• Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: May 22, 2012

    May 22, 2012 /

    Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court John Roberts

    These are my links for May 21st through May 22nd:

    • Targeting John Roberts – The left tries to intimidate the High Court on ObamaCare– You can tell the Supreme Court is getting closer to its historic ObamaCare ruling because the left is making one last attempt to intimidate the Justices. The latest effort includes taunting Chief Justice John Roberts that if the Court overturns any of the law, he’ll forever be defined as a partisan “activist.”Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy recently took the extraordinary step of publicly lobbying the Chief Justice after oral argument but before its ruling. “I trust that he will be a Chief Justice for all of us and that he has a strong institutional sense of the proper role of the judicial branch,” the Democrat declared on the Senate floor. “The conservative activism of recent years has not been good for the Court.”
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Day By Day May 22, 2012 – Choice – Day By Day May 22, 2012 – Choice
    • Men Should Skip Common Prostate Test, Panel Says – WSJ.com – RT @WSJ: Influential health panel recommends against PSA prostate cancer tests for men –
    • Romney and the Right– This November, millions of conservatives will find themselves in the familiar position of holding their noses to vote for a problematic Republican presidential candidate, because the alternative is far worse.Although conservatives don’t exactly have fond memories of the candidacies of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole in 1996 and Senator John McCain in 2008, the almost certain nomination of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has its own sting.In 2010, tea-party energy swept a new generation of conviction conservatives into statehouses, governors’ mansions, and the U.S. Congress. Many on the right held out hope that the big payoff would be putting a principled conservative in the White House.
    • Timing May Be Key in Romney’s VP Announcement– t Romney deliberates on his most important pre-convention political decision, the identity of whomever he selects as a running mate isn’t the only choice he and the vetting team must make.The timing of that vice-presidential unveiling can have a major impact on the race, as the experience of his 2008 predecessor demonstrated fully.
    • Obama Thinks He’s the Fairness Czar– Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, N.J., came across as a moderate, sensible Democrat when he said on “Meet the Press” Sunday that negative political ads are “nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright.”Booker, a Barack Obama surrogate, later tried to walk back his comments. He posted a video in which he explained that he was expressing his frustration with negative campaigning when he spoke out, effectively undermining the president’s re-election narrative. (Booker also referred to the biggest non-story in politics last week, about a political consultant who recommended that a super PAC use Wright in an anti-Obama ad. That ad didn’t get made.)
    • Obama Campaign Does Damage Control After Dems Question Anti-Bain Strategy– The Obama campaign is in full damage-control mode one day after Newark Mayor Cory Booker publicly derided Democrats’ assault on presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney over his record at Bain Capital.Chief Obama strategist David Axelrod today publicly rebuked Booker, a popular and high-profile surrogate for the campaign, saying he was “just wrong.””I love Cory Booker. He’s a great mayor. If I were, if my house was on fire, I’d hope he were my next door neighbor,” Axelrod said on MSNBC, referring to Booker’s rescue of a neighbor last month.

      “I agree with what he said later. I think this was a legitimate area for discussion,” Axelrod said of Booker’s subsequent comments clarifying the issue.

      As for the criticism that the Team Obama’s Bain attack is part of “nauseating” political discourse with which Booker has become “very uncomfortable,” Axelrod said, “on this particular instance he was just wrong.”

    • ABC/WashPost Poll: Obama Still Under 50 – Among Adults – By Jim Geraghty – The Campaign Spot – National Review Online – RT @jimgeraghty: In ABC/WashPost poll, married women swung heavily towards Romney in the past month:
    • Hamid Karzai blows top over Dana Rohrabacher– Afghan President Hamid Karzai says Rep. Dana Rohrabacher will be banned from entering his country until the congressman “changes his tongue” and stops criticizing Afghanistan.“A democratically elected congressman of the United States of America should not be talking of an ethnic divide in Afghanistan, should not be interfering in Afghanistan’s internal affairs, should not be asking the Afghan people to have a federal structure as against what the Afghan constitution has asked for, should not be speaking disrespectfully about the Afghan people or the various ethnic groups in Afghanistan,” Karzai said in an interview with CNN. “If an Afghan did that from Afghanistan, how would you react to him in America?”
    • Medscape: Medscape Access – RT @Medscape: Vitamin D Supplementation and the Allergy Pandemic
    • Sarah Palin: ‘Shame’ Cory Booker backed down– Sarah Palin is applauding Cory Booker’s criticism of the Obama campaign’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital as “candid,” adding that it was a “shame” that the Democratic mayor retreated from his initial remarks that have touched off a firestorm.“It was a shame to see Cory kind of back down from what his answer was, which was so candid,” Palin told Sean Hannity of Fox News on Monday
    • Poll: Obama, Romney in Dead Heat – Steven Shepard – NationalJournal.com – RT @HotlineSteve: .@ABC/@washingtonpost poll shows Obama, Romney tied overall and on handling the economy:
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-22 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-22
    • El Monte school district moving to dismiss employees who have been on paid leave for months– After 10 months of investigation, the local high school district is winding down its inquiries into a dozen employees accused of stealing.Four of the El Monte Union High School District employees no longer work for the district, for undisclosed reasons, and the school board is still figuring out what to do about eight other employees, according to Superintendent Nick Salerno and Thomas Madruga, the district’s attorney.Most the workers in question were on the district’s maintenance/facilities staff.

