• Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for April 21st on 14:08

    These are my links for April 21st from 14:08 to 16:37:

    • Brutal Mexican drug gang crosses into U.S. – The signature crimes of the most violent drug cartel in Mexico are its beheading and dismemberment of rival gang members, military personnel, law enforcement officers and public officials, and the random kidnappings and killings of civilians who get caught in its butchery and bloodletting.

      But this disparate band of criminals known as Los Zetas is no longer just a concern in Mexico. It has expanded its deadly operations across the southwestern border, establishing footholds and alliances in states from New York to California. Just last year, federal agents tied a cocaine operation in Baltimore to the Zetas.

      “Those of us who live and work along the border know they’re already here,” said Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr., whose Texas county lies on the Rio Grande 50 miles southeast of the Zetas’ stronghold of Nuevo Laredo. “There’s already been killings and many residents here are living in fear.”

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      Read it all

      Secure the border, Mr. President

    • California’s criminal alien population rises – Costs $34K a Year to Incarcerate – The number of criminal aliens incarcerated in California rose to 102,795 in 2009, a 17 percent increase since 2003, federal auditors reported Thursday.

      This isn't cheap. Nationwide, the Government Accountability Office reports, it costs well over $1.1 billion a year for states to imprison criminal aliens — those who committed a crime after entering the United States illegally. California, moreover, is more expensive than other states. GAO auditors estimated California spends $34,000 to incarcerate a criminal alien for one year; in Texas, it's only $12,000.

      The audit, requested by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, will provide ammunition for states' perennial effort to secure more federal reimbursement dollars.

      More than one in four of the illegal immigrants imprisoned in California are behind bars for drug offenses. Many are also repeat offenders. GAO auditors say that, based on a survey, criminal alien inmates have been arrested an average of seven different times.

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      Secure the border and deport these criminals…..

      Come on now….

    • Wonkette Pulls Offensive Post About Sarah Palin’s Handicapped Son – As NewsBusters reported Wednesday, the liberal website Wonkette published a truly disgraceful piece earlier in the week about Sarah Palin's Down's syndrome son Trig.

      Under intense pressure from readers and advertisers, the site's editor took the post down Thursday:

      A post on this page satirizing Sarah Palin using her baby as a political prop was very badly done and sounded like the author was mocking the child and not just Sarah Palin/Sarah Palin’s followers.

      The writer, Jack Stuef, has apologized for it. And we have decided to remove the post as requested by some people who have nothing to do with Sarah Palin, but who do have an interest in the cause of special needs children. We apologize for the poor comedic judgment.

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      Read it all…..

      Boom! Money speaks…..

  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for April 20th on 16:52

    These are my links for April 20th from 16:52 to 19:31:

    • Wonkette’s Ken Layne, Blogger Jack Stuef’s History of Targeting Kids – In 2008, Wonkette ran a post by Jim Newell, who now works for Gawker, mocking Trig and joking:
      “Little baby Trig must be so glad he wasn’t aborted for this, his first Halloween, because his parents dressed him up like a political party symbol to be carried around at snarling political events. Aww. Isn’t life just grand?”

      ======

      Fairly obvious…..

    • HuffPost bans ‘Trig Truthers’ – Huffington Post appears to have drawn the line on acceptable political debate to exclude theories about the nativity of Sarah Palin's youngest son.

      Palin critic Geoffrey Dunn, who has contributed a long line of attacks on the former Alaska governor to the site, published his version of the "Trig Truther" theory to Business Insider today, after Huffington Post turned the blog post down.

      "We did pass on a submission by Geoffrey Dunn about Trig, as it ran counter to our policy against conspiracy theories," Huffington Post spokesman Mario Ruiz confirmed in an email. 

      There's a solid bipartisan tradition of such purges, which includes in the online era the DailyKos ban on 9/11 Truthers and RedState's Birther ban. But the Trig theorizing had mostly avoided that fate, partly because it never developed the sort of mass following of the others, partly because there's so much vitriol for Palin on the left and partly because its most visible proponent, Andrew Sullivan, is a unique media property with a large audience of his own, valuable enough to the Daily Beast that they'll shrug off the Trig theories as an eccentricity as long as his readers abide it.

      =====

      As they should….

    • Wonkette’s Ken Layne Issues Phony Claim That "Trig Is Cool With Us" – Ken Layne, the owner and lead editor of Wonkette, is in damage control mode over the article by recent college grad Jack Stuef ripping into and mocking Trig Palin.

      Dave Weigel (h/t Instapundit) received this e-mail from Layne:
      I have four kids myself and I wouldn't want them mocked on the Internet by a bunch of cretins on the Internet. And that's just one reason why I wouldn't parade my children around in the media. What kind of mother does that?

