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links for 2011-01-23
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But more germanely, Palin need not run for the presidency in 2012 in the manner commentator and newly elected governor Reagan did not until 1968, and did not successfully until 1980 — all the while establishing a populist conservative persona as hated — and successful — during his near two-decade pre-presidential career as a younger Palin might be in the two decades ahead.
Palin is scary not so much in 2012, but that she could be around — and be around in an evolving way — for a long time to come.
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More specific data from the Tax Foundation and other sources indicate that California's income and sales taxes are particularly high, compared with those of other states, while overall corporate taxes are a bit below average and property taxes fall somewhere in the middle.
While Proposition 13, enacted in 1978, strictly limits property tax rates, the state's relatively high property values push property tax bills into the upper ranks. In 2009, the Tax Foundation says, California property taxes as a percentage of value on owner-occupied houses were 44th in the country, while the median tax bill of $2,839 was 10th highest, nearly $1,000 above the national average.
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Read it all.
The tax burden is a detriment to attracting business to California and why California companies manufacture their products out of the state in China.
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President Election 2012: Why Obama Could Survive
2008 Electoral College Results Map
Chris Cillizza over at the Washington Post has an Electoral College/Obama re-election analysis that I did many weeks ago – the Presidential race for 2012 is really ONLY in a few key battleground states.When then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) won the White House in 2008, it was widely regarded as a landslide victory over Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Two years later, though, many analysts and observers have forgotten the breadth of Obama’s victory in the wake of the devastating and across-the-board (not to mention down-the-ballot) losses the Democratic Party suffered in the 2010 midterms.
And yet, a detailed examination of the national map heading into 2012 suggests that the president still sits in a strong position for reelection – able to lose half a dozen (or more) swing states he carried in 2008 and still win the 270 electoral votes he needs for a second term.
Read Cillizza’s analysis but it really is just common sense and the conventional wisdom.
Here is my analysis and the difference is I name all of the KEY BATTLEGROUND states and their electoral vote changes due to the census.
Before, I identified the key battleground states (pre-census release):
- Ohio – 20 (electoral votes): -2 after reapportionment
- Virginia – 13
- Colorado – 9
- Florida -27: +2 after reapportionment
- Nevada – 5: +1 after reapportionment
- Wisconsin -10
- New Hampshire – 4
- Indiana – 11
- North Carolina – 15
The states Chris Cillizza did NOT mention in his piece are Colorado, New Hampshire and Wisconsin – which have trended red in 2010, and may very well be more red or leaning that way in 2012.
If all of the key battleground states listed above were to flip to the Republican candidate a total of 115 electoral votes would shift. The GOP candidate would win 285 Electoral votes Vs. 250 for Obama (provided Obama wins all of the states he won in 2008). 270 votes are needed to win.
President Obama has a road to victory in 2012 but I do not think it will be as easy as Cillizza makes it out to be and the Presidential election will be concentrated in just a few states – the ones listed above.
Now, can the Republican Party nominate a candidate that can compete and beat Obama in these states?
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GOP Brand Dead in Deep-Blue California?
Yeah, probably so – at least for now in state-wide offices.The Republican Party, as a brand, is dead in California.
That’s the eye-opening consensus of a crowd of political observers, lawmakers and strategists – Democrats and Republicans – gathered at a UC Berkeley symposium this weekend to mull over California’s defiantly blue status in the wake of a conservative tide that swept the nation in November.
Many of the 200 attendees at the two-day Institute of Governmental Studies conference appeared surprisingly unified on one issue: that, barring dramatic upheaval, the GOP’s prospects may be doomed in the voter-rich Golden State.
“Republicans, as a brand, are dead,” Duf Sundheim, the former state GOP chair, told the gathering Saturday.
Exhibit A: Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley, who had racked up a string of election victories in nonpartisan offices. But Cooley lost the 2010 state attorney general’s race to San Francisco Democrat Kamala Harris. Why? “He had an ‘R’ after his name,” Sundheim said.
“There’s a brand problem,” agreed Republican Jim Brulte, former state Senate minority leader.
Here is what I wrote after the November election.
California with its ethnic and geographic segmentation has been a super Democratic state. But, on the other hand, it appears to be the only state so predisposed, along with New York. The Democratic Party has become a regional, ethnic, and two state party.
So, what will be the policy implications of these findings?
- I don’t think the national Republican Party will put too much money into California for statewide races any longer – at least for the foreseeable future.
