• Pat Buchanan,  Warren Buffett

    Video: Pat Buchanan Exhorts Warren Buffett to Send a $5 Billion Check to the Federal Government

    Don’t think Warren Buffet will bite at this one. But, Pat has a point.

    The liberal media are predictably fawning over billionaire Warren Buffett’s op-ed in the New York Times Monday calling for new taxes on the super-rich.

    This led MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan on Monday’s “Morning Joe” to challenge the Oracle of Omaha asking, “Why doesn’t he set an example and send a check for $5 billion to the federal government?”

    Come on Warren, just go for it. Put your money where your mouth is.

  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for August 14th through August 15th

    These are my links for August 14th through August 15th:

    • President 2012: Perry schools Bachmann in Waterloo – Rick Perry came to Michele Bachmann’s hometown Sunday evening and schooled the newly minted Iowa front-runner in her native state’s demanding retail political culture.

      The day after Perry announced his candidacy and Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll, the two candidates spoke to the Black Hawk County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day dinner, the sort of endless regional event that is a staple of the long Iowa campaign.

      Both candidates offered conservative standards, promising to slash government spending and ease regulations to jump-start the private sector economy. Perry promised to use his presidential veto pen “until all ink runs out to get the message across that we’re not spending all the money.” Bachmann pledged to keep faith with evangelical Republicans.

      The duo also went to great lengths to burnish their local credentials, with Bachmann celebrating her Waterloo roots repeatedly and Perry name-checking Iowa companies, recalling his own 4-H gold star status and Eagle Scout upbringing, and paying repeated respect to senior Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who maintains a hog farm nearby and was seated in the crowd.

      But the contrast that may lift Perry and undermine Bachmann in their high stakes battle for Iowa had less to do with what they said than how they said it — and what they did before and after speaking.

      ======

      Read it all.

      Rick Perry has more big time campaign experience than Bachmann having run for Governor of Texas (a very large state) three times.

      Unless Perry makes a gaffe or something disqualifying comes out, Perry will overwhelm Bachmann and after Florida it will be Romney vs. Perry going into Super Tuesday.

      Watch Rudy Giuliani and see if he endorses Perry early or late to get a sense of the direction of the Perry campaign.

    • President 2012: Bachmann-Perry Overdrive – The fight for the Republican Presidential nomination is finally getting underway in earnest, with Texas Governor Rick Perry bull-riding his way into the race and Michele Bachmann winning Saturday's straw poll in Iowa. Both events show how unsettled the GOP contest still is, as voters search for a candidate who can beat a vulnerable President Obama.

      Mrs. Bachmann, the Minnesota Congresswoman, has emerged from cable-TV land in recent months to be a viable competitor. She is telegenic, a hard worker, and has planted herself at the front of the tea party parade in hostility to all things Washington. This posture matches the current public mood and helps to explain why she surpassed fellow Minnesotan Tim Pawlenty, who dropped out of the race yesterday despite a far better record of accomplishment as a fiscally conservative two-term Governor of a left-leaning state. Mrs. Bachmann is a canny politician.

      At the same time, winning a straw poll of activists is a long way from persuading voters she has the experience and judgment to sit in the Oval Office. (Libertarian Ron Paul, who has no chance to win the nomination, finished a close second.) Mrs. Bachmann has a record of errant statements (see Battle of Lexington and Concord, history of) that are forgiven by Fox Nation but won't be if she makes them as a GOP standard-bearer.

      ======

      Read it all.

      The GOP has a weak field but Obama will be weaker.

      A Perry and Rubio ticket will probably be the strongest.

    • Flap’s California Morning Collection: August 15, 2011 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s California Morning Collection: August 15, 2011 #tcot #catcot
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: August 15, 2011 – The Morning Drill: August 15, 2011
    • Day By Day August 15, 2011 – All the World’s a Stage | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Day By Day August 15, 2011 – All the World’s a Stage #tcot #catcot
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-08-15 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-08-15 #tcot #catcot
    • Pakistan lets China see US helicopter – FT.com – Pakistan lets China see US Stealth helicopter from Bin Laden Raid
    • Flap’s Links and Comments for August 14th on 12:49 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s Links and Comments for August 14th on 12:49 #tcot #catcot
  • California,  California Citizens Redistricting Commission,  Flap's California Morning Collection,  Jack O'Connell

    Flap’s California Morning Collection: August 15, 2011

    California’s Capitol

    Watch out Californians, the California Legislature is back in session this morning after a month’s long summer hiatus.

    The Legislature returns from a month-long summer recess this week with hundreds of bills, many of them highly controversial, still awaiting action before the Sept. 9 adjournment.

    The recess itself was unusual, since in recent years the Legislature has remained in session through the summer due to budget stalemates. This year, with a budget – albeit a very shaky one – in place, the Capitol’s denizens can concentrate on bills.

    That means renewing traditional end-of-session follies. Hundreds of lobbyists will battle over high- dollar issues, and legislators will cash in with fundraising events – an average of at least five every working day.

    Fittingly, perhaps, the Legislature’s return coincides with the supposedly final vote of the new Citizens Redistricting Commission on legislative and congressional maps for the 2012 elections and beyond.

    New maps mean some incumbents will be fighting for their political lives next year while others will be maneuvering to ascend the political food chain, thus making late-session campaign fundraising even more frantic than usual.

    Late-session bills tend to be controversial and/or involve taking money from someone and giving it to someone else, which is fertile ground for political fundraising.

    Plus, an added bonus today, with the above referenced California Citizen’s Redistricting Commission approving final legislative and congressional maps. The meeting starts at 9 AM.

    OK, on to the links…..

    For Some, Redistricting is Splitsville

    Even with testimony from the public and formal guidelines written into law, California’s first-ever citizens redistricting effort has found no easy answers to the question, “What is a community?”

    And so, in the statewide maps being certified Monday morning, some will see their communities split between political districts. Others will be lumped together with communities with which they think they have nothing in common.

    The complexity and controversy of shaping political maps based, when possible, on community boundaries has been a dominant theme of the dozens of meetings and decisions made by the California Citizens Redistricting Commission.

    On Monday morning’s edition of The California Report, we take a look at how some of those decisions have left some grumbling in different parts of the state, while commissioners believe the new maps reflect a thoughtful and careful deference to the needs of the public.

    Mike Ward: Redistricting Panel Broke Law

    A member of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission believes that the commission broke the law, failed to uphold an open and transparent decision-making process and used political motives in drawing California’s new state and federal legislative districts, according to an exclusive, in-depth interview with CalWatchDog.com.

    “This commission simply traded the partisan, backroom gerrymandering by the Legislature for partisan, backroom gerrymandering by average citizens,” Commissioner Mike Ward said in an interview with CalWatchDog.com on Sunday night. “This commission became the Citizens Smoke-Filled Room, where average citizen commissioners engaged in dinner-table deals and partisan gerrymandering — the very problems that this commission was supposed to prevent.”

    Ward, who was the lone member of the commission to oppose all of the commission’s proposed maps at its July 29 meeting, will outline his opposition in a detailed statement to be delivered at the commission’s press conference later today. An advance copy of the commissioner’s remarks was obtained exclusively by CalWatchDog.com and is reprinted below.

    Life after politics for O’Connell

    Former state superintendent of public instruction and longtime Ventura County lawmaker Jack O’Connell seems to be settling into life after politics. I visited him yesterday in his Sacramento office at School Innovations & Advocacy, the national education consulting firm where he serves as “chief education officer.”

    Interesting for Jack saying he didn’t miss the zoo. For someone who taught continuation high school, for what less than two years, before sitting at a card table in a gerrymandered Democratic districts to win the first of many political jobs, he should not be so dismissive. Wouldn’t you think?

    Have a wonderful morning!

  • Twitter

    @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-08-15

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