• Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: November 16, 2012

    November 16, 2012 /

    Union Kills the Twinkie

    These are my links for November 14th through November 16th:

    • Twinkies Maker Hostess Going Out of Business– Hostess, the makers of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread, is going out of business after striking workers failed to heed a Thursday deadline to return to work, the company said.“We deeply regret the necessity of today’s decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike,” Hostess CEO Gregory F. Rayburn said in announcing that the firm had filed a motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to shutter its business. “Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders.”
    • Details about the GOP’s alternate to the DREAM Act emerge– The Daily Caller has obtained details of an ACHIEVE Act proposal being floated by some Senate Republicans.It appears similar to the conservative alternative to the Dream Act that Sen. Marco Rubio worked on last summer (before President Obama issued his executive order, effectively tabling the issue until after the election).Essentially, the proposal involves several tiers: W-1 visa status would allow an immigrant to attend college or serve in the military (they have six years to get a degree). After doing so, they would be eligible to apply for a four-year nonimmigrant work visa (also can be used for graduate degrees.)Next, applicants would be eligible to apply for a permanent visa (no welfare benefits.) Finally, after a set number of years, citizenship “could follow…”
    • Martinez criticizes Romney comments, points way forward for GOP– New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, the GOP’s most prominent Latina, chastised Mitt Romney’s rhetoric Thursday and called on the Republican Party to play ball on immigration reform.“We have to start electing people who look like their communities all the way from city council to county commissioners to county clerks all the way through the state and up into national politics,” she told POLITICO and Yahoo News at the conclusion of the Republican Governors Association meeting here.
    • Some Republican governors soften on taxes– Some Republican governors are softening on the party’s hard-line toward tax increases for the wealthy, suggesting that GOP congressmen at least be open to rate hikes in exchange for a comprehensive fiscal agreement on taxes and entitlements.“The people have spoken, I think we’re going to have to be [flexible] now,” said Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, when asked if his party would now have to be open to taxes on the highest earners. “Elections do have consequences. The president campaigned on that.”
    • Top California pollster says 2012 election could be a turning point– DiCamillo said the overwhelming support for President Barack Obama among ethnic voters was solely responsible for his landslide, 21 percentage-point win in California. While non-Hispanic white voters backed Republican Mitt Romney by an 8 percent margin, he noted, Obama carried Latinos by 45 points, Asian-Americans by 53 points and African-Americans by more than 90 points.”It bodes very poorly for the long-term prospects of the California Republican Party,” he said.Both pollsters agreed with the assessment of numerous national analysts that, to become more competitive among Latino voters, Republicans in Congress must support comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who have been working in the United States for a number of years.That policy change alone, however, will not be enough, DiCamillo said.

      “It’s not even the one thing that I would point to as having the most to do with partisan preference,” he said.

      DiCamillo said the issue that most separates ethnic voters from non-Hispanic whites in California is their perception of the role of government. His polling has found that while non-Hispanic whites are essentially divided over the question of whether government should do more to try to improve the lives of residents, ethnic voters by a 2-to-1 margin believe that it should.

    • Political Cartoons / Secede???? – Secede???? via @pinterest #tcot
    • Jobless Claims in U.S. Jumped Last Week After Sandy- Bloomberg – Jobless Claims in U.S. Jumped Last Week After Sandy #tcot
    • Jobless Claims in U.S. Jumped Last Week After Sandy– More Americans than forecast submitted claims for unemployment insurance last week as superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc on the job market.Applications for jobless benefits surged by 78,000 to 439,000 in the week ended Nov. 10, the most since April 2011, the Labor Department said today in Washington. Several states said the increase was due to the storm that hit the Northeastern part of the U.S. in late October, a Labor Department spokesman said as the data were released to the press.The extent of the damage means it may take weeks for the underlying trend in firings to again become clear. Before the storm, the labor market was gaining momentum even as year-end domestic fiscal policy uncertainties raised concern among businesses.“At least a few state labor offices were shut in the prior week so it’s almost as if you have two weeks of claims in one,” said Ryan Wang, an economist at HSBC Securities USA Inc. in New York. “You have a double whammy this week, where people were filing claims they were unable to previously and individuals unable to work for the storm were filing additional claims.”
    • Day By Day November 14 – 15, 2012 – Underwater and Illumination – Day By Day November 14 – 15, 2012 – Underwater and Illumination #tcot
    • The ObamaCare Battlefront Shifts To The States– Throughout the debate over ObamaCare – and back to HillaryCare and beyond – the fundamental question in health reform has always been this: Who will control our choices – government or individuals?Each side has won battles over the last 15 years in the tug of war between those who want a system that empowers the individual and one that cedes more and more authority to the state.Congress created the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to expand publicly-financed coverage to children.But it later created Health Savings Accounts to empower individuals in the free market.

      It expanded Medicare to create a new prescription drug benefit.

      But it also boosted participation by private plans in Medicare through the Medicare Advantage program.

    • Doc Shortage Could Crash ObamaCare Health Care– The United States will require at least 52,000 more family doctors in the year 2025 to keep up with the growing and increasingly older U.S. population, a new study found.The predictions also reflect the passage of the Affordable Care Act — a change that will expand health insurance coverage to an additional 38 million Americans.”The health care consumer that values the relationship with a personal physician, particularly in areas already struggling with access to primary care physicians should be aware of potential access challenges that they may face in the future if the production of primary care physicians does not increase,” said Dr. Andrew Bazemore, director of the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Primary Care and co-author of the study published Monday in the Annals of Family Medicine.Stephen Petterson, senior health policy researcher at the Robert Graham Center, said the government should take steps — and quickly — to address the problem before it gets out of hand.

      “There needs to be more primary care incentive programs that give a bonus to physicians who treat Medicaid patients in effort to reduce the compensation gap between specialists and primary care physicians,” said Petterson, who co-authored the study with Bazemore.

      But such changes may be more easily said than done.

      The problem does not appear to be one of too few doctors in general; in fact, in 2011 a total of 17,364 new doctors emerged from the country’s medical schools, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Too few of these doctors, however, choose primary care as a career — an issue that may be worsening.

    • California Vehicle license fees would triple under measure planned by state Sen. Ted Lieu– Touted as a test of the new Democratic supermajority in Sacramento, South Bay state Sen. Ted Lieu plans to introduce a measure to triple vehicle license fees.The constitutional amendment would restore the 2 percent vehicle license fee slashed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger after he won office partly on that pledge.The 1.35 percent transportation system user fee increase would generate an estimated $3.5 billion to $4 billion annually for roads and public transit in yet-to-be-decided proportions, Lieu said.Buoyed by the Democratic supermajority achieved just last week, Lieu, D-Redondo Beach, plans to introduce the legislation in either December or January. He envisions the Legislature will approve the amendment and place it before voters in November 2014.

      “It would be a test to see what the two-thirds (majority) Legislature means,” Lieu told the editorial board of the Los Angeles News Group. “The best way for us to lose the supermajority is to overreach.

      “I’m not saying it would be an easy sell,” he added of the proposal. “I’m aware of the fact I may be attacked for it.”

    • THE IMMIGRATION AMNESTY FANTASY– The networks had barely called the election for President Barack Obama before GOP elites rushed to embrace an amnesty for illegal immigrants.Getting killed by almost 3-to-1 among Latino voters understandably concentrates the mind, but it’s no reason to lose it. The post-election Republican reaction has been built on equal parts panic, wishful thinking and ethnic pandering.It’s one thing to argue that amnesty is the right policy on the merits. It’s another to depict it as the magic key to unlocking the Latino vote. John McCain nearly immolated himself within the Republican Party with his support for amnesty and did all of 4 percentage points better among Latino voters in 2008 than Mitt Romney did in 2012, according to exit polls.What is the common thread uniting McCain, the advocate of “comprehensive” immigration reform, and Romney the advocate of “self-deportation”? They are both Republicans supporting conservative economic policies. Surely, that had more to do with their showing among Latinos than anything they did or didn’t say about immigration.

      According to Census Bureau data, among native-born Hispanics, 50 percent of all households with children are headed by unmarried mothers. About 40 percent of all households receive benefits from a major welfare program. This doesn’t mean that the GOP shouldn’t try to appeal to voters in these households. It does mean that they aren’t natural Republican voters.

      Latinos tend to have liberal attitudes toward government. Take health care. An ImpreMedia/Latino Decisions poll of Latinos conducted on the eve of the election found that 61 percent of Latinos support leaving Obamacare in place. Sixty-six percent believe government should ensure access to health insurance. This might have something to do with the fact that 32 percent of nonelderly Latinos lack health insurance, about twice the national average.

