-
links for 2011-01-05
-
In between meetings with legislative leaders Wednesday, Gov. Jerry Brown defended his appointment of Bill Honig, the former state schools chief convicted 18 years ago on conflict-of-interest charges, to the State Board of Education.
"He has the knowledge and skill to be quite valuable, and it would be a shame to waste that," the governor said.
Brown said he expected some controversy: "You can't create an omelet without breaking the eggs."
++++++
Bill Honig is a convicted felon for misappropriating state of California monies.He should have nothing to do with the State Board of Education
-
Dr. Victor Davis Hanson’s quietly chilling article, “Two Californias,” ought to be read by every American who is concerned about where this country is headed. California is leading the way, but what is happening in California is happening elsewhere — and is a slow poison that is largely being ignored.
Professor Hanson grew up on a farm in California’s predominantly agricultural Central Valley. Now, as he tours that area, many years later, he finds a world as foreign to the world he knew as it is from the rest of California today — and very different from the rest of America, either past or present.
++++++
Read it all
-
Former DNC chairman and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said Wednesday that William Daley would be a "huge plus" for the Obama administration if he is tapped to be the president's new chief of staff.
Dean praised Daley as someone "who knows Washington, but he also is not of Washington." At the same time, the former presidential candidate excoriated Obama's senior staff.
At a breakfast sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor, Dean refused to single out any administration officials for criticism, but said Obama would be better served by staff that has not spent so much time in Washington.
Noting that many officials are "either out of the White House or going," Dean blasted Obama's current officials who he says have treated the left wing of the Democratic Party with "contempt."
"As they say, don't let the door hit you in the you-know-what on the way out," Dean said.
+++++++
A token left challenge to Obama in 2012?
-
When the Senate gavels into session Wednesday afternoon, at least one of their tenured colleagues won’t be present: California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
The Democratic Senator, 77, is undergoing knee surgery replacement back home in San Francisco, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Afterwards, Feinstein won’t be able to travel for about three weeks during her recovery, which means she’s scheduled to be back just in time for the Senate to return from its two-week long scheduled recess Jan. 24.
Feinstein has experienced her fair share of first-day festivities during her long 18-year career in the Senate: The Democrat is in the middle of her third full term and is not up for re-election until 2012.
++++++++
California Dems are just waiting for DiFi to retire, including Gavin Newsom, Antonio Villaraigosa
-
-
Updated: ObamaCare: Does Sarah Palin Deserve an Apology Over Death Panels?
I guess Sarah Palin deserves THAT apology, as today the Obama administration alters rule on paying for end-of-life planning.
The Obama administration, reversing course, will revise a Medicare regulation to delete references to end-of-life planning as part of the annual physical examinations covered under the new health care law, administration officials said Tuesday.
The move is an abrupt shift, coming just days after the new policy took effect on Jan. 1.
Many doctors and providers of hospice care had praised the regulation, which listed “advance care planning” as one of the services that could be offered in the “annual wellness visit” for Medicare beneficiaries.
While administration officials cited procedural reasons for changing the rule, it was clear that political concerns were also a factor. The renewed debate over advance care planning threatened to become a distraction to administration officials who were gearing up to defend the health law against attack by the new Republican majority in the House.
Although the health care bill signed into law in March did not mention end-of-life planning, the topic was included in a huge Medicare regulation setting payment rates for thousands of physician services. The final regulation was published in the Federal Register in late November. The proposed rule, published for public comment in July, did not include advance care planning.
An administration official, authorized by the White House to explain the mix-up, said Tuesday, “We realize that this should have been included in the proposed rule, so more people could have commented on it specifically.”
“We will amend the regulation to take out voluntary advance care planning,” the official said. “This should not affect beneficiaries’ ability to have these voluntary conversations with their doctors.”
And, Sarah proves herself right again.
-
Democrat Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer Says Tea Party Members Have Unhappy Families
Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., left, and outgoing House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Md., take part in a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2011
Say what?There are a whole lot of people in the Tea Party that I see in these polls who don’t want any compromise. My presumption is they have unhappy families. All of you have been in families: single-parent, two-parents, whatever. Multiple parent and a stepfather. The fact is life is about trying to reach accommodation with one another so we can move forward. That is certainly what democracy is about. So if we are going to move forward compromise is necessary.
Good grief.
Steny Hoyer is so out of touch with American voters.
The Tea Party movement is not motivated by, as its members claim, record-high levels of spending and debt by the federal government and the possible economic consequences of that. It is not upset by the various federal bailouts of recent years. It is not riled up by a stagnant economy with 9.8% unemployment. No, they go to rallies because it is easier than going home apparently.
Of course, this is better than former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who maintained the Tea Party was “astroturf” and really did not exist.
Oh! “Can you hear us now?”
From the Ventura County Tea Party April 15, 2009
-
Top Conservatives on Twitter #TCOT Makes it to GOP House Speakers Twitter
Boehner, congressional leaders change Twitter titles in Web change-of-power
In twin moves reflecting their new roles in the next Congress, Reps. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) modified their official handles on Twitter.
Pelosi, the outgoing Speaker of the House, modified her Twitter name to drop her title, changing from “SpeakerPelosi” to “NancyPelosi.”
Boehner,meanwhile, transformed from “GOPLeader” to “SpeakerBoehner,” reflecting his assumption of the top spot in the House on Wednesday.
Pelosi’s account sought to downplay the downgrade, seeming to joke that followers should “rejoice” that her Tweets would be easier to retweet or copy to one’s own account – now that her handle was two characters
shorter.I’m now @NancyPelosi – 2 characters shorter than @SpeakerPelosi. RTers rejoice!
Boehner’s communications director, Kevin Smith, noted the change on his account, adding a “tcot” tag meant to flag the tweet for other conservatives on Twitter:
Check it out … @GOPLeader Boehner is now @SpeakerBoehner #tcot
The change in Twitter names is essentially a small one, though they serve as one 21st century signal of the change in power in the House.
If voters only knew what impact Twitter and #TCOT has had on organizing the RIGHT. The #TCOT newly designed website is here.
I am positive there will be a book. -
IN-Sen: Tea Party Challenge to Sen. Richard Lugar in 2012?
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., left, and the committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., take part in a news conference, on Capitol Hill in Washington Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2010, after the Senate’s ratification of the New START Treaty
Count on it.Fettig and Boyer originally requested the meeting as representatives of Hoosiers for Conservative Senate, an organization of roughly 60 Tea Party groups formed to find a conservative primary challenger to Lugar, or force his retirement.
Lugar and a pair of staffers discussed a range of federal issues, including the role of earmarks and the Federal Reserve. Fettig and Boyer objected to Lugar’s sponsorship of the DREAM Act, his support for the ratification of the START nuclear arms treaty during the lame-duck session of Congress, and his votes to confirm Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Mark Hayes, a spokesman for Lugar, was in the room and acknowledged that “not everybody is going to agree with everything” the senator has done in his long career.
But, Hayes told CNN, “[Lugar’s] preference is to sit down and have a conversation, to understand where they’re coming from, and really to point out the high degree of similarities, for the most part, on a lot of different issues. It was a good conversation.”
Fettig called Lugar “likeable” and “a lovely human being,” but said Lugar should prepare for a Tea Party challenge.
“We weren’t swayed,” he told CNN. “We equated it to going out on a football field, shaking hands, flipping the coins, and game on. He wants to win, and we want to win.”
Hoosiers for Conservative Senate is convening a “Road To Retirement” event in Indianapolis on Jan. 22 in Indianapolis, where organizers hope that an array of Tea Party groups can unite around one Republican candidate to challenge Lugar in the May 2012 primary.
Fettig named state Sen. Mike Delph and Treasurer Richard Mourdock as challengers who could earn the Tea Party group’s blessing.
Richard Lugar has grown too “RINO” Left on too mnay issues for the conservative red state of Indiana. He will be replaced as the Republican nominee in 2012.
Wonder if South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint’s PAC and/or Club for Growth will involve themselves?
-
Photo of the Day: Bye Bye Nancy
-
Michele Bachmann to run for President?
Why not – the more the merrier.
ABC News has learned that Bachmann, R-Minn., also is seriously weighing whether to seek the Republican nomination for president in 2012.
A source close to the three-term congresswoman said Bachmann will travel to Iowa this month for multiple meetings to seek advice from political forces there and party elders close to the caucus process before coming to a final decision regarding a potential presidential run. Bachmann, a native of Waterloo, Iowa, also is set to deliver a keynote speech at an Iowans for Tax Relief PAC fundraiser Jan. 21 in Des Moines, Iowa.
A few speeches or a few trips to Iowa do not a Presidential candidate make – at least in 2012.
But, Bachmann is a prolific fundraiser and her attendance in Iowa will raise the requisite eyebrows for the future.
-
Focus on the Family to Pull Out of CPAC?
Well, not this year. But, in the future?
Gay group causing Focus to question sponsorship role in conference
Focus on the Family and other conservative ministries are boycotting or questioning their commitment to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C., next month because a gay advocacy group is cosponsoring the event.
Tom Minnery, senior vice president of the Focus lobbying arm CitizenLink, said Tuesday that the February event could be the last time the Colorado Springs-based ministry is a CPAC sponsor.
CitizenLink is participating this year in part to offset GOProud’s presence at CPAC, Minnery said.
“When you don’t have the influence of organizations like ours,” Minnery said, “you end up with influences from organizations like GOProud.”
Over the years, CPAC has become the largest conservative political action rally in America, attended each year by thousands of Republican politicians and conservative Christian leaders. Among scheduled speakers this year are Republican powerhouses Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich and author Ann Coulter.
GOProud formed in 2008 in Washington, D.C., to give gay Republicans a political voice. Its 2,000 members favor conservative causes such as smaller government, fiscal restraint and gun ownership, GOProud founder and president Jerry LaSalvia said.
But it also strays from Republican orthodoxy by promoting gay marriage and praising the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the U.S. military.
It’s those exceptions that rankle some conservatives.
I suspect that social conservative organizations will not participate in ANY events where GOProud is a sponsor. Their interests are incompatible and there is no reason for Focus, Citizen Link, et. al. to associate with them in a private, sponsored conference.
Dialogue is one thing but inimicable political interests are quite another.
-
Day By Day January 5, 2011 – Kidz
The LEFT ridiculed America’s war effort in Iraq and now Afghanistan with childish slogans – ala Saul Alinsky. Love the Bushitler one.But, now one of their own Barack Obama as President is bombing the hell out of Muslim Extremist Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Security forces continue in Iraq.
So, why the silence?
Crickets……
Previous:
