Posted on Monday, February 8, 2010
Latinos say their votes could tip 40 congressional races
By William Douglas | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Failing to overhaul the nation’s immigration system, currently a backburner issue for Congress and President Barack Obama, could play a pivotal role in key mid-term election races in November, according to a new study on Latino voting patterns.
The report by America’s Voice, which supports comprehensive new immigration policies, says that revising the laws is the defining issue for Latino voters. The report says that progress — or the lack thereof — in revamping immigration laws and regulations could affect as many as 40 congressional races in areas with sizeable Latino populations, including the re-election bids of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., just two years ago his party’s presidential candidate.
“Immigration reform is a litmus test in the Latino community,” Eliseo Medina, the president of the Service Employees International Union, said during a conference call about the study. “To us, this is a policy issue, but it is also an issue about respect.”
via Latinos say their votes could tip 40 congressional races | McClatchy.
February 09, 2010
Anti-Tea Party Web Site Part of Scheme to Funnel Funds
By Joseph Abrams - FOXNews.com
A new Web site targeting the tea parties is a part of a complex network of money flowing from the mountainous coffers of the country’s biggest labor unions and trickling slowly into political slush funds for Democratic activists.
A seemingly grassroots organization that’s mounted an online campaign to counter the tea party movement is actually the front end of an elaborate scheme that funnels funds — including sizable labor union contributions — through the offices of a prominent Democratic party lawyer.
A Web site popped up in January dedicated to preventing the tea party’s “radical” and “dangerous” ideas from “gaining legislative traction,” targeting GOP candidates in Illinois for the firing squad.
“This movement is a fad,” proclaims TheTeaPartyIsOver.org, which was established by the American Public Policy Center (APPC), a D.C.-based campaign shop that few people have ever heard of.
But a close look reveals the APPC’s place in a complex network of money flowing from the mountainous coffers of the country’s biggest labor unions into political slush funds for Democratic activists.
via FOXNews.com – Anti-Tea Party Web Site Part of Scheme to Funnel Funds.
February 8, 2010
Republicans Have Eyes on House Seats in Northeast in Midterm Races
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
WASHINGTON — Republican candidates are showing surprising financial strength in Congressional districts held by Democrats in the Northeast that party leaders have singled out as ripe for what could be critical gains in the November election.
Some of the most competitive races are taking shape in the New York metropolitan region.
In the 19th Congressional District, north of New York, the Republican challenger, Nan Hayworth, an ophthalmologist, has amassed about $519,000, slightly more than the roughly $451,000 that the Democratic incumbent, Representative John J. Hall, has in his campaign coffers.
On eastern Long Island, the Republican candidate, Randy Altschuler, a businessman, is closing the gap with the Democratic incumbent, Representative Timothy H. Bishop, stockpiling nearly $800,000, compared with the roughly $1 million Mr. Bishop has, even though Mr. Altschuler has already embarked on an advertising campaign.
The promising financial picture for individual Republican candidates suggests that the midterm elections in the Northeast, a Democratic stronghold, may turn out to be far more competitive than expected, forcing Democrats to play defense on what is essentially their home turf.
Independent analysts say there are a dozen Democratic-held districts in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire where the incumbents could face strong challenges , and in many of those districts Republican candidates have amassed sizable sums of money.
via Republicans Eye House Seats in Northeast in Midterm Races – NYTimes.com.
Feb 9 2010, 8:01 am by Marc Ambinder
Getting Sarah Palin’s Paradigm
“If the primaries were this year, I suspect she’d be nominated,” a senior adviser to one of Sarah Palin’s potential rivals confides. It’s easy to see why: no one who’s thinking of running beats the enthusiasm she generates among Republican activists. But there is more to the case for Palin than just the confluence of her personality and a vacuum within the Republican Party: there is a method to her management of her public image. It strongly hints that she has pretty much decided to run for president in 2012, unless something knocks her out of the race; it is more organized and structured that it appears; and it is something that Republican insiders, in particular, will ignore at their peril.
Next week, Palin will be a VIP guest of honor at the Daytona International Speedway for the Daytona 500. She’ll walk among the campers and RVs set up infield. This summer, she’s agreed to speak at an international bowling expo. In April, in Las Vegas, Palin will keynote the Wine and Spirit Wholesalers Convention at Caesar’s Palace. She will make choices in Republican primaries — she campaigned Sunday with Rick Perry, bearing a “Hi mom!” on her palm — more on that in a bit — and an eloquent jab at the President: “‘We will proudly cling to our guns and our religion.”
via Getting Sarah Palin’s Paradigm – The Atlantic Politics Channel.
Beck – David Horowitz Explains True Progressives
Spies – Afghanistan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia
Posted by KT on Feb 8, 2010 in DEFCON-3show, FEATURED, IRAN, NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Special Guests: Alex Berenson – Author of upcoming novel “The Midnight House” and Bill Daly – Former FBI, Sr. VP, Control-Risks, KT interviews General David Petraeus
via Spies – Afghanistan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia – KT McFarland.
Oren heckled at US college
BY JPOST.COM STAFF
09/02/2010 08:50
Protester: “Propagating murder