      In California, Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute noted in the aftermath of the election, “Hispanics will prove to be even more decisive in the victory of Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30, which raised upper-income taxes and the sales tax, than in the Obama election.”

      These are facts that never intrude upon Wall Street Journal editorials scolding Republicans for supposedly turning their backs on new recruits. In the Journal’s telling, if it weren’t for Republican intransigence on immigration, Latino voters would be eagerly joining the fight for lower marginal tax rates and free-market entitlement reforms.

    • John Cornyn on Senate races: GOP bungled it– Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the incoming Republican whip who led his party’s Senate campaign efforts this year, candidly acknowledged the GOP bungled a prime opportunity to take control of the chamber through a combination of poor polling, poor candidates and a poor job of selling its message.While claiming Democrats “got lucky” in gaining two Senate seats, the Texas Republican admitted his party had an image deficiency with women, minorities and disaffected voters — one that needs to be immediately addressed before suffering the consequences in the next election cycle.
    • Gallup Poll: Economy, Entitlements, Iran Are Americans’ Top Priorities– Solid majorities of Americans in the Nov. 9-12 USA Today/Gallup poll also put heavy emphasis on significantly reducing the United States’ dependence on fossil fuels, making college education more affordable, making major cuts in federal spending, and simplifying the tax code by lowering rates and eliminating deductions and loopholes.Not only do at least seven in 10 Americans rate all of these goals as extremely or very important, but majorities of Republicans as well as Democrats agree on their importance. In other words, there is bipartisan consensus that these goals are important.On the reverse side of things, relatively few Americans, including fewer than four in 10 Republicans or Democrats, consider making major cuts to military and defense spending a high priority for Obama.
    • My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-11-14 – Locum Tenens (Temporary) Dentist – Gregory Cole, D.D.S. – My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-11-14
    • Romney Blames Loss on Obama’s ‘Gifts’ to Minorities and Young Voters– Saying that he and his team still felt “troubled” by his loss to President Obama, Mitt Romney on Wednesday attributed his defeat in part to what he called big policy “gifts” that the president had bestowed on loyal Democratic constituencies, including young voters, African-Americans and Hispanics.In a conference call with fund-raisers and donors to his campaign, Mr. Romney said Wednesday afternoon that the president had followed the “old playbook” of using targeted initiatives to woo specific interest groups — “especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people.”“In each case, they were very generous in what they gave to those groups,” Mr. Romney said, contrasting Mr. Obama’s strategy to his own of “talking about big issues for the whole country: military strategy, foreign policy, a strong economy, creating jobs and so forth.”Mr. Romney’s comments in the 20-minute conference call came after his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, told WISC-TV in Madison on Monday that their loss was a result of Mr. Obama’s strength in “urban areas,” an analysis that did not account for Mr. Obama’s victories in more rural states like Iowa and New Hampshire or the decrease in the number of votes for the president relative to 2008 in critical urban counties in Ohio.
    • LA Governor Bobby Jindal rejects Mitt Romney’s ‘gifts’ theory– Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal forcefully rejected Mitt Romney’s claim that he lost because of President Barack Obama’s “gifts” to minorities and young voters.Asked about the failed GOP nominee’s reported comments on a conference call with donors earlier Wednesday, the incoming chairman of the Republican Governors Association became visibly agitated.“No, I think that’s absolutely wrong,” he said at a press conference that opened the RGA’s post-election meeting here. “Two points on that: One, we have got to stop dividing the American voters. We need to go after 100 percent of the votes, not 53 percent. We need to go after every single vote.“And, secondly, we need to continue to show how our policies help every voter out there achieve the American Dream, which is to be in the middle class, which is to be able to give their children an opportunity to be able to get a great education. … So, I absolutely reject that notion, that description. I think that’s absolutely wrong.”

      He reiterated the points for emphasis.

      “I don’t think that represents where we are as a party and where we’re going as a party,” he said. “That has got to be one of the most fundamental takeaways from this election: If we’re going to continue to be a competitive party and win elections on the national stage and continue to fight for our conservative principles, we need two messages to get out loudly and clearly: One, we are fighting for 100 percent of the votes, and secondly, our policies benefit every American who wants to pursue the American dream. Period. No exceptions.”

    • Gregory Flap @ Crown & Anchor – Having a birthday lunch with my son and soccer/football (@ Crown & Anchor) [pic]:
    • Twitter / Dodgers: Our followers to retweet this … – RT @Dodgers: Our followers to retweet this tweet are eligible to win a @CochitoCruz autographed jersey tee! #DodgersTY
    • California Legislators Take Off for Hawaii and Australia – (500) … #tcot
    • Will the Senate GOP Filibuster the President’s Next Nominees? – Yes, they will if it is Rice and Kerry | Will the Senate GOP Filibuster the President’s Next Nominees? #tcot
    • Obama to open ‘fiscal cliff’ talks with call for $1.6T in new revenues – So 2009– President Obama is taking a tough opening stance in talks over deficit reduction, pushing Republicans to accept a plan that calls for $1.6 trillion in new tax revenue over the next ten years, according to reports.The figure is double the $800 billion last discussed by the White House and House Speaker Boehner (R-Ohio) during their 2011 negotiations on raising the debt-ceiling limit.The president’s plan is based on his most recent budget proposal, which sought the $1.6 in new revenues by targeting the wealthy and corporations.  The president and congressional lawmakers are set to meet at the White House on Friday as both sides begin hammering out a deficit-cutting plan that helps the nation move past the “fiscal cliff” of rising tax rates and automatic spending cuts set to take effect in January 2013.Both sides say they hope to avoid the fiscal cliff, but are at an impasse over taxes, with the president insisting that the wealthy pay more.

      House Republicans on Wednesday were incredulous at the president’s opening bid.

      “That is so 2009. It’s like he is still in charge of this place,” said Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), referring to the last time Democrats had a majority in the House.

    • Look Who’s Refusing To Compromise To Avoid Going Off The Fiscal Cliff – The LEFT– Budget Talks: If President Obama wants to get a deficit deal done to avoid the fiscal cliff, his biggest challenge won’t be Republicans, but his own hard-core left-wing supporters.Two days after the election, Obama’s favorite economist, Paul Krugman, set the tone for the intransigent left in a column titled: “Let’s not make a deal.” Boiled down, his advice to Obama was this: Don’t give in to any Republican demands, even if doing so would “inflict damage on a still-shaky economy.” After all, Obama would be better positioned to “weather any blowback from economic troubles.”Krugman’s advice may be disturbingly cold and calculating, but he has plenty of company on the left.Robert Kuttner, co-founder of the liberal American Prospect magazine, suggests Obama should just sit it out, let all the Bush tax cuts expire, the automatic spending cuts kick in and expect public pressure to force Republicans to give in entirely.

      The left-wing Daily Kos called any kind of “grand bargain” between Obama and the GOP a “Great Betrayal.”

    • Maps of the 2012 US presidential election results – Maps of the 2012 US presidential election results
    • Don’t cry now | WashingtonExaminer.com – Don’t cry now – The GOP Will Have a Better Candidate in 2016 #tcot
    • Immigrants and the GOP – Debunking some talk radio myths– The GOP’s Presidential election defeat is opening up a debate in the party, with more than a few voices saying they are willing to rethink their views on immigration. This is good news, which means it’s also a good moment to address some of the frequent claims from the anti-immigration right that simply aren’t true, especially about Hispanics.One myth is that Latino voters simply aren’t worth pursuing because they’re automatic Democrats. Yet Ronald Reagan was so eager to welcome Latinos to the GOP that he described them as “Republicans who don’t know it yet.”Recall that between 1996 and 2004 the GOP doubled its percentage of the Hispanic vote to more that 40%, culminating in the re-election of George W. Bush, who won Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico and Nevada—states with fast-growing Hispanic populations that Mitt Romney lost. The notion that Hispanics are “natural” Democrats and not swing voters is belied by this history.
    • The Morning Flap: November 14, 2012 – Flap’s Blog – The Morning Flap: November 14, 2012 #tcot
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: November 13, 2012

    November 13, 2012 /

    The David Petraeus Sex ScandalThese are my links for November 9th through November 13th:

    • David Petraeus sex scandal: FBI agent who began probing disgraced spy chief allegedly sent shirtless photos of himself to whistleblower Jill Kelley– David Petraeus’stunning downfall took another salacious turn Monday as it was revealed the FBI agent who began investigating the disgraced spy chief allegedly sent shirtless photos of himself to the woman who sparked the probe.The unnamed agent was a friend of Jill Kelley, the raven-haired knockout whom Petraeus biographer Paula Broadwell jealously suspected of having the hots for the former CIA director, The Wall Street Journal reported.Broadwell bombarded Kelley with anonymous, threatening emails accusing her of having a relationship with the spy chief, with whom she had previously had an extramarital affair. In one email, Broadwell “claimed to have watched Ms. Kelley touching ‘him’ provocatively underneath a table,” according to the paper.The get-away-from-my-man emails so unnerved Kelley that she complained to an FBI pal of hers. But as the investigation gained momentum, the FBI agent who knew Kelley was taken off of the case by superiors who were worried “he might have grown obsessed with the matter,” the paper reported.