- There will be a hardening of national GOP positions on illegal immigration, border security, and illegal alien amnesty.
- California will not be the recipient of much Congressionally generated pork or bailout monies.
- The California Republican Party will hunker down into a permanent minority roll and concentrate on winning Congressional and Legislative seats in “RED” districts while waiting for opportunities.
- California already known as business-unfriendly will be a jobs donor to other states who recruit California businesses.
California is in a deep blue hole and it may take decades to change – if ever.
But, the Democrats will have to govern and there will be no excuses – sink or swim. After redistricting and a few election cycles if California does not thrive, the California GOP will re-emerge like a phoenix from the ashes.
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Video: Chinese Pianist Played Anti-American Propaganda Tune at White House
Movie clip from the well known anti-American movie “Battle of Triangle Hill”, same music played by Lang Lang in White House at the state dinner for Hu Jintaoon Jan. 19, 2011Another sign of how incomptent President Obama and his Administration are.
Lang Lang the pianist says he chose it. Chairman Hu Jintao recognized it as soon as he heard it. Patriotic Chinese Internet users were delighted as soon as they saw the videos online. Early morning TV viewers in China knew it would be played an hour or two beforehand. At the White House State dinner on Jan. 19, about six minutes into his set, Lang Lang began tapping out a famous anti-American propaganda melody from the Korean War: the theme song to the movie “Battle on Shangganling Mountain.”
The film depicts a group of “People’s Volunteer Army” soldiers who are first hemmed in at Shanganling (or Triangle Hill) and then, when reinforcements arrive, take up their rifles and counterattack the U.S. military “jackals.”
The movie and the tune are widely known among Chinese, and the song has been a leading piece of anti-American propaganda by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for decades. CCP propaganda has always referred to the Korean War as the “movement to resist America and help [North] Korea.” The message of the propaganda is that the United States is an enemy—in fighting in the Korean War the United States’ real goal was said to be to invade and conquer China. The victory at Triangle Hill was promoted as a victory over imperialists.
The Chinese are laughing their asses off at Obama after giving him and the United States the finger without him even knowing it.
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U.S. Company Will Stop Making Sodium Thiopental – Used in American Lethal Injection Executions
The newly renovated San Quentin Prison Death Chamber
Guess the State of California will have to find a foreign supplier or go back to the Gas Chamber for executions.An anesthetic used in lethal injections will no longer be made by its only U.S. manufacturer because the company does not want it to be used in executions, forcing states that allow the death penalty to look for other suppliers.
Hospira Inc said on Friday that sodium thiopental has been in short supply for about a year because of manufacturing problems.
The company was planning to shift production to its plant in Liscate, Italy, but the Italian parliament will only allow the drug to be made there if Hospira can guarantee that it will not be used in capital punishment.
Italy is a member of the European Union, which has banned the death penalty and criticized the United States for allowing it.
Sodium thiopental is the first of a sequence of three drugs administered in U.S. lethal injections that paralyze breathing and stop the heart. A sedative is legally required in all lethal injections of U.S. death row inmates
“This is not how the drug is intended to be used,” Tareta Adams, a spokeswoman for Hospira, said in a telephone interview. “We’ve decided we’re no longer going to work to bring the drug back.”
Adams said Hospira typically distributes the drug through wholesalers, making it difficult to guarantee that it will not end up in the hands of U.S. correctional authorities.
At least two U.S. states that execute inmates through lethal injection have already tried to import sodium thiopental from a British company, the name of which has not been disclosed. London-based human rights group, Reprieve, sued the British government in November to stop export of the drug.
Texas, one of the United States’ biggest users of the lethal drug combination, is looking for alternative drugs, according to Jason Clark, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Well, the states could always return to either the gas chamber, electric chair, firing squad or hanging – all of which are more painful than lethal injection. But, oh well.
I see a market for another company or a company offshore making the drug. Or, like Oklahoma they could use pentobarbital (Nembutal) which is used for executions in China, in animal euthanasia and physician assisted suicide.
Stay tuned…..
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Day By Day January 23, 2011 – Reality Shows
Day By Day by Chris MuirChris, I want to see Sarah Palin go head to head against Mitt Romney in the GOP Presidential Cauci and primary elections. It will give the party a needed catharsis – establishment GOP Vs. Tea Party Republican.President Obama may be hard to beat with ANY Republican candidate, but this should NOT deter the party from nominating who is RIGHT.
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