• Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-22

    • CABLE NEWS RACE
      THURS. JAN. 20, 2011

      FOXNEWS O'REILLY 2,918,000
      FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,079,000
      FOXNEWS BAIER 1,940,000
      FOXNEWS SHEP 1,786,000
      FOXNEWS BECK 1,780,000
      FOXNEWS GRETA 1,460,000
      MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,106,000
      CNN PIERS 1,025,000
      MSNBC MADDOW 976,000
      MSNBC O'DONNELL 855,000
      MSNBC SCHULTZ 760,000
      CNN COOPER 740,000
      MSNBC HARDBALL 700,000

      ++++++++

      Fox leading the way again…..

      Bill O with 3 times the viewership from the departed Keith Olbermann

    • This we do know: The U.S. economy created fewer and fewer jobs as the 2000s wore on. Turnover in the job market slowed as workers clung to the positions they held. Job destruction spiked in each of the decade’s two recessions. In contrast to the pattern of past recessions, when many employers recalled laid-off workers after growth picked up again, this time very few of those jobs came back.

      These are the first clues—incomplete, disconcerting, and largely overlooked—to a critical mystery bedeviling a nation struggling to crawl out of near-double-digit unemployment. We know what should have transpired over the past 10 years: the completion of a circle of losses and gains from globalization. Emerging technology helped firms send jobs abroad or replace workers with machines; it should have also spawned domestic investment in innovative industries, companies, and jobs. That investment never happened—not nearly enough of it, in any case.

      +++++

      Read it all

      Two words: Outsource, Offshoring

      (tags: unemployment)
  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-21

    • via press release:
      STATEMENT REGARDING KEITH OLBERMANN

      MSNBC and Keith Olbermann have ended their contract. The last broadcast of “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” will be this evening. MSNBC thanks Keith for his integral role in MSNBC’s success and we wish him well in his future endeavors.

      ++++++

      Somehow I don't think we have heard the end of this.

    • Suppose someone – say, the president of United States – proposed the following: We are drowning in debt. More than $14 trillion right now. I've got a great idea for deficit reduction. It will yield a savings of $230 billion over the next 10 years: We increase spending by $540 billion while we increase taxes by $770 billion.

      He'd be laughed out of town. And yet, this is precisely what the Democrats are claiming as a virtue of Obamacare. During the debate over Republican attempts to repeal it, one of the Democrats' major talking points has been that Obamacare reduces the deficit – and therefore repeal raises it – by $230 billion. Why, the Congressional Budget Office says exactly that.

      ++++++++

      Read it all.

      The Flim Flam numbers of ObamaCare are well known. Now, the GOP must communicate the truth to the American people – although I think they have an inkling.

      (tags: Obamacare)
  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-20

    • When Sarah Palin encounters a P.R. problem, she often takes to Twitter or Facebook, as she did to thudding effect last week following allegations that her gun-heavy rhetoric might have encouraged the Gabrielle Giffords shooting. But this time, Palin's first response came via a less familiar source: An aide, Rebecca Mansour, defended her boss on conservative pundit Tammy Bruce's podcast the day after the shooting. It was the third time Bruce has recently figured into the Palin storyline: This fall, Mansour appeared on Bruce's show to respond to an unflattering Vanity Fair profile of Palin.

      ++++++

      Read it all.

      Having met Tammy, I find her an interesting and intelligent pundit

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-18

    • Mr. Bush would like to see "a very aggressive guest worker program that ebbs and flows with demand." He also wants to expand the H-1B visa program aggressively, allowing high-tech companies and others to recruit "highly educated, highly motivated people" from around the world.

      To deal with the problem of illegals already in the country, meanwhile, Mr. Bush likes proposals that acknowledge the rule of law but also "give them a chance to change their status. If they learn English, pay a fine, accept a waiting time and have a clean record, some system like that makes sense to get people to come out of the shadows."
      +++++++
      Jeb Bush will NEVER be President and thank goodness for that. His proposals on illegal immigration are the same as his brother's George W and it is a shameful amnesty that will lead to more illegal immigration.