      And it appeared their concern was justified.

    • Jerry Brown delivers with Proposition 30– Voters approved Jerry Brown’s $6billion tax hike last week because California has changed and Brown hasn’t. Lots of help from organized labor didn’t hurt.First, give the governor his due. In a state that spawned the tax revolt 34 years ago, Proposition 30’s passage by what could end up being 10 percentage points is an extraordinary turn of events.Issues win and lose for many reasons. In this instance, the right salesman made the right pitch, and the opposition stumbled. The governor and his consultants understood the electorate and gave voters what they wanted.Brown’s message, ultimately, was simple: Government has made cuts. School kids have suffered. A “yes” vote would allow California to begin restoring public education and other services, and bring the budget into balance.
    • GOP Grapples With Embarrassing Polling Failures– In the weeks before Election Day, both Republicans and Democrats were nervous about their poll numbers. Both sides of the aisle have smart pollsters, they reasoned, so how could the numbers that Democrats were seeing diverge so sharply from the numbers the Republicans were seeing? Deep down, I wrote at the time, both parties secretly worried that their side was missing the boat.Now we know which side needed its polls unskewed. Before Election Day, Republicans confidently predicted they would pick up seats in both chambers of Congress, and that Mitt Romney would win the White House. The results shattered those predictions, and with them any sense of security in the numbers coming out of some of the best-regarded polling firms on the right.”Everyone thought the election was going to be close. How did [Republicans] not know we were going to get our ass kicked?” lamented Rob Jesmer, head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “I don’t understand how we didn’t know. That’s the part that’s most puzzling and frustrating and embarrassing.”The underlying causes of the errant numbers are the assumptions that the pollsters made about the nature of the electorate. Most pollsters believed the electorate would look something like the voters who turned out in 2008, just with slightly lower numbers of African-Americans, younger people, and Hispanics heading to the polls.

      But exit polls actually showed a much more diverse electorate than the one forecast. Black turnout stayed consistent with 2008, Hispanic turnout was up, and younger voters made up a higher percentage of the electorate than they had four years ago. White voters made up 72 percent of the electorate, according to the exits, down 2 points from 2008 and a continuation of the two-decade long decline in their share of the electorate.

      That meant that even though Mitt Romney scored 59 percent of the white vote — a higher percentage than George W. Bush won in 2000 and 2004, higher than Ronald Reagan in 1980 and matching George H.W. Bush’s 1988 score, when he won 426 electoral votes in 40 states — it wasn’t enough to overcome the 80 percent support that Obama scored among nonwhite voters.

    • How the Republican party How the Republican party can rebuild — in 4 not-so-easy steps – How the Republican party How the Republican party can rebuild — in 4 not-so-easy steps #tcot
    • Petraeus helps whistleblower’s ‘unstable’ twin in nasty custody fight – Petraeus helps whistleblower’s ‘unstable’ twin in nasty custody fight #tcot
    • David Petraeus mired in custody fight on behalf of friend in mistress flap – NYPOST.com – RT @NewYorkPost Petraeus helps whistleblower Jill Kelley’s ‘unstable’ twin in nasty custody fight EXCLUSIVE!
    • Exit polls skip Texas, missing key demographic data | Mobile Washington Examiner – Exit polls skip Texas, missing key demographic data #tcot
    • Jindal, Paul call for populist, smart GOP– Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told Politico in separate interviews Monday that the Republican Party must be the Party of the people, with the aim of increasing freedoms, not the other way around.“We’ve got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything,” Jindal said. “We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.”He asserted the GOP doesn’t have to retreat from the matters of abortion and gay marriage, though he advised them to ease their tone and rhetoric.“It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments — enough of that,” Jindal said. “It’s not going to be the last time anyone says something stupid within our party, but it can’t be tolerated within our party.”

      An injection of intelligence and specificity is in order, instead of “dumbed-down conservatism,” he added, urging “the party of ideas, details and intelligent solutions” to end the tactic of “reducing everything to mindless slogans, tag lines, 30-second ads that all begin to sound the same.”

      “We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters,” Jindal said.

      He added: “Simply being the anti-Obama party didn’t work. You can’t beat something with nothing. The reality is we have to be a party of solutions and not just bumper-sticker slogans but real detailed policy solutions.”

    • Congress starts lame duck session | Jamie Dupree Washington Insider – RT @jamiedupree QUACK QUACK – The Lame Duck Congress convenes today, needing a deal on taxes & budget cuts #tcot
    • Exit polls skip Texas, missing key demographic data– Everyone is looking for bipartisan agreement in the aftermath of the election, and we’ve found a rare example of it. Sen.-elect Ted Cruz, a Republican, recently said this to the New Yorker about his state of Texas: “If Republicans do not do better in the Hispanic community, in a few short years Republicans will no longer be the majority party in our state.” And President Obama, a Democrat, put it this way at a Texas fundraiser in May: “You’re not considered one of the battleground states, although that’s going to be changing soon.”Unfortunately, the news media evidently don’t agree that big changes are underway in Texas. Ahead of last week’s election, the National Election Pool — which does exit polls for the Associated Press and the news networks — announced it would not be conducting full state-level surveys in 19 states, including Texas.Certainly, there are many states where this money-saving omission makes sense. But by omitting Texas, even while polling in politically settled states like Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, the exit pollsters pre-emptively missed the biggest story of the election — the continued shift of Hispanic voters back toward Democrats since the George W. Bush era.
    • Who Is Jill Kelley, The Second Woman In The Petraeus-Allen Sex Scandal – Business Insider – RT @businessinsider What We Know About Jill Kelley, The Florida Woman Whose Inbox Took Down Two Four-Star Generals
    • GOP and Immigration: The Grover Plan: More Cowbell!– We’ll dilute our way out of it! Republicans did poorly among Hispanics last week. How to address that problem? The answer, they’re told by Washington savants, is to back an immigration reform that … increases the number of Hispanics! It’s a plan so crazy it just might be crazy.Joshua Culling, who works for Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, elaborates on the plan elsewhere on this site. It turns out the idea–let’s call it the Grover Plan, just to be annoying–isn’t as wacky as I you might think. It’s wackier.Suppose Republicans conspire with Dems to bring amnesty to the 10 or 11 million unauthorized immigrants who are already here. Eventually they become citizens. Will they be ready to wipe the slate clean and vote Republican? Or will the Dems figure out new ways to gin up their ethnic base at election time? Cullings denies they’ll be able to do that–at least by “promising direct subsidies to immigrants or an expanded welfare state:”
    • My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-11-12 – Locum Tenens (Temporary) Dentist – Gregory Cole, D.D.S. – My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-11-12
    • Greensboro News and Weather | Winston-Salem, NC – High Point, NC – Piedmont Triad | digtriad.com – FBI Agents Raiding NC Home Of Woman In Petraeus Scandal | #tcot
    • Photo by katieharbath • Instagram – Happy Birthday, Katie! RT @katieharbath: Birthday dessert.
    • FBI Agents Raiding NC Home Of Woman In Petraeus Scandal | digtriad.com – Ahhh Yes….RT @janewells: Certainly glad the FBI is all over domestic terrorist Paula Broadwell…
    • The Doobie Brothers 1996 #6-South City Midnight Lady – YouTube – Yup! RT @DanRiehl: The Doobie Brothers 1996 South City Midnight Lady: via @youtube
    • Own It: Comcast’s NBCUniversal unit lays off 500 employees– Comcast Corp’s NBCUniversal entertainment unit is laying off about 500 employees at cable channels, Jay Leno’s late-night TV show and the Universal Pictures movie studio, a person with knowledge of the matter said on Monday.The cuts add up to about 1.5 percent of the company’s workforce of 30,000 employees, the source said.A large portion of the layoffs occurred at the G4 cable channel, a network about video games and the gaming culture, the source said. Two of the network’s shows were recently canceled.
    • Day By Day November 11, 2012 – Bread & Circuses – Flap’s Blog – Day By Day November 11, 2012 – Bread & Circuses #tcot
    • No Meat on Mondays in Los Angeles = Meatless Mondays to Save the Planet– The Los Angeles City Council is urging all residents to observe “meatless Mondays” from now on.A resolution adopted on Oct. 24 reads: “Be it resolved, that the Council of the City of Los Angeles hereby declares all Mondays as ‘Meatless Mondays’ in support of comprehensive sustainability efforts as well as to further encourage residents to eat a more varied plant-based diet to protect their health and protect animals.”Councilwoman Jan Perry, who introduced the resolution, also wants to ban new fast-food restaurants in South Los Angeles.”While this is a symbolic gesture, it is asking people to think about the food choices they make. Eating less meat can reverse some of our nation’s most common illnesses,” press reports quoted Perry as saying.
    • Sarah Westwood: Advice From a Lonely College Republican– If the election results told us anything, it’s that the GOP has some serious soul searching to do. On paper, Mitt Romney’s history of accomplishment towered over President Obama’s train wreck of a record, so his loss seemed nearly inexplicable. But Mr. Obama carried his key groups so easily that Republicans should give him props for such a feat— and start taking notes.In politics, as in life, perception is key. The Chicago machine and the Democratic National Committee as a whole have perfected the art of marketing, even when they’ve got nothing to sell. They’re like a used-car salesman who pushes lemons on unsuspecting drivers and never gets caught. Democrats can home in on Latinos, blacks, single women, young voters—and have them chanting “Four more years!” before they know what hit them.I happen to be one of the latter, a college student at a time when youth is a hot political commodity. Most kids my age bristle at the word “conservative,” and I don’t blame them. The right has done nothing to welcome young people.If Republicans hope to win in 2016 and beyond, they need to change everything about the way they sell themselves. They’re viewed by the 18-24 set as the “party of the rich” and as social bigots. That harsh, flawed opinion could be rectified if Republicans started presenting their positions in a different way. The GOP is like a supermodel who has been doing photo shoots under fluorescent bulbs without any makeup. But fix the lighting, dab on some foundation and highlight her good side, and she can take the most attractive picture.
    • The Republican Party’s Candidate Problem in Two Charts– Two days after a wholly disappointing election for the National Republican Senatorial Committee that saw the party not only fail to gain the majority but actually lose seats, a soul-searching of how it happened has begun.The blame, as it often is, has been thrust on the candidates. And, at least in this case, for good reason. After all, Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin essentially gave away seats with their comments on rape and pregnancy.But the trouble for the GOP wasn’t just in Indiana and Missouri.In fact, as the chart below details, Republican Senate candidates under-performed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in most of the important races of 2012.
    • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Digest for 2012-11-11 – Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Digest for 2012-11-11
    • Flap’s Blog @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2012-11-11 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s Blog @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2012-11-11 #tcot
    • My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-11-11 – Locum Tenens (Temporary) Dentist – Gregory Cole, D.D.S. – My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-11-11
    • California’s Liberal Supermajority – Taxpayers are going to get all the government they ever wanted– For Republicans unhappy with Tuesday’s election, we have good news—at least most of you don’t live in California. Not only did Democrats there win voter approval to raise the top tax rate to 13.3%, but they also received a huge surprise—a legislative supermajority. Look out below.The main check on Sacramento excess has been a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds majority of both houses to raise taxes. Although Republicans have been in the minority for four decades, they could impose a modicum of spending restraint by blocking tax increases. If Democratic leads stick in two races where ballots are still being counted, liberals will pick up enough seats to secure a supermajority. Governor Jerry Brown then will be the only chaperone for the Liberals Gone Wild video that is Sacramento.
    • Gregory Flap’s Badges – Mall Rat – I just reached Level 2 of the “Mall Rat” badge on @foursquare. I’ve checked in at 5 different malls!
    • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Digest for 2012-11-10 – Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Digest for 2012-11-10
    • My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-11-10 – Locum Tenens (Temporary) Dentist – Gregory Cole, D.D.S. – My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-11-10
    • The PJ Tatler » FBI Probe of Petreaus Triggered by Threatening Emails Sent by Mistress – RT @PJTatler FBI Probe of Petreaus Triggered by Threatening Emails Sent by Mistress #tcot
    • GOP Collapses in California – RT @politicalwire The Rep. party has essentially collapsed in California as Democrats now control just about everything
    • Bonus Quote of the Day – Ha! 1 month RT @politicalwire Hillary Clinton on what she’ll do next: “I would like to see whether I can get untired.”
    • Rep. Allen West is apparently defeated – He should RT @TheFix Final vote tally shows Rep. Allen West lost by 2,000 votes. He still hasn’t conceded.
    • Utah News, Sports, Weather and Classifieds | ksl.com – RT @JoeTrippi Whoa – AP story points to Huntsman Jr. as Secretary of State candidate |
    • AP story points to Huntsman Jr. as Secretary of State candidate | ksl.com – RT @JoeTrippi Whoa – AP story points to Huntsman Jr. as Secretary of State candidate |
    • 2012 Florida Election Watch – Federal Offices – RT @jamiedupree Obama officially wins Florida with 50.01% of the vote to 49.13% for Romney
    • Gregory Flap @ Ronnie’s Diner – 12 miles of LA Marathon training done. Now, some repair at Ronnie’s. (@ Ronnie’s Diner)
    • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Digest for 2012-11-09 – Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Digest for 2012-11-09
    • Flap’s Blog @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2012-11-09 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s Blog @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2012-11-09 #tcot
    • My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-11-09 – Locum Tenens (Temporary) Dentist – Gregory Cole, D.D.S. – My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-11-09
    • Romney Failed to Make Sizeable Gains in Swing States – So why did Romney underperform in these swing states? It is hard to say for sure. The Obama team may have utilized more effective television ads. They may also have enjoyed a superior get-out-the-vote operation. There may have been idiosyncratic factors that limited Republican gains in these states. However, there is a good chance that this group of eight states will prove pivotal in future elections. As such, the Republicans party would do well to identify strategies for both mobilizing Republican voters and expanding the Republican base in these states.
    • Where Obama did better in 2012 than in 2008 (in one map)– President Obama was reelected on Tuesday, but he won by significantly smaller margins across the entire country — except for a handful of places.One of those places just happens to be the Eastern part of New Jersey, which was rocked by Hurricane Sandy a week before the election.Voters up and down the counties along the Jersey Shore and in the New York City area voted for Obama by more than they voted for him in 2008. Obama did better in 2012 in Ocean County, Middlesex County, Union County and Passaic County, along with nearby Richmond County, N.Y. — a.k.a. Staten Island.Here’s the map showing where Obama did better and worse
    • Gen. David Petraeus resignation letter (full text) – POLITICO.com – Something smells rotten here! RT @politico: Text of Gen. David Petraeus’s resignation letter: #tcot
    • California Democrats amass control over unruly state – California Becomes a One Party State– Governor Jerry Brown and his Democratic allies on Tuesday won a mandate that might be the envy of President Barack Obama, turning the nation’s bluest state into one in which Democrats will likely have all but complete political control.Voters approved a tax hike championed by Brown and soundly rejected a measure that would have gutted union political power. Perhaps most importantly, if initial vote totals hold in several very close legislative races as the final absentee ballots are counted, they will have handed Democrats supermajority control of both houses of the state legislature for the first time in 79 years.rown, who largely failed to gain cooperation from Republicans over the last two years, now owns the field. He has the opportunity to overhaul the tax code, reform the Byzantine governmental processes that have hobbled Sacramento for decades, and even potentially touch the “third rail” of California politics, the low-property-tax measure known as Proposition 13.”I guess you might say it’s our time,” Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg told a news conference.

      The ascendance of Democrats and their union backers may give more than a little pause to businesses and wealthy individuals, who now face higher taxes and the prospect of even more new taxes and regulations.

      The state’s top personal income tax rate was already the second highest in the nation at 10.3 percent before Tuesday’s vote, and will now rise to 13.3 percent for the next seven years.

    • Obamacare Forever? – What Barack Obama’s second term means for the president’s signature health law– Since debate about health care reform began, voters have been consistently wary of the law that has become known as Obamacare; as of today, Pollster.com’s aggregate shows that 47.8 percent of the public opposes the law while just 39.2 percent approve. Yet in voting to give President Barack Obama a second term yesterday, America also implicitly voted to keep the health law that bears his name in place. So is Obamacare here to stay?Yes, at least for now. But big questions still remain. We know we’ll keep Obamacare on the books, at least for the foreseeable future. What we don’t know is whether it will work.That’s because the law still faces huge legal and logistical hurdles. Tops on the list are challenges to the law’s insurance exchanges, starting with a lawsuit filed by Oklahoma’s attorney general. That case, which revolves around legal problems examined in a paper by Case Western Reserve law professor Jonathan Adler and Cato Institute Health Policy Direct Michael Cannon, may decide whether employers in states that do not set up their own health insurance exchanges can be taxed under the law, as well as whether it is legal for the federal government to offer insurance subsidies through exchanges it runs in states that opt out. The law, which taxes employers that don’t offer insurance in order to fund those subsidies, states that subsidies are only available in state-run exchanges.If Oklahoma’s suit prevails, states will have a large incentive to opt out of creating exchanges in order to protect employers from the tax penalty. And the federal exchanges will be largely useless. “No one would go to those exchanges. The whole structure created by the health care reform law starts to fall apart,” Gretchen Young, senior vice president-health policy at the ERISA Industry Committee told Business Insurance.
  • Barack Obama,  Mitt Romney,  President 2012

    Romney Attack Ad – What Does it Say about a President’s Character?

    August 10, 2012 /

    [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-EEETo3Sqo&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

    This dramatic Romney campaign ad responding to  an Obama supporting Super PAC ad alluding that Mitt Romney’s actions at Bain Capital lead to a woman’s death will now play in “swing states.”

    It didn’t take long for Team Romney to go on offense over the despicable attack ad from Priorities USA Action that strongly implied that Mitt Romney was responsible for the death of a spouse laid off by GST — several years before her diagnosis, and long after Romney left Bain Capital’s active management.  Today the Romney campaign released a new TV-ready ad that attacks Barack Obama for “scraping bottom” and asks, “What does it say about a president’s character that tries to use the tragedy of a woman’s death for political gain?”

    The ad title is “America Deserves Better,” but it could be just as easily called “The Death of Hope and Change”…

    Eventually, the Obama Campaign will have to make a “big” apology and fire someone responsible.

    In the meantime, this ad will play all weekend long – probably during the Olympics.

  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: July 24, 2012

    July 24, 2012 /

    Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger, D-Md., the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee; House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. AP Photo

    These are my links for July 23rd through July 24th:

    • Democratic Sen. Feinstein suggests some leaked info came from the White House– The Democratic leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Monday that the White House appears to be responsible for some leaks of classified information.”I think the White House has to understand that some of this is coming from their ranks,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein told a World Affairs Council forum.The California lawmaker said she was certain that President Barack Obama, who receives a daily intelligence briefing, isn’t disclosing secret information, but she was uncertain about others at the White House. “I don’t believe for a moment that he goes out and talks about it,” she said.Republicans have criticized the disclosures, arguing that members of the Obama administration were intentionally leaking classified material to enhance the president’s reputation in an election year. Attorney General Eric Holder has appointed two attorneys to lead the investigation into who leaked information about U.S. involvement in cyberattacks on Iran and about an al-Qaida plot to place an explosive device aboard a U.S.-bound airliner.That hasn’t satisfied some Republicans who have pressed for a special prosecutor.
    • Feinstein: Someone at White House is behind recent intel leaks– Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Monday that someone at the White House was responsible for the recent leaks of classified information.“I think the White House has to understand that some of this is coming from their ranks,” Feinstein said in an address at the World Affairs Council, The Associated Press first reported.Feinstein said she was certain that President Obama had not disclosed any of the classified intelligence, but believed others in the administration were responsible.
    • Obama’s Bain attack isn’t working – President Obama may have spent $38.2 million on television ads attacking Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital in June, but according to a new Gallup poll, the campaign isn’t working. USA Today reports that by a more than 2-1 margin, 63%-29%, those surveyed say Romney’s background in business, including his tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital, “would cause him to make good decisions, not bad ones, in dealing with the nation’s economic problems over the next four years.” Comparing pre-Bain attack numbers to post-Bain attack numbers, USA Today reports that back in February, 53 percent of Americans said Romney “had the personality and leadership qualities a president should have.” Now 54 percent do.
    • Presidential busts: The worst of all: Barack Obama (2009-?)– He took office at a time when the U.S. economy was on its worst slide in 75 years, but pushed policies using borrowed money that were more meant to preserve government jobs than broadly help the private sector where the great majority of Americans work, ensuring the jobs crisis continued.He railed against the heavy spending and big deficits of his predecessor, but blithely backed budgets that had triple the deficits ever seen in American history.He promised a smart, sweeping overhaul of the U.S. health care system, but ended up giving us a Byzantine mess promoted to the public with myths: that offering subsidized care to tens of millions of people would save money; that people would keep their own doctors; that access to care wouldn’t change; and that rationing would never happen.
    • What Still Shocks Me About ObamaCare | RealClearPolitics– Amid the huge response — both triumphant and agonized — to the Supreme Court’s preservation of Obamacare, I was surprised at how little attention was being paid to that law’s core purpose: to strongly control health care costs where government funding is involved, as it increasingly will be.What still shocks me about this law is the government’s interference with the doctor-patient relationship. Many government bureaucracies will not pay for doctor-prescribed treatments costing more than a predetermined figure. And none of these bureaucracies’ members will have actually seen the individual patient.
    • Exercise Adds Almost 4 Years to Life Span– Regular physical activity adds about four years to life expectancy, and endurance exercise during leisure time seems to be better at extending life than physical activity done as work, according to a new research review published in the Journal of Aging Research. German researchers gathered well-designed studies on one of the most basic, but important, questions in health: Does physical activity increase life expectancy? In reviewing the results of the studies, they found the answer was an unequivocal yes. Among the studies, there was a wide range of extra years found for active versus nonactive people, from less than half a year in one study to close to seven years in another. When the results of the studies were combined, the researchers wrote,”The median increase of life expectancy of men and women in the eight studies presenting data on both sexes amounted to 3.7 years each.”
    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-07-24 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-07-24
    • Sally Ride – R.I.P. – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Sally Ride – R.I.P.
    • For the Olympics, Twitter and NBC Form Partnership– As athletes parade into London’s Olympic Stadium this Friday, Twitter Inc.’s Olympic hopes will play out in a spartan office in Boulder, Colo.There, a handful of people will spend 20 hours a day to help corral millions of Twitter messages from Olympic athletes, their families, fans and NBC television personalities into a single page on Twitter.com.Twitter’s Olympics hub, part of a partnership between the San Francisco company and Comcast Corp.’s CMCSA -2.52% NBCUniversal that will be announced as early as Monday, is one of the first times Twitter will serve as an official narrator for a live event. NBC will tout the website with on-air promotions and links to athlete interviews or video clips.With the partnership, Twitter hopes to use the Olympics as a launch pad into a more sustainable business. Twitter, which allows people to post 140-character messages called tweets, has built up more than 140 million monthly users and has become a go-to resource for people to find news or to gab about “American Idol.”But executives want the six-year-old service to find a larger audience, especially amid doubts about Twitter’s ability to become a serious money maker.
    • Obama Campaign’s Spending Rate Worries Some Democrats– The Obama campaign has been spending heavily on payroll, television ads and polling for months, hoping to tarnish Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the eyes of voters at an early stage of the general-election showdown.But some Democrats worry that the overhead built by the Obama camp over the past 15 months will prove impossible to sustain. Unless fundraising picks up, the Obama campaign may enter the season’s final stretch confronting hard choices: paring salaries, scaling back advertising or pulling out of swing states in a bid to control costs, these Democrats say.
    • Minnesota Poll: Obama’s Lead Cut in Half Since Last Poll– In the election for President of the United States, three months till voting begins, Barack Obama captures the North Star State’s 10 electoral votes, defeating Mitt Romney 46 percent to 40 percent, according to a SurveyUSA poll for KSTP-TV in Minneapolis / St. Paul.Romney and Obama are effectively even among male voters. All of Obama’s advantage comes from female voters, where Obama leads by 14 points. Romney edges Obama among Minnesota’s Independents, but not by enough to offset Obama’s 2:1 advantage among Minnesota’s moderates. Romney leads in Northeastern Minnesota, but Obama leads in the rest of the state.Voters are divided over whether job creation or health care is the most important issue facing Minnesotans. Importantly: those who say health care is most important split evenly between Obama and Romney. Those who say job creation is most important split evenly between Obama and Romney. Neither candidate has an advantage on these issues in Minnesota.Romney voters are divided on which Republican Romney should pick as his running mate. 36% name former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. 29% name Florida’s U.S. Senator Marco Rubio.
    • The Morning Flap: July 23, 2012 – Flap’s Blog – The Morning Flap: July 23, 2012
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: June 7, 2012