      Several of the 12 employees have been on paid leave since late June or early July of last year. Officials would not reveal exactly how many.

      The school board was briefed about the workers during a closed-session portion of a May 2 board meeting, according to Madruga. And resolutions for the remaining employees could come soon, he said.

      Sources inside the district said the board rejected a proposal that would have let two of the employees come back to work, after facing a few days of unpaid leave as discipline.

      Madruga and Salerno said the charges relate to accusations of theft that were brought to the attention of the district at the end of the last school year.

      Some of the allegations were small, such as taking home the last few sheets of a roll of paper towels, according to Salerno and Madruga.

      But others involved using the district’s lines of credit to acquire personal property.

      “I mean costly equipment, major equipment,” Salerno said.

      Some of the employees were accused of using district finances to buy a motor home.

      Salerno said that district officials learned that a culture of taking things from the district had taken hold among a handful of employees in the district’s maintenance staff.

      He said as far as he knew, the practices had been going on for decades.

      “There seemed to be this small circle who accepted this stuff and thought it was OK,” he said.

    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Washington Dental Service’s CEO James Dwyer Apologizes for Calling Dentists Not Working Hard Enough – Washington Dental Service’s CEO James Dwyer Apologizes for Calling Dentists Not Working Hard Enough
    • Home – SGVTribune.com – Annual Pasadena Marathon comes off without a hitch –
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Obama’s Bain Capital Attacks on Romney Backfiring? – Obama’s Bain Capital Attacks on Romney Backfiring?
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: May 21, 2012 – The Morning Drill: May 21, 2012
    • Annual Pasadena Marathon comes off without a hitch – SGVTribune.com – RT @SGVTribune: Annual Pasadena Marathon comes off without a hitch
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: May 21, 2012 – The Morning Flap: May 21, 2012
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: May 21, 2012

    May 21, 2012 /

    These are my links for May 18th through May 21st:

    • Romney nearly matches Obama in April money-grabbing– No reported fundraisers for President Obama during this past weekend of G-8 and NATO summits. European leaders have enough trouble passing the beret for Greece.But we did get some new fundraising numbers that reveal a newfound money momentum for Republican Mitt Romney and the grassroots strategy of the Democrat who’d like to win reelection so he could have more flexibility offering missile defense concessions to the Russians.In April, with his  party’s nomination tied up, Romney and the Republican National Committee could focus on money-raising for the general election. They increased his money haul to $40.1 million, suddenly not far behind the $43.6 million that Obama and the Democratic National Committee raised. The incumbent’s total fell about $10 million from the previous month.

      Obama campaign officials naturally chose to distract attention from the drop and emphasize instead the large number of small donors he got, more than 430,000.

      But the decline appeared to confirm rumors and anecdotal evidence that Obama’s large-sum donors were less enthusiastic this time around and holding back the checks or reducing their size. One California Democrat said bundlers, who simply stacked the free-flowing checks in 2008, were now having to convince many to give.

    • Cory Booker walks back criticism of Obama tactics as ‘nauseating’– Newark Mayor Cory Booker released a Web video Sunday emphasizing his support for President Obama and clarifying remarks he made earlier in the day where he criticized the president’s campaign tactics as “nauseating.”“I used the word ‘nauseating’ on Meet the Press because that’s really how I feel, when I see people in my city struggling with real issues,” said Booker in the video. “I get very upset when I see such a level of dialogue that calls us to our lowest common denominators and not the kind of things that can unify us as a nation and move us forward as a nation.”“I also expressed on Meet the Press my profound frustration with the kind of campaigning which I think is becoming too much of the norm in our nation, which is generally negative campaigning,” Booker continued.
      On NBC’s Meet the Press earlier on Sunday, Booker had strongly criticized an Obama campaign ad which attacked presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s tenure at private-equity firm Bain Capital.

      “This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides,” Booker said.

    • Cory Booker commits the classic Washington gaffe – n Washington, there’s an old cliche: A gaffe is when a politician is accidentally honest.
      That’s what happened to Newark (N.J.) Mayor Cory Booker during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Booker, who is widely regarded as a fast riser in Democratic politics, veered badly off message when he defended Bain Capital — the longtime employer of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney — and described the negative tone of the campaign as “nauseating”.
    • Bain Capitalism 101– Watching Obama campaign ads or MSNBC, one could easily come to the conclusion that Bain Capital makes money by destroying the companies it owns. So for voters unsure about the business that Mitt Romney founded but still reluctant to trust the financial analysis offered by community organizers, some perspective might be helpful.The basic Obama-liberal critique goes like this: Bain buys a company, loads it with debt and then sucks out cash before foisting the wounded business upon an unsuspecting buyer or a bankruptcy court. In the risk-taking world of private equity such a scenario can certainly happen, and it’s true that Bain likes management fees and dividends as much as the next partnership
    • How Another Electoral Split Decision Could Divide America – In looking ahead toward the November election, Republican strategists should take proactive steps to avoid a damaging, dangerous conclusion to the presidential race and to prevent the very real chance that Mitt Romney will win the Electoral College even while losing the popular vote badly to Barack Obama.
    • Hillary Clinton will be the 2012 veep candidate – Washington Times– Show of hands: Who here still thinks Vice President Joseph R. Biden will be on the 2012 ticket?Really? All of you? So wrong. The Great One, Sir Barack Hussein Obama, will replace the bumbling, buffoonish Mr. Biden with Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, maybe at the Democratic convention, maybe just before, in a last-ditch effort to win re-election.The wild and crazy move is all the talk outside the Beltway. One state Democratic leader even tells me the bumper stickers are already printed, sitting in a warehouse in (where else?) Little Rock, Ark. Another party bigwig says she is “99.9 percent sure” the increasingly desperate president planned the whole thing from the beginning. (“C’mon, Hill, be Secretary of State for one term and I’ll make you veep the next!”)
    • Obama Pursues Higher Tax Rates, Growth Be Damned– Over the past three years, Obama has pursued the goal of higher tax rates as relentlessly as Captain Ahab pursued the great white whale.Never mind that by some measures the United States, even with the “Bush tax cuts,” already has the most progressive tax system in advanced economies. About 40 percent of federal income tax revenues come from the top 1 percent.And we know from experience that when top rates are increased above Bill Clinton’s 39.6 percent, the intake is always less than projected. Since World War II, federal revenues have never risen much over 20 percent of gross domestic product, whether the top rate was 28 percent or 91 percent.

      The reason is that when rates get high enough, investors’ animal spirits (John Maynard Keynes’ term) are directed less at increasing productivity and creating wealth and more at avoiding taxes. And without increased productivity, you don’t get robust economic growth — which hurts everyone.

      There’s another problem. High tax rates mean a volatile revenue stream, as California Gov. Jerry Brown is finding out. When times are bad, revenues dry up just when government needs money. California’s budget deficit has zoomed from $9 billion to $16 billion in a few months.

