• 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?”

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      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.

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      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:

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      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.

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      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.