    June 7, 2012 /

    Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker

    These are my links for June 6th through June 7th:

    • Walker Changes Attitudes on Public Employee Unions– The results are in, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has beaten Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in the recall election. That’s in line with pre-election polling, though not the Election Day exit poll. Even before the results came in, we knew one thing, and that is that the Democrats and the public employee unions had already lost the battle of ideas over the issue that sparked the recall, Walker’s legislation to restrict the bargaining powers of public employee unions.That’s supported by a Marquette University poll showing 75 percent of Wisconsin voters favoring increases in public employees’ contributions for health care and pensions. It also showed 55 percent for limiting collective bargaining for public employees and only 41 percent opposed.
    • Forget Wisconsin. The Unions’ Biggest Loss Was in California– Bad news for teachers and other public-sector employees: America is more than ready to cut your pensions and benefits. While most politicos had been focusing this week on the Wisconsin recall, an election 2,100 miles away in San Jose, Calif., may be a bigger harbinger of the kind of austerity voters are developing a taste for.In this city of about a million residents an hour south of San Francisco,voters on Tuesday approved arguably the country’s boldest pension cuts. San Jose’s Democratic mayor, Chuck Reed, has been grappling with ballooning pension costs that have increased from $73 million to $245 million in the last decade. Retirement costs already consume more than 20% of the city’s general fund, which helps explain why Reed was pushing San Jose to pass Measure B,which would give voters the power to approve increases in pension benefits and give the city the power to suspend automatic 3% annual raises during a fiscal crisis. The measure would also make workers contribute half the cost of their pensions; employees currently pay $3 for every $8 the city contributes, and the city is financially responsible for any shortfalls. Also included are provisions to curb the abuse of disability benefits. It’s a tough package —and will certainly be challenged in court because it changes benefits not only for future workers, something everyone agrees is legal, but for current ones as well. Nonetheless, voters passed it by a stunning margin of 69.5% in favor, 30.4% opposed. A pension reform measure also passed in San Diego.
    • Romney: Obama slowed recovery to push Obamacare– In an appearance in Texas Wednesday, Mitt Romney charged that President Obama “knowingly slowed down the recovery in this country…in order to put in place Obamacare.” The president’s action, Romney said, “deserves a lot of explaining.”Speaking to an audience at USAA, an insurance and financial services company headquartered in San Antonio, Romney cited a book, “The Escape Artists: How Obama’s Team Fumbled the Recovery,” by the liberal journalist Noam Scheiber. In the book, Scheiber discussed Obama’s thinking on the question of whether, early in his term, to focus more attention on passing a national health care law or to devote more energy to bringing about economic recovery. As Scheiber put it, Obama saw health care as a bigger long-term accomplishment. “There was a strain of messianism in Barack Obama, a determination to change the course of history,” Scheiber wrote. “And it was this determination that explained his reluctance to abandon his presidential vision.” So health care it was.”I always admired the president’s courage for recognizing that fifty years from now people would remember that all Americans had health care,” former Obama economic adviser Larry Summers told Scheiber. “And even if pursuing health care affected the pace of the recovery, which was unlikely in my view, people wouldn’t remember how fast the recovery from this recession was.”
    • Senator Asks DOJ to Investigate SWAT-ting Attacks on Conservative Bloggers– A number of conservative bloggers allege they have been targeted through the use of harassment tactics such as SWAT-ting (fooling 911 operators into sending emergency teams to their homes), in retaliation for posts they have written, and now Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., has stepped into the matter. He has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder urging him to investigate the SWAT-ting cases to see if federal laws have been violated.”I am writing with concern regarding recent reports that several members of the community of online political commentators have been targeted with harassing and frightening actions. Any potentially criminal action that incites fear, seeks to silence a dissenting opinion, and collaterally wastes the resources of law enforcement should be given close scrutiny at all levels,” Chambliss wrote in the letter.
    • Exit poll: Wisconsin in play in November – The Wisconsin exit poll evidently reported the race for governor in the recall ballot as 50%-50%. With 92% of the vote in, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s excellent website reports the score as 54%-46% Walker. Let’s say that’s the final results: only 13% of precincts from Milwaukee County and 3% of precincts from Madison’s Dane County —the Democrats’ two reservoirs of big majorities—remain uncounted. It has been emblazoned on mainstream media that the exit poll also showed Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney in the state 51%-45%. But if you think the exit poll was 4% too Democratic—and that’s in line with exit poll discrepancies with actual vote results over the last decade, as documented by the exit poll pioneer, the late Warren Mitofsky*—that result looks more like 49%-47% Romney. Or assume the remaining Milwaukee County precincts whittle Republican Governor Scott Walker’s margin over Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to 53%-47%, which looks likely, the Obama-Romney numbers would look like 48%-48%
    • Rendell: Wisconsin recall a ‘dumb political fight’ for labor to pick– Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) ripped the unions and activists who charged forward in trying to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) on Wednesday, calling the push a political blunder.”It was a dumb political fight — I would have waited until Walker’s reelection,” Rendell told The Hill when asked if the recall push had been a mistake. The former governor and head of the Democratic National Committee pointed to exit polls that showed a number of independents and Democrats who opposed Walker’s policies nonetheless voted for him because they opposed a recall.
    • Barney Frank: Dems, unions made ‘big mistake’ in pushing for Wisconsin recall– Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) slammed unions and liberal activists for pushing to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R).”I think the people on the Democratic side made a big mistake and the funding thing was a big deal,” Frank told The Hill Wednesday afternoon, alluding to Republicans’ big cash advantage in the race. “My side picked a fight they shouldn’t have picked. The recall was upsetting to people, the rerun of the election with [Democratic Milwaukee Mayor] Tom Barrett — it’s not a fight I would have picked.”
    • Obama frets after ‘terrifying’ recall vote– President Obama will need to double down on his efforts to keep Wisconsin safely in his column after Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) resounding victory in Tuesday’s recall election.Every Democratic presidential candidate since Walter Mondale in 1984 has won Wisconsin, but the Obama campaign “can’t view Wisconsin as being in the bank for them,” said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “They’re definitely going to have to put more effort here than they were initially planning.”Political observers say Obama remains the odds-on favorite to win Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes, a sentiment reflected in exit polls showing the president leading Mitt Romney by a healthy margin.
    • Romney narrows gender– Mitt Romney has significantly narrowed the gender gap with President Obama despite massive Democratic attacks on the GOP over a variety of issues.As recently as April, Obama led Romney by 18 percent among women voters in a USA Today/Gallup poll of 12 swing states. The huge advantage with women gave Obama an overall edge of 9 percent.Recent polls show Romney has sliced into that lead.
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-06-07 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-06-07
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: How Will Dentistry Be Affected By ObamaCare – The Affordable Care Act? – How Will Dentistry Be Affected By ObamaCare – The Affordable Care Act?
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Republicans Vote for Linda Parks Tomorrow – RE:  LInda Parks proved to be the weakest candidate. Now, Strickland will face the full money and labor machine of th…
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: June 6, 2012 – The Morning Flap: June 6, 2012
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: May 31, 2012

    May 31, 2012 /

    Larry Sabato electoral college map President 2012: Larry Sabato Lays Out the Electoral College Battle for the White House

    Map from Larry Sobato

    These are my links for May 30th through May 31st:

    • Obama and Romney Neck and Neck in Nevada– In the battle for Nevada’s six electoral votes, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are very competitive.  Obama receives 48% to 46% for Mitt Romney, among registered voters in Nevada including those who are undecided yet leaning toward a candidate.  One percent supports another candidate, and 5% are undecided.“President Obama is nowhere near the twelve percentage point victory he had in Nevada four years ago, but at 48%, he remains within striking distance to carry the state,” says Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, Director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.  “Drilling down into the numbers, there is a gender gap and a generational divide which may tell the story on Election Day.”
    • Obama and Romney Tied in Iowa– In Iowa, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are in a dead heat.  Among registered voters including those who are undecided yet leaning toward a candidate, Obama receives 44% while Romney garners the same proportion — 44%.  Two percent support another candidate, and 10% are undecided.“Both Obama and Romney are far from fifty percent in Iowa and have a lot of ground to cover,” says Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, Director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.  “But, Obama’s supporters are less enthusiastic and less interested than Romney’s, and this poses a special problem for the incumbent president.”
    • Obama and Romney Vie for Lead in Colorado– President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are neck and neck in Colorado, a state Obama won by nine points in 2008.  Among registered voters statewide including those who are undecided yet leaning toward a candidate, Obama receives 46% to 45% for Romney.  One percent plans to vote for someone else, and 8% are undecided.“This is a state George W. Bush carried in 2000 and 2004 and has trended Republican in party registration since 2008,” says Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, Director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.  “President Obama broke through four years ago and is countering the partisan difference this time by being plus ten among independents.”
    • NBC-Marist polls: Obama, Romney deadlocked in three key states– President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney are deadlocked in three key presidential battleground states, according to a new round of NBC-Marist polls.In Iowa, the two rivals are tied at 44 percent among registered voters, including those who are undecided but leaning toward a candidate. Ten percent of voters in the Hawkeye State are completely undecided.In Colorado, Obama gets support from 46 percent of registered voters, while Romney gets 45 percent.

