they buying with their paid trips?
INFLUENCE
Especially noteworthy is the fact that California’s other Democrat U.s. Senator Dianne Feinstein pays her own way.
And lest one think, “Oh, every senator does this,” . . . some don’t. In 2005, the California press started to notice
the wide disparity between the travel expenses of Boxer and those
of the state’s other senator, Democrat Dianne Feinstein: “Ms. Boxer’s 14
privately funded trips averaged out to nearly $5,300 apiece. In sharp
contrast, Ms. Feinstein averaged about $292 per trip.”Feinstein’s spokesman, Howard Gantman, gently put it that his boss “does prefer to pay her own way.”
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House Mockery: Stephen Colbert Becomes The Side Show That Democrats Will Regret
Stephen Colbert gives his opening statement during a hearing of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship and Border Security (from C-SPAN 9/24/10 coverage)The Democrats will live to regret this tongue-in-cheek sarcastic performance by Colbert. Americans are angry and are in no mood for this type of mockery at the taxpayer’s expense.
Here is video of comedian Stephen Colbert testifying before the House Judiciary subcommittee at the request of Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, on the subject of illegal migrant workers. The pretense for his being an expert witness was Colbert’s one day laboring with migrant workers in New York.
There will be plenty of replays on the nightly newscasts, illustrating that Democratic control of Congress guarantees that important issues are dealt with in only the most sensitive, serious, and mature terms.
Nope, just kidding. What the video actually shows is a cringe-inducing Andy-Kaufmanesque display of audacity, which will illustrate that when silly Members of Congress desirous of the attention of popular comedians invite said comedians to embarrass them and the process over which they preside, they will happily oblige them.
Colbert embarrassed them so much, in fact, that he was asked by Rep. John Conyers to leave the committee room after his in-character, insensitive, and occasionally kind of racist testimony ended. Conyers later backed off the request, and Republican Rep. Lamar Smith delighted in prolonging the pain of Democrats who invited Colbert by asking him several questions on the matter (and getting an endorsement for the Pledge to America).
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CA-Sen: Fred Davis – The Creative Genius Behind The Political Curtain
“Hot Air” from the Carly Fiorina campaign against Senator Barbara BoxerI think you will enjoy reading this profile of Fred Davis and why the GOP is banking on his work to help replace Senator Barbara Boxer with Carly Fiorina.
It’s early on a Sunday morning and Fred Davis, perhaps the most sought-after ad man in politics, wants his client in the zone. “Today will be a battle between toughness and twinkle,” he e-mails Carly Fiorina, the Republican Senate hopeful in California. She pings him back: “I’ll come twinkle in hand.”
Soon, Fiorina arrives at a large soundstage near the Paramount Pictures lot here to film a series of campaign spots, and Davis is scurrying across the set, a stopwatch dangling from his neck, assembling the crew of more than two dozen. He is the campaign’s creative director, and this is the big show.
Are the scripts loaded onto the teleprompter? Check. Is the fog machine working? Check. Is Fiorina’s black stool at center stage? Check. The caterers are serving coffee and breakfast burritos. The makeup girl is waiting in a mirrored side room. The fashion photographer Philip Dixon, whom Davis praises as being “up there with Annie Leibovitz,” is breezing around in his signature hippie-pajamas ensemble adjusting two massive floodlights that he will beam against a white wall to delicately light the candidate’s face.
“I want it to look perfect — as good as anything in Vogue,” Davis says. “This is how you shoot a Hollywood movie. This is not how you shoot a political ad.”
Davis is orchestrating a simple shot. Fiorina, alone, speaks to the camera against a dark, moodily lit backdrop, her hazel eyes twinkling as commanded. A tech turns on the fog machine. In the blue light, the effect is ethereal. Fiorina, the tough, smack-talking former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, is transformed into a delicate angel.
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Day By Day September 24, 2010 – Standup
Peggy Noonan’s column today speaks to STANDUP American women voters and POLS.What is the mainstream media getting wrong about this election, and what is it getting right? The media, Ms. Blackburn says, do not fully appreciate “how livid people are with Washington.” They see the anger but don’t understand its implications. “They’re getting right that people want change, but they’re wrong about what that change is going to be.” The media, she said, “are going to be amazed when Carly Fiorina and Sharron Angle win.”
The mainstream media famously like the horse race—red is up, blue is down; Smith is in, Jones is out. But if Ms. Blackburn is right, the election, and its meaning, will be more interesting than the old, classic jockeying. And the outcomes won’t be controlled by the good ol’ boys but by those she calls “the great new gals.”
I think the political pundits will be surprised at the ascendance of more women this election cycle – despite the blatant sexism of the MSM. For example, the treatment of Christine O’Donnell and Sarah Palin.
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CA-Sen Field Poll Watch: Barbara Boxer 47% Vs. Carly Fiorina 41%
Republican Nominee Carly Fiorina and California Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer
The latest California Field poll in the U.S. Senate race is out and has Senator Barbara Boxer leading my 6 points.Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer has opened up a six-point lead against her GOP opponent, Carly Fiorina, as the race heads into the final six weeks, according to a Field Poll released Thursday.
Boxer, a three-term incumbent, leads 47 percent to 41 percent. She led by three points in July.
The poll found that impressions of Boxer are sharply divided and highly partisan, with 93 percent of all likely voters having an opinion of her. It found that Boxer still has a high unfavorable rating of 48 percent. But it has declined from a high of 52 percent two months ago.
“She’s hanging in,” said Mark DiCamillo, the poll’s director. “It looks like she’s had a pretty good month or two.”
DiCamillo attributed the results to Boxer’s television advertising, which began last week, while Fiorina unveiled her first television ad on Thursday. DiCamillo noted that Fiorina’s unfavorable rating has jumped from 29 percent to 38 percent since July.
“Fiorina has definitely taken a hit,” he said.
Barbara Boxer has been hitting California television fairly hard the past 10 days and Carly has barely started her television media campaign. It has been a matter of campaign resources as Boxer has more campaign cash to spend on expensive California media markets.
What Carly needs to do is “HIT” Boxer with negative television ads and hit her hard on California television the closing weeks of the campaign. From the polling, it is apparent that California voters are voting against Boxer and Fiorina should help them make that choice.
I look for Fiorina to do just that.