      In any case, Jack has been admonished and put on night probation until further notice. Anything involving Palin, I want to make it extra clear that *Palin* is the problem with America. Not her kids. Not her little kid, anyway. The older ones seem to be on their own path and you can't really blame Sarah for it, although she certainly encourages the sleaziest possible behavior from her grown children, which is hardly a very "family values" thing to do. But as far as Jack's future, a few months on the night shift cleaning up the furious, ALLCAPS unmoderated Wonkette comments, without pay, should teach him a thing or two about writing stuff that confuses the target. Trig is cool with us. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, is a grave danger to America.
      First of all, Sarah Palin doesn't "parade" her kids around any more than any other politician.  Hey Ken, have you seen all those photos of the Obama kids with their parents on vacation and elsewhere?  I've addressed this phony "prop" charge before.

      But more important, Layne has a very convenient memory.  In 2009, as I documented in my post Wonkette Goes After Trig Palin Again, Layne mocked Trig, including running this photoshop which he took from a posting board:

      =====

      Read it all……Yes, there is a history of Wonkette mocking Sarah and Trig Palin

    • Day By Day April 20, 2011 – Return to Sender | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Day By Day April 20, 2011 – Return to Sender #tcot #catcot
    • Mike Murphy on the 2012 presidential election – Right Turn – The Washington Post – Mike Murphy on the 2012 presidential election
    • Wonkette Removes Writer’s Name From Trig Hit Piece UPDATE: Wonkette Deletes Comments – Big Journalism – RT @DLoesch: I see @wonkette removed @stuef 's name from the Trig hit piece:
    • Flap’s Links and Comments for April 20th on 16:31 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s Links and Comments for April 20th on 16:31 #tcot #catcot
  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for April 20th on 16:31

    These are my links for April 20th from 16:31 to 16:49:

    • Mike Murphy on the 2012 presidential election – Campaign season is upon us. I called my favorite Republican political consultant, Mike Murphy to get his quick-hit takes on all of the possible candidates for president. Murphy has worked for everyone from John Engler to John McCain to Mitt Romney to Meg Whitman. He has a great column in Time magazine on the state of the race that I urge everybody to read. Murphy told me Republicans are doing everything they can to make 2012 a difficult election, but “the best news is, one of them could actually win.” Let’s turn to the candidates:

      Mitt Romney: “Weak front-runner. But as others drop out, he becomes a stronger front-runner. His problems are all real, but he may be a little over-underrated, if you know what I mean. He may not be as vulnerable as the conventional wisdom thinks.”

      Tim Pawlenty: “Understudy. Decent shot to win. He’s in the old Lamar Alexander position, but he’s got a decent path. I watch his ads and I expect a huge alien to be slayed at the end.”

      Mitch Daniels: “Serious, formidable candidate — and not going to run.”

      Haley Barbour: “More campaign manager than candidate. Unknown how well he’ll do. Great operative. I know Haley could run a winning presidential campaign, just don’t know if he’s the candidate. BBQ / Twang-factor could be too high for general-election voters.”

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      Read it all.

      Mike Murphy is an interesting character and this is a funny, yet true analysis.

    • Papa Johns, Huggies, Vanguard Drop Ads on Wonkette Attacking Trig Palin – Three large companies have dropped their advertisements on the liberal, pro-abortion Wonkette blog after it ran a post earlier today bashing pro-life former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

      Conservative political activists are up in arms because the post, which Wonkette has defended, calls Palin’s son trig, who has Down syndrome, “retarded,” “somewhat alive,” and includes crass claims that Palin conceived her son as a victim of incest.

      Below are images of messages each company placed on Twitter responded to people who shared their concerns with the corporations in an impromptu conservative boycott of Wonkette’s advertisers that erupted on Twtter Wednesday afternoon.

      Papa Johns pizza confirmed it would not advertise with Wonkette.

      ======

      Boycott all of Wonkette's advertisers

    • Wonkette Editor Ken Layne Comments on Reprehensible Birthday Greeting to Trig Palin – Political humor website Wonkette has long been trending toward nihilistic snark for snark’s sake, but Jack Stuef’s column “honoring” Trig Palin’s birthday is about the most irredeemably vile, unfunny thing I’ve ever seen. As if jokes about Trig’s Down Syndrome aren’t bad enough on their own, Stuef goes the extra mile to pen kneeslappers about incest, child rape, and fetal alcohol syndrome. I don’t want to reproduce too much of it here, but this quote is fairly representative:

      Today is the day we come together to celebrate the snowbilly grifter’s magical journey from Texas to Alaska to deliver to the America the great gentleman scholar Trig Palin. Is Palin his true mother? Or was Bristol? (And why is it that nobody questions who the father is? Because, either way, Todd definitely did it.)

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      Read it all

      Think I will consider a boycott of anyone who advertises on the Wonkette site.

  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for April 19th on 15:11

    These are my links for April 19th from 15:11 to 15:57:

    • Pay Attention to Sarah Palin! – In the two years and eight months that Sarah Palin has been a political celebrity, I've never heard a conservative complain about the media ignoring her. Not until last night. That was when Palin's web consigliere Rebecca Mansour loaded up Twitter and started tweeting at official media accounts to ask when they hadn't given more coverage to Palin's Tea Party speech in Madison this past weekend. She tag-teamed with Jim Nolte, the editor of Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood site — that's why @jimnolte is mentioned in the tweets.

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      Read it all.

      Well, Sarah's stock has fallen the past few months and Mansour has to justify her existence if Palin does not seek the Presidency.

    • ‘Koch brothers’ confusion results in death threat for Iowa company – A case of mistaken identity has entangled a small family-owned Des Moines company in union protests and led to a death threat.

      Angry callers are mistaking Koch Brothers, a Des Moines office supply firm, with the brothers who own Koch Industries, the global energy conglomerate. Billionaires Charles and David Koch have fought Wisconsin unions, financed the tea party and opposed climate change rules.

      Dutch Koch, president of the Des Moines company, wants everyone to know he’s not one of those Koch brothers, and he’s not politically active.

      “I initially thought it was humorous to be confused with a multibillionaire,” he said, but then a death threat was left on his answering machine. Koch reported the call to the FBI, which he said traced it to a California man.

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      Read it all.

      Koch Derangement Syndrome strikes again

  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for April 18th on 10:17

    These are my links for April 18th from 10:17 to 11:28:

    • President Barack Obama coming to Reno on Thursday – President Barack Obama is making a three-day swing to explain his vision for reducing the national debt and it concludes Thursday in Reno.

      The White House issued a press release that day Obama will come to Reno to discuss " the ways the leaders in Washington can come together and meet the expectations of the American people."

      It follows town hall meetings on Tuesday in northern Virginia and on Wednesday in Palo Alto, Calif.

      ======

      Hitting all of the key battleground states – Virginia and Nevada.

      Plus, fundraising in California.

      Obama does know how to run a campaign. Too bad he sucks as a President.

    • Former Sarah Palin aide Frank Bailey writing tell-all book – Due Out in May – When a book is called "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin," you can guess it's not a happy story.
      An imprint of Simon & Schuster announced Monday that it had signed up "Blind Allegiance," a long-rumored tell-all by former Palin aide Frank Bailey. The imprint, Howard Books, will release Bailey's book May 24. Excerpts from an early draft were leaked to reporters earlier this year.
      Bailey worked with Palin while she was governor of Alaska and when she was John McCain's running mate on the Republican presidential ticket in 2008.
      Howard Books is calling "Blind Allegiance" a "chilling expose." Author Ken Morris and Alaska political blogger Jeanne Devon helped write the book.

      ======

      Now, this should be interesting summer reading – but only if Sarah is running.

    • Wisconsin’s Supreme Court Election Snafu Is a National Wake-Up Call – It's been over a decade since the Bush-Gore recount in Florida was supposed to spur a wholesale modernization of our election systems. But a stunning mistake made by a Wisconsin county clerk in a nationally watched state Supreme Court race reminded us of how far we have to go.

      Wisconsin voters went to the polls on April 5 in an election that could have flipped the state Supreme Court's majority from conservative to liberal. On the morning of April 6, liberal challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg declared victory by a margin of some 200 votes. But the next day Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus announced that she had excluded some 14,000 votes from the city of Brookfield when she gave her final tally to the Associated Press on election night. The revised tally put conservative incumbent David Prosser more than 7,000 votes ahead of Ms. Kloppenburg, and he has since been verified the clear winner.

      Ms. Nickolaus's error could have been easily avoided through transparency. She had ended the prior clerk's practice of reporting election results for individual cities because it was "not her responsibility" and she didn't "have the staff to enter all the data"—an absurd statement given that many smaller counties post such data on their websites. Many states, such as Kentucky, offer user-friendly websites to track returns statewide.

      Not so in Wisconsin—and if we don't view this month's mess as a wake-up call, we'll have only ourselves to blame if next year's presidential election turns into a rerun of Florida 2000. Americans know it could happen: The Brookings Institution reports that in a 2004 poll of 37 nations, Americans were more likely than citizens of any country save Russia to say that their elections are "very dishonest."

      Mexico—which has a national photo ID requirement for voting—spends roughly 10 times more per capita than the U.S. and has virtually eliminated charges of voter fraud or incompetence. We can vastly improve our system with much smaller investments.

    • Why California Should Tax Online Sales? Or Not… – On this “Tax Day” and throughout the year, millions of Californians do their part to sustain the schools, health care, public safety, and other foundations of a healthy state. But projections show today’s collection will come up at least $1 billion short of what is due because most Californians won’t add the sales tax they owe on online purchases to the bottom of their California income tax form. With the state once again facing tough budget times, these dollars could go a long way to close our gaping budget gap.

      Most Californians may not realize that if a retailer fails to collect the sales tax due on a book, a pair of shoes, or other purchase made online, the purchaser still owes the tax. This requirement is nothing new – it’s been part of state law since 1935. The hitch comes in trying to collect the tax. In fact, only 1 percent of those who buy online from out-of-state companies like Amazon.com currently pay the taxes due. As online sales soar, they also take a big, and growing, bite out of the state’s revenue collection.

      =======

      There is NO good reason and these leftists use the fairness argument to justfy their redistribution schemes and the right of the state to YOUR money.

      One problem which I have written about extensively is the loss of jobs and the fact the state of California really won't realize any more revenue.

      Oops….