      And in Nevada, the president is at 48 percent and Romney is at 46 percent.

      These three states are all battlegrounds that Obama carried in 2008, but George W. Bush won in 2004.

    • Humor / The Blame game…. – The Blame game….
    • Health / NYC Mayor Bloomberg bans “Big” Soda – NYC Mayor Bloomberg bans “Big” Soda
    • Political History / Historical photo: John F. Kennedy Jr. salutes his father’s coffin along with the honor guard. – Historical photo: John F. Kennedy Jr. salutes his father’s coffin along with the honor guard.
    • The Associated Press: AP Exclusive: Calif. 9/11 fund raided for deficits – RT @amandacarpenter: AP: California is raiding a fund intended to help victims of 9/11 to pay for deficits
    • Quote of the Day – RT @politicalwire: Biden says he’s been “assigned to” PA, DE, OH, IA, NH and FL. Possible additions: VA, NV, NC…
    • Elizabeth Warren acknowledges telling Harvard, Penn of Native American status– Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren acknowledged for the first time late Wednesday night that she told Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania that she was Native American, but she continued to insist that race played no role in her recruitment.“At some point after I was hired by them, I . . . provided that information to the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard,’’ she said in a statement issued by her campaign. “My Native American heritage is part of who I am, I’m proud of it and I have been open about it.’’Warren’s statement is her first acknowledgment that she identified herself as Native American to the Ivy League schools. While she has said she identified herself as a minority in a legal directory, she has carefully avoided any suggestion during the last month that she took further actions to promote her purported heritage.
    • Berkley, Heller Neck-and-Neck in New Poll – Hotline On Call – RT @HotlineReid NV SEN: Heller (R) 46, Berkley (D) 44. Berkley only up 6 in Clark Co., Heller up 12 in Washoe #tcot
    • Republicans Target Dental Bill That Private Equity Hates #FB– The likes of Jeb Bush, William Frist, Tommy Thompson and Haley Barbour aren’t typically heard from in the office of Thom Tillis, the Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives.Yet the four Republican Party stalwarts, none of them a Carolina resident, have contacted Tillis’s office over a little- known bill to toughen state regulation of dental companies. They’ve been joined by Grover Norquist , the Tea Party favorite and anti-tax crusader who heads the Washington, D.C.-based Americans for Tax Reform.“It’s not terribly common to have these types of names” intervening on a state bill, said Jordan Shaw, a spokesman for Tillis.

      Their interest marks the Tar Heel State as the front line in a national struggle over dental management companies. Fueled by Wall Street money, at least six such firms are under scrutiny by two U.S. senators and authorities in five states over allegations that they soak taxpayers through excessive Medicaid billings, abuse patients via needless treatments and run afoul of laws that say only licensed dentists can practice dentistry.

    • News from The Associated Press – Nanny State RT @AP Don’t supersize that: NYC wants to ban sale of extra-large sodas and other sugary drinks: -ldh
    • Nanny State Eatch: Bloomberg Plans a Ban on Large Sodas– New York City plans to enact a far-reaching ban on the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks at restaurants, movie theaters and street carts, in the most ambitious effort yet by the Bloomberg administration to combat rising obesity.The proposed ban would affect virtually the entire menu of popular sugary drinks found in delis, fast-food franchises and even sports arenas, from energy drinks to pre-sweetened iced teas. The sale of any cup or bottle of sweetened drink larger than 16 fluid ounces – about the size of a medium coffee, and smaller than a common soda bottle – would be prohibited under the first-in-the-nation plan, which could take effect as soon as next March.
    • MSNBC host: NYC big soda ban a ‘great idea’– On MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning, co-host Mika Brzezinski defended New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal to ban sugary drinks larger than 16 oz. from restaurants.”I think it’s a great idea,” she said. “Does anyone want to challenge me on that?”Brzezinski added that there was no reason for kids to get large drinks, pointing out that the large drinks were like “drinking a big glass of sugar, of poison.”

      “Does anyone think their kid should drink this entire thing in the course of the day? How about every day? How about three times a week?” she asked during the segment. “Well, guess what’s happening out there? That’s what’s happening. And that’s why the majority of the nation’s children are obese.”

    • Riehl World View: (Video) MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Exposed, Feels Cheapened Over Man Crush On Obama – RT @DanRiehl: (Video) MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Exposed, Feels Cheapened Over Man Crush On Obama
    • First Read – NBC-Marist polls: Obama, Romney deadlocked in three key states – RT @HotlineJosh New NBC/Marist polls: Romney 44, Obama 44 (IA); Obama 46, Romney 45 (CO), Obama 48, Romney 46 (NV)
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-31 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-31
    • Republicans introduce their own version of Dream Act – Washington Times – Panderbear to Hispanic Voters: Republicans introduce their own version of Dream Act #tcot
    • Sports / What every poker player covets….. – What every poker player covets…..
    • Sports / The Vin Scully bobblehead…. – The Vin Scully bobblehead….
    • » Hundreds of Cherokees form new group to challenge Elizabeth Warren – Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion – Hundreds of Cherokees form new group to challenge Elizabeth Warren #tcot
    • (404) http://t.co/3 – RT @LATimescitybeat: New USC/Times poll shows CA voters back Brown’s tax hike plan — but question if $ will be used well: …
    • Poll: Romney gains 21 points in favorability among female voters – The Hill’s Ballot Box – RT @thehill: Poll: Romney gains 21 points in favorability among women
    • Soul Mate
      – YouTube       – New Romney web video: Soul Mate: On World Multiple Sclerosis Day, Ann Romney and her family share their thoughts
    • Walker Maintains Lead in Wisconsin Recall Race – Marquette Law School Poll in WI shows Gov. Scott Walker leading challenger Tom Barrett 52% to 45% among likely voters
    • Auto Jobs: Sign of the Times – US Business News Blogs – CNBC – Drudge Headline: At Hyundai plant in Montgomery, Al more than 20K people have applied for one of the 877 job openings
    • Ted Cruz Favored in Runoff for Texas Senate Seat in Major Tea Party Upset – RT @BreitbartFeed: Ted Cruz Favored in Runoff for Texas Senate Seat in Major Tea Party Upset #tcot
    • The Page by Mark Halperin | Romney Closes Favorability Gap – ABC News/ WAPO Poll: Romney up on Favorability and Obama slips among women voters #tcot
    • The Promise of America
      – YouTube       – Romney campaign releases new web video: The Promise of America #tcot
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Will Republican Voters Game Tony Strickland? – CA-26: Will Republican Voters Game Tony Strickland?
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: May 30, 2012 – The Morning Flap: May 30, 2012
    • Tusk Demands U.S. Response to Obama Death Camp Remark- Bloomberg – Polish Premier Demands U.S. Response to Obama Death Camp Remark
    • Obama Nazi death camp gaffe ‘hurt all Poles’: PM – Yahoo! News – Obama Nazi death camp gaffe ‘hurt all Poles’: PM
  • Brett Kimberlin,  Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap Featuring Brett Kimberlin for May 24, 2012

    May 24, 2012 /

    Brett Kimberlin

    These are my links for May 23rd through May 24th:

  • Barack Obama,  Mitt Romney,  Polling,  President 2012

    President 2012 Poll: Romney Leads Obama With Women

    May 15, 2012 /

    The result comes from the CBS-New York Times Poll about which I posted here.

    Here is a more formal post about Mitt Romney’s poll lead.

    President Obama’s claim that the GOP is mounting a war on women has proven to be a failure. A month into his assault on the Republicans and Mitt Romney, the new CBS-New York Times poll shows that the GOP presidential candidate now leads among women–and men.

    Since April, women have gone from strongly backing Obama to endorsing Romney. In April, Obama held a 49 percent to 43 percent lead among women. That has now flipped to 46 percent backing Romney with 44 percent for Obama, an 8-point switch.

    Ironically, Romney’s support among men has dropped, but he still edges Obama 45 percent to 42 percent.