      But, the open-borders WSJ delivers this puff piece for Jeb.

      Shameful….

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-14

    • Reagan’s doctors and Alzheimer’s specialists have been debunking this myth for years, but no matter how many times they try to explain that occasional memory lapses in an elderly person do not an Alzheimer’s diagnosis make, the narrative rolls on. And it’ll keep rolling, thanks to Ron Jr and the explosive never-before-revealed details in his new book which, per Paul Bedard of U.S. News, … seem not to add up.

      +++++++

      This revelation is a disservice to the memory of his father and an insult to his mother.

    • Clearly, Fuller is just one sandwich short of a picnic. Unless randomly spraying gunfire into a crowd is now considered tantamount to vigorously exercising your Second Amendment rights.

      Seriously, how is anyone even supposed to respond to this kind of idiocy?

      Fuller should take a deep breath and read WaPo's in-depth profile of Jared Loughner – then remind us again how Palin, Boehner, Beck or Angle had anything at all to do with Loughner's rampage.

      Get a clue, moron.

      +++++++

      Fuller is clueless and with a poltical agenda = shocker

    • He played late-night marathon games of Monopoly with his buddies. He went with friends on family vacations. He would hang with pals at IHOP on Fridays. He had a girlfriend. He laughed and he loved and he knew things – about jazz, cars, fantasy games.

      ++++++

      Read it all

    • NRSC Chair John Cornyn (R-Texas) jokingly dismissed Sen. Jim DeMint's influence in his home-state Friday, after the South Carolina conservative weighed in on potential successors to retiring Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.)

      "Is that guy from Texas?" Cornyn said, after asked about DeMint's involvement.

      "I'm certainly not going to weigh in or try to steer anybody in any particular direction. That's what the primary campaign is for," Cornyn added. "I just don't think these kinds of endorsements have that big of an impact. People want to jealously guard their prerogative to cast their vote, especially people who are living in that state. They don't want to delegate that authority or responsibility to someone else."

      +++++++

      If anything DeMint is inconsistent and probably not want to bump heads with Texas Pols

    • he Department of Homeland Security today officially scrapped a Bush-era program designed to use radar technology to detect illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a DHS official and a congressional source.

      The project, called "Virtual Fence," was rolled out under the Bush administration in 2006 with much fanfare about how technology could help secure the border. Illegal immigrants crossing the border would be detected by a radar and picked up by remote cameras, which were monitored by border patrol agents.

      But numerous internal and Congressional reviews found consistent performance problems with the project's systems, which only spanned 53 miles of the vast U.S.-Mexico border.

      The cameras often provided blurry images, the radar system performed poorly in bad weather, and it often displayed false detections that were unable to distinguish between humans, cars and animals.

      There were also cost overruns and the primary contractor, Boeing, missed deadlines

    • The term "blood libel"—which Sarah Palin invoked this week to describe the suggestions by journalists and politicians that conservative figures like herself are responsible for last weekend's shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz.—is fraught with perilous meaning in Jewish history.

      Despite the strong association of the term with collective Jewish guilt and concomitant slaughter, Sarah Palin has every right to use it. The expression may be used whenever an amorphous mass is collectively accused of being murderers or accessories to murder.

      ++++++++

      Read it all

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-13

    • The San Francisco Business Times is reporting that San Francisco-based microblogging darling Twitter is looking into a real estate purchase in Brisbane California, specifically the 200,000 square foot current home of Walmart.com at the Sierra Point Towers.

      While reports hold that Twitter is also considering the Centennial Towers in South San Francisco, Brisbane City Manager Clay Holstine confirmed the Brisbane inquiry to the Mercury News saying, “I don’t know where they are in the process.”

      ++++++

      I am surprised they are staying in california with all of the anti-busbusiness regulation and taxation

      (tags: twitter)
    • obless claims hit a 10-week high last week while producer prices shot up in December, pointing to headwinds for an economy that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said was showing fresh vigor.

      However, a surge in exports to their highest level in two years, which included record sales to China, helped narrow the U.S. trade deficit in November, an encouraging sign for fourth-quarter economic growth.

      The data on Thursday marked one step forward and two steps back for an economy that appeared to gain a bit more momentum toward the end of last year.

      +++++++

      The economy continues in the doldrums and unemployment is high. President Obama has until July 4 to start lowering unemployment or he will serve only one term and someone like Mitt romney or Mitch Daniels will be given a chance.

      (tags: Obamanomics)
    • Kay Bailey Hutchison said today that she will not seek another term in the U.S. Senate.

      "I have known since 2006 that I wouldn't seek another term," the senator said in a telephone interview. "I wanted to announce it on my own terms and in my own way.

      Contenders to fill Hutchison's seat started to emerge soon after she made her announcement.

      Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst issued a written statement that said: "While my focus remains on the challenges we face here at the state level and making this upcoming session successful, I fully intend to explore running for the United States Senate, and should I run, I will run with the intention of winning and continuing to serve the people of Texas just as I have done throughout my career."

      Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones also issued a statement on Senate campaign letterhead just a few minutes after Hutchison spoke to The Dallas Morning News.

      "I look forward to an aggressive, spirited campaign on the issues," .
      +++

      A busy GOP primary

    • There has been a great effort this week to come to grips with the American left's reaction to the Tucson shooting. Paul Krugman of the NYT and its editorial page, George Packer of the New Yorker, E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, Jonathan Alter of Newsweek and others, in varying degrees, have linked the murders to the intensity of opposition to the policies and presidency of Barack Obama. As Mr. Krugman asked in his Monday commentary: "Were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?"

      The "you" would be his audience, and the answer is yes, they thought that in these times "something like this" could happen in the United States. Other media commentators, without a microbe of conservatism in their bloodstreams, have rejected this suggestion.

      So what was the point? Why attempt the gymnastic logic of asserting that the act of a deranged personality was linked to the tea parties and the American right? Two reasons: Political calculation and personal belief.

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-11

    • Nearly six in 10 Americans say the country's heated political rhetoric is not to blame for the Tucson shooting rampage that left six dead and critically wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, according to a CBS News poll.

      In the wake of the shooting, much focus has been put on the harsh tone of politics in Washington and around the country, particularly after a contentious midterm election. Rhetoric and imagery from both Republicans and Democrats have included gun-related metaphors, but the majority of the country isn't connecting the shooting to politics.

      +++++++

      Well, the LEFT continues to exploit the situation for political gain. How shocking – not.

    • Barack Obama has declared that France is America’s greatest ally, undermining Britain’s Special Relationship with the U.S.

      The President risked offending British troops in Afghanistan by saying that French president Nicolas Sarkozy is a ‘stronger friend’ than David Cameron.

      The remarks, during a White House appearance with Mr Sarkozy, will reinforce the widely-held view in British diplomatic circles that Mr Obama has less interest in the Special Relationship than any other recent American leader.

      ++++++

      Say what?

      France is NOT America's biggest ally.

      Did Obama miss world History class?

    • The American Principles Project, Robert George's new-ish conservative group that kicked off the slow-burning "social con boycott" of CPAC, is attacking conference organizers for booking Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels as one of its banquet speakers. (There are two ticketed banquets during CPAC.) APP's executive director Andy Blom press-releases:
      Unfortunately, while Governor Daniels is slated to speak at CPAC’s "Reagan Dinner," he has failed to understand how Ronald Reagan fused the three critical legs of the conservative movement into one coherent governing philosophy. Governor Daniels’ selection is an affront to the millions of conservatives who believe that social issues such as abortion and traditional marriage are non-negotiable.

      +++++++

      Boycott if they will but Daniels' comments were taken out of context anyway

    • A characteristic of many contemporary minds is susceptibility to the superstition that all behavior can be traced to some diagnosable frame of mind that is a product of promptings from the social environment. From which flows a political doctrine: Given clever social engineering, society and people can be perfected. This supposedly is the path to progress. It actually is the crux of progressivism. And it is why there is a reflex to blame conservatives first.

      ++++++

      Agreed

    • We should always refrain from engaging in personal verbal attacks against those with whom we differ on important questions of the day. But we must also resist the temptation to assign blame to those with whom we differ for the acts of others. No expressed opinion, liberal or conservative, was to blame for Saturday’s attack and we must resist efforts to suggest otherwise because to do so has the potential to inhibit freedom.
      President Kennedy said, ‘A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.’
      We cannot fail to be moved by the tragic events in Arizona. We must not fail to pray for all those affected. And we will not fail to defend our freedom lest it be one more victim of the Arizona tragedy

      +++++++

      Mike Pence has it RIGHT on the Tucson tragedy

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-10

    • Non-RNC Member Endorsement Watch
      National Right to Life has declined to endorse a particular candidate in the race, but has publicly released a glowing letter in praise of Maria Cino… the closest to an endorsement the group will most likely make.
      Marc Racicot, Governor of Montana and former RNC Chairman himself, has endorsed Ann Wagner, praising her for her leadership, work ethic, and commitment to “grassroots politics.”
      Michael Reagan has endorsed Reince Priebus in the race. Additionally, Priebus has scored two more RNC member endorsements, bringing his frontrunner total to 36.
      For whatever it’s worth, conservative bloggers Erick Erickson and Dan Riehl have both endorsed Saul Anuzis in the race, and both named Ann Wagner as their second choice.

      ++++++

      Read it all = a good summary of the state of the RNC race

      I cannot support Saul Anuzis because of the National Popular Vote position.

      (tags: saul_anuzis)
    • Let’s not indulge in any equivocation: Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign was a flop. Though he was an early front-runner in national surveys of potential Republican primary voters, Mr. Giuliani placed a distant sixth in the Iowa caucus, fourth in the New Hampshire primary, sixth again in both Michigan and South Carolina and then, finally, a distant third in Florida, a state where he had allocated much of his resources. Mr. Giuliani then dropped out of the race and endorsed John McCain.

      Mr. Giuliani may try his luck again, according to the New York Post, which thinks he might be interested in the 2012 race — although Mr. Giuliani himself has worked to tamp down such speculation.

      +++++++

      Rudy will not run but will likely be an Attorney General for whomever beats Obama in 2012.

    • Now to Tucson, Arizona, where six people are dead and Democrat congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is seriously injured following another gun rampage. Attacker Jared Lee Loughner has thus far offered no clue at all about why he did it. Apparently the fellow is a drug-using gamer whom one former classmate recalls as “left wing”, a “political radical”, “reclusive”, a “pot head” and “quite liberal”. He’d met Giffords four years ago and thought her “stupid & unintelligent”. Besides that background and Loughner’s MySpace and YouTube rantings, that’s all we have. There’s no “Allahu Akbar” here. Yet – incredibly – many clearly heard a cry of “Allahu Palin”.

      +++++++

      Read it all and why, of course Sarah Palin is easy to demonize

    • How sick do you have to be to start making political capital out of the killing of six people including a nine-year old girl, long before anyone has the remotest clue what the murderer’s motives were, or his political affiliations, or his state of mind?

      Not sick at all, to judge by the response of so many US Tweeters in the immediate aftermath of the Arizona shootings. When you’re a liberal, it seems, cloying sanctimoniousness, grotesque moral posturing, double standards, hypocrisy and cynical, malevolent smearing all come as naturally and healthily as breathing.

      As Toby Harnden reports, barely were the bodies cold when the liberal fascists started pointing the finger of blame: it was Sarah Palin’s fault, of course; Sarah Palin’s and Glenn Beck’s and, of course, the Tea Party’s. Definitely not a crazed killing spree by a deeply confused young man, no, sirree. After all, as Rahm Emmanuel would say, you must “never let a crisis go to waste.”

      ++++++

      Read it all

    • But I also can’t help detecting a desire to make Saturday’s shooting something that it doesn’t seem to be – a chance to say, "See, we told you" to Palin and the Tea Party crowd. Or, as Rep. Raul Grijalva, who represents the district next to Giffords’ in Arizona, put it in an interview with the Nation: "Ms. Palin needs to look at her own behavior." He is far from alone in expressing this sentiment.

      This seems unfair. At best, the connection between Palin’s behavior and Saturday’s tragedy is abstract. If anything, the shooting reinforces a point that James Fallows has made: The motives of political assassins rarely have anything to do with mainstream political debate and rhetoric. For now, at least, this seems to be the case with Loughner.

      +++++++

      The Left's hands are not clean.

      Remember the rhetoric and President Bush?

    • The linchpin of Gov. Jerry Brown's budget plan is a June special election in which voters would be asked to extend temporary tax increases on income, purchases and vehicles that are set to expire this year. Placing such a measure on the ballot would require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature, meaning Republican votes are needed.

      Assembly GOP leader Connie Conway of Tulare says her caucus won't provide any. "Assembly Republicans stand united as the last line of defense for California taxpayers," she said in a statement. "There are not votes in the Assembly Republican Caucus to place the same tax increases that voters overwhelmingly rejected less than two years ago back on the ballot."

      If Conway is right, things just got trickier for Brown.

      ++++++++

      If Brown end arounds the Legislature, might he be recalled for malfeasance?

    • 1) Latinos did not constitute 22% of the electorate as reported by the Edison Research exit poll and blabbed along by those who would make the Latino vote look more important than it is (for the record, our two posted references to the 22 % factor, one from a guest columnist, the other a suggestion, are here and here). Latinos accounted for 16% of the vote, just as the better pollsters had predicted (and just 1-point lower than the LA Times/USC poll found after the fact).

      2) “Independents” did not account for 27% of the voters, as reported by the exit poll and some pollsters (we name no names) who rely on party identification – a practice Calbuzz can’t fathom when party registration is available. Actual independents, that is, decline-to-state voters, accounted for 17% of the electorate.

      These facts, part of the data pulled from the final voter file by Bob Proctor of Statewide Information Systems of Sacramento, are important

      +++++++

      But, Latinos did overwhelmingly vote for J. brown

    • It is usually several weeks before doctors can fully evaluate cognitive function in a patient who has suffered a gunshot wound to the brain, and the body has a significant capacity to compensate for serious injuries.

      Although Ms. Giffords’s ability to follow commands is encouraging, her doctors said that it would take several weeks to know what her recovery would be. That is a caveat that Dr. Flamm well understands. “I can understand the impatience of wanting to know it now,” he said. “But even if I wanted to know and examined her myself, I wouldn’t be able to answer that question at this stage.”

      +++++++

      Read it all

    • The Tuscon massacre ghouls who are now trying to criminalize conservatism have forced our hand.

      They need to be reminded. You need to be reminded.

      Confront them. Don’t be cowed into silence.

      And don’t let the media whitewash the sins of the hypocritical Left in their naked attempt to suppress the law-abiding, constitutionally-protected, peaceful, vigorous political speech of the Right.

      They want to play tu quo que in the middle of a national tragedy? They asked for it. They got it.

      ***

      The progressive climate of hate: A comprehensive illustrated primer in 8 parts:

      I. PALIN HATE
      II. BUSH HATE
      III. MISC. TEA PARTY/GOP/ANTI-TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE HATE
      IV. ANTI-CONSERVATIVE FEMALE HATE
      V. LEFT-WING MOB HATE — campus, anti-war radicals, ACORN, eco-extremists, & unions
      VI. OPEN-BORDERS HATE
      VII. ANTI-MILITARY HATE
      VIII. HATE: CRIMES — the ever-growing Unhinged Mugshot Collection

      +++++++++

      Read it all

    • At 2:00 a.m. on Saturday—about eight hours before he allegedly killed six people and wounded 14, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), in Tucson—Jared Lee Loughner phoned an old and close friend with whom he had gone to high school and college. The friend, Bryce Tierney, was up late watching TV, but he didn't answer the call. When he later checked his voice mail, he heard a simple message from Loughner: "Hey man, it's Jared. Me and you had good times. Peace out. Later."

      ++++++

      Read it all = riveting interview

    • The budget proposals Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to unveil Monday have had those of us in local government in California holding our breath. Why? Because a key component in his plan to solve the state's structural deficit will rely on a strategy known as "realignment," in which state and local governments swap various funding streams and service responsibilities. The stated aim is to restore local administrative control and stabilize unpredictable revenues.

      +++++++

      Read it all.

      Even the Democrat controlled County Board of Supervisors are leary because THEY will have to cut services or raise taxes shifting the blame form the Governor and California Legislature.

      More symbolism over substance from Jerry Brown.

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-09

    • Shortly after November's electoral defeat for the Democrats, pollster Mark Penn appeared on Chris Matthews's TV show and remarked that what President Obama needed to reconnect with the American people was another Oklahoma City bombing. To judge from the reaction to Saturday's tragic shootings in Arizona, many on the left (and in the press) agree, and for a while hoped that Jared Lee Loughner's killing spree might fill the bill.

      With only the barest outline of events available, pundits and reporters seemed to agree that the massacre had to be the fault of the tea party movement in general, and of Sarah Palin in particular. Why? Because they had created, in New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's words, a "climate of hate."

      +++++++

      Read it all

    • 21st Century Democrats is no unheard of fringe group, either. Styling itself as one that is “building a progressive majority from the grassroots up,” it is interesting to note that some major top-down players in the Democrat Party founded the group. The group was created in 1986 by Senator Tom Harkin, a powerful Democrat from Iowa, and was co-founded by left-wing pundit Jim Hightower and former Illinois Congressman Lane Evans. These folks are hardly “grassroots” sort of folks.

      Worse, even as this email blast accuses Sarah Palin and former candidate Jesse Kelly for using “violent imagery” and for “targeting” Giffords, this group is associated directly with The Daily Kos run by Markos Moulitsas who used precisely that same sort of “targeting” rhetoric last year during the campaign for the midterm elections.

      ++++++

      Shocking is more the word.

      Unbelievable, not so much with the LEFT

    • And here we go again in Arizona, as people with political agendas unleash their attacks even before the victims of this senseless shooting have been buried. I find it depressing beyond belief.

      This isn't about a nearly year-old Sarah Palin map; it's about a lone nutjob who doesn't value human life. It would be nice if we briefly put aside partisan differences and came together with sympathy and support for Gabby Giffords and the other victims, rather than opening rhetorical fire ourselves.

      ++++++

      Read it all

    • The attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and the killing of six innocents outside a Tucson Safeway has bolstered the ongoing argument that when speaking of things political, we should all avoid using inflammatory rhetoric and violent imagery.

      +++++++

      Read it all

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2011-01-06

    • However, Orszag's article amounts to little more than wishful thinking. Using Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data, the chart below shows that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 have left the cost curve of federal healthcare spending virtually unchanged over the next 25 years.

      ++++++++

      Read it all

      (tags: Obamacare)
    • Ezra Klein, he of recent “the Constitution’s old, and stuff” fame, is one of the great and most persuasive cheerleaders for the belief that Republicans cannot repeal Obamacare and remain fiscally responsible since — as everybody knows! — Obamacare reduces the national debt by $100 billion over the next ten years. He makes his case here. Taking a slightly different but in many ways similar view in National Review Online, Avik Roy concedes that, purely as a matter of parliamentary process, Obamacare’s deficit-reduction features have to be taken into account. (Roy is no doubt correct in his analysis of the process questions.)

      +++++++

      Read it all

      (tags: Obamacare)