    • Will Harvard Law School Condemn Elizabeth Warren for Pow Wow Chow Plagiarism?– Breitbart reported on Friday that two of Elizabeth Warren’s recipe contributions to the 1984 Pow Wow Chow cookbook edited by her cousin included word for word copies of a 1979 article written for the New York Times News Service by famous French cook Pierre Franey. Sunday morning, attention turned to Harvard Law School, where Ms. Warren has been employed as a professor since 1992.Plagiarism of an academic paper while employed by Harvard Law School, or while employed previously at another law school, would clearly be grounds for her dismissal under Harvard University’s code of conduct for professors. But does plagiarism of a 1984 cookbook when she was 35 years old and employed as a research associate and teacher at the University of Texas Law School constitute grounds for dismissal?
    • Obama super PAC slump continues– The pro-Barack Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action is still struggling to keep up with GOP super PACs preparing to unleash millions of dollars in independent advertisements.Priorities USA Action raised $1.6 million in April, according to federal records released late Sunday. It’s the smallest haul the group has pulled in since the meager $59,000 the group raised in January.
    • Hernandez faces two challengers for 48th District Assembly race– Two challengers are hoping for a chance to unseat incumbent Roger Hernandez, a Democrat who is running for re-election as a representative for the state’s 48th AssemblyDistrict.Hernandez previously represented the 57th District, before the 48th District was created under redistricting.Running against Hernandez is Republican Joe Gardner, a 57-year-old West Covina resident, and Covina resident Mike Meza, 60, who is running with no party affiliation.

      The 48th District,which hasa population of about 460,000, covers Duarte, Azusa, Glendora, Covina, West Covina, Baldwin Park, Irwindale, part of El Monte, and the unincorporated communities Charter Oak, Bassett and Valinda.

      The top two vote-getters in the June 5 primary election will advanceto the November election.

    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-21 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-21
    • Untitled (http://getglue.com/Fullosseousflap/stickers/amc/the_killing_sayonara_hiawatha?s=ts&ref=Fullosseousflap) – I unlocked the The Killing: Sayonara, Hiawatha sticker on @GetGlue!
    • Finished the Pasadena Half Marathon with a PR! YAY! on Twitpic – Finished the Pasadena Half Marathon with a PR! YAY!
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-20 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-20
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-19 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-19
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Is Linda Parks a Republican? – CA-26: Is Linda Parks a Republican?
    • Did Elizabeth Warren Plagiarize Her ‘Pow Wow Chow’ Recipes?– The credibility of Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren took another hit today as Boston radio talk show host Howie Carr released evidence that appears to confirm Ms. Warren may have plagiarized at least three of the five recipes she submitted to the 1984 Pow Wow Chow cookbook edited by her cousin Candy Rowsey.Two of the possibly plagiarized recipes, said in the Pow Wow Chow cookbook to have been passed down through generations of Oklahoma Native American members of the Cherokee tribe, are described in a New York Times News Service story as originating at Le Pavilion, a fabulously expensive French restaurant in Manhattan. The dishes were said to be particular favorites of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Cole Porter.The two recipes, “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat” and “Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing,” appear in an article titled “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat,” written by Pierre Franey of the New York Times News Service that was published in the August 22, 1979 edition of the Virgin Islands Daily News, a copy of which can be seen here.

      Ms. Warren’s 1984 recipe for Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing is a word-for-word copy of Mr. Franey’s 1979 recipe.

    • Youngstown News, Biden snubs are getting old– For the past several months, editors and reporters with The Vindicator have asked the campaign of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to provide us access to the two officeholders if/when they come here.Our ultimate goal was an editorial board meeting, but even a few minutes for a one-on-one interview would be something.With Biden coming to Youngstown, the requests were made again, and politely denied — as they were during the 2008 campaign.

      I was told Biden couldn’t spare three to four minutes even though he ended up staying at M7 Technologies for about 90 minutes after his speech before going to his next campaign stop.

      Consolation prize

      As a consolation prize, the campaign offered me the job of being the local pool reporter.

      I initially declined because the job’s main responsibility is to spend a lot of time covering a secondary event — in this case, Biden’s visit to the Salem Fire Department — and share all the information you obtain with other reporters.

    • California’s legislative analyst says deficit may be even higher – latimes.com – RT @LATPoliticsCA: California’s legislative analyst says deficit may be even bigger
    • Flesh-Eating Bacteria Consumed Man’s Penis After Surgery, Says Lawsuit | Fox News Latino – Really! | RT @GayPatriot: DUDE!!!! –> Flesh-Eating Bacteria Consumed Man’s Penis, Says Lawsuit
    • Jerry Brown to unveil $14-billion water project – latimes.com – Where is the money coming from? | Jerry Brown to unveil $14-billion water project #tcot #catcot
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: May 18, 2012 – The Morning Flap: May 18, 2012
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Mitt Romney Unveils First General Election Television Ad – Mitt Romney Unveils First General Election Television Ad
    • Dental Abuse Seen Driven by Private Equity Investments- Bloomberg – Dental Abuse Seen Driven by Private Equity Investments