    And here’s a surprise: Despite the media hyping the so-called war on women, no major outlet today noticed Romney’s new lead with women voters.

    And, I love the Matt Drudge dig…

  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: May 10, 2012

    May 10, 2012 /

    These are my links for May 9th through May 10th:

    • Gay Marriage Reversal Means Cash For Obama– President Barack Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage carries a political cost, but it also means floods of cash from wealthy gay donors and disillusioned young people eager to be inspired by him again.After three years of political compromise on issues from health care reform to spending cuts, Obama delivered a surprise gift to what many of his core supporters view as the civil rights issue of the day, simply by saying what everyone assumed he believed. But the distinction between implying a change and saying it outright will more than symbolic in the crucial area of campaign fundraising. Already, gay donors, mostly men, reportedly constitute 1 in 6 of Obama’s top fundraisers known as bundlers. And in the first 90 minutes after the news broke Wednesday, the campaign received $1 million in spontaneous contributions, a Democrat told BuzzFeed.“This is beyond unifying — it’s electrifying,” said Eugene Sepulveda, a former top bundler who withdrew to take a non-political job early this year. “This man stands for right, despite the political consequences.”

      And for a class of disillusioned progressive mega-donors, many of them gay, the completion of Obama’s “evolution” is an invitation reason to return.
      “I think the people who were disappointed by the president’s failure to support marriage quality will now have that barrier removed for them,” said Jeff Soref, a longtime Democratic activist in the gay community.

    • A gay marriage political crisis, not ‘evolution’– There is a lot of fawning media coverage of President Obama’s new support for gay marriage. There is serious discussion of how he “evolved,” and there are serious timelines being prepared by the Obama apologencia that earnestly track his “evolution.” The only problem is they don’t put “evolution” in quotation marks to highlight the cynical doubts that Obama’s conversion deserves. There is every reason to believe that this decision was made because Obama thinks it serves his current selfish political interests. He characterizes his politically expedient flip-flop as a theological “evolution.” The reality is, his political trajectory has stalled and he “evolved” into a desperate political situation.The path to his final “evolution” and telling the truth about how he really feels about gay marriage don’t ‘t just reveal his changed thinking, it perfectly matches his political needs at every step of his ambitious career. Let’s pause before we do any planning for an expansion to the eventual Obama monument on the Mall.Reality check: Obama manipulated gay voters, kept them at a distance and hoped they would settle for the occasional wink and a nod. But he has found himself in a campaign with dwindling enthusiasm and a narrowing electoral map; he needs this group’s enthusiastic support and high turnout in November.
    • Obama gay marriage support seen as world precedent– President Barack Obama’s announcement Wednesday that he supports gay marriage boosted the hopes of gay rights groups around the world that other leaders will follow his example, though opponents denounced his switch as a shameless appeal for votes.Several countries, including Canada, Spain and Argentina, allow same-sex marriage, but far more countries ban it and dozens even prohibit consensual same-sex relations. Gay-rights groups hope Obama’s views will inspire more change.”This is incredibly important, it’s excellent news. The United States is a global leader on everything, and that includes gay rights,” said Julio Moreira, president of the Rio de Janeiro-based Arco-Iris gay rights group. “This will force other nations like Brazil to move forward with more progressive policies.”

      Vatican and other religious officials didn’t comment, but political leaders and others opposed to gay marriage excoriated Obama. In particular, politicians tied to Pentecostal and Catholic churches have spoken out strongly against same-sex marriage in Latin America.

    • The Facts: Gay Marriage Didn’t Tilt 2004 Election – President Obama’s stand today in support of gay marriage has unleashed much conversation surrounding the political impact of his statement and the effect it could have on the electoral map and election this November.   And part of this discussion has repeated a myth that I have tried to dispel before and will try again.
      The gay marriage initiatives in 2004 on the ballot in 11 states had no discernable effect on turnout among conservatives.  Yes, that’s right,  none.  Not even in Ohio, which was a swing state in 2004 won in a close contest by former President Bush.
      Today, the myth is repeated over and over that Bush beat Kerry in Ohio in part because of the gay marriage initiative on the ballot.  The facts and data simply do not support that conclusion.
      Yes, conservative turnout was up in Ohio by five percentage points.  It was also up five percentage points nationally.  And if you look at the conservative turnout increase in the 11 states verses the other 39 states that didn’t have gay marriage on the ballot,  the conservative turnout was up exactly the same.
    • President Obama jumps off the gay marriage fence– President Obama’s announcement Wednesday that he was done “evolving” and now supports same-sex marriage was, in retrospect, inevitable. Vice President Joe Biden made it so Sunday, when he remarked almost casually that he had grown “comfortable” with gay marriage.Biden’s comfort level made Obama the nation’s least comfortable politician, tied up in a knot of convoluted positions that he had hoped voters on both sides would overlook.He opposed state laws like the one passed in North Carolina this week denying same-sex couples the right to wed. But even as he opposed anti-marriage laws, he didn’t support pro-marriage laws.
    • Biden blamed; politics drove timing– Joe Biden just might go down in history as the guy who forced Barack Obama to publicly announce his private support for gay marriage.But the vice president is no hero in the West Wing, and administration officials are struggling to cast Obama’s truly historic — and risky — announcement as something more than an election-year shotgun wedding.
    • Romney stands by his opposition to gay marriage– Mitt Romney on Wednesday reaffirmed his view that marriage should be restricted to one man and one woman, highlighting a sharp contrast with President Barack Obama.Obama declared his unequivocal personal support for same-sex marriage during an interview with ABC News. Reporters asked Romney about the issue after a campaign event in Oklahoma City.”My view is that marriage itself is between a man and a woman,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee told reporters. He said he believes that states should be able to make decisions about whether to offer certain legal rights to same-sex couples.
    • Obama’s Marriage Act– Congratulations to President Obama for matching his public policy with what everyone already knew were his private beliefs. His statement Wednesday that he supports same-sex marriage spared the public the ruse of waiting until after the election to state the inevitable.First his Justice Department refused to defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, and then Mr. Obama had said his views on the subject were “evolving.” The Beltway chatter now is that Vice President Joe Biden’s public support this week for gay marriage had cornered Mr. Obama into his own change of heart. But as with pretty much all Presidential actions lately, you don’t have to be a cynic to wonder about Team Obama’s political re-election calculations.Everyone agrees that the election’s number one issue is the U.S. economy. Insofar as it’s not really possible for Mr. Obama to change that subject, he can at least give the chattering classes something else to write about. This qualifies. During a political cycle when few besides Rick Santorum wanted to talk about social issues, Mr. Obama has now reinserted one of the hottest into the debate.

      One school of political thought holds that gay-rights issues typically hurt the person who raises them first. But perhaps the Obama campaign calculates that in a close election he will need a passionate base and that this will drive liberal and youth turnout in such important and evolving states as Virginia, Colorado, New Hampshire and New Mexico. On the other hand, Mr. Obama looks like he has just solved that problem Mitt Romney supposedly has with rousing cultural conservatives.

    • Obama gay marriage stance could win younger voters, lose others –– President Obama’s unexpected announcement on Wednesday that he supports gay marriage ignited his political base but risks a backlash with independent voters in swing states.Supporters on the left were particularly fired up by Obama’s shift, but political observers pointed to Tuesday night’s vote in North Carolina, where voters overwhelmingly opted to define marriage as legal only between one man and one woman, as proof the decision could come back to haunt the president.
    • Another Ohio Poll Shows Obama, Romney Tied– In its second look at the presidential race in the pivotal battleground state of Ohio this month, a Quinnipiac University poll released early on Thursday confirms that President Obama and Mitt Romney are in a virtual tie in the Buckeye State.Obama leads Romney in the poll by a single point, 45 percent to 44 percent, well within the poll’s margin of error. Twelve percent of voters would vote for another candidate, would not vote at all, or are undecided. In last week’s poll, Obama led Romney, 44 percent to 42 percent.
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-10 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-10
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: American Dental Association: Dentist Incomes Are Falling – American Dental Association: Dentist Incomes Are Falling
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » President Obama Evolves and Now Supports Gay Marriage – President Obama Evolves and Now Supports Gay Marriage
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: May 9, 2012 – The Morning Flap: May 9, 2012
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » CA-26: Julia Brownley Flip Flops on Support for Israel? – CA-26: Julia Brownley Flip Flops on Support for Israel?
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: May 9, 2012 – The Morning Drill: May 9, 2012
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Day By Day May 9, 2012 – Language – Day By Day May 9, 2012 – Language
  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: May 7, 2012

    May 7, 2012 /

    These are my links for May 4th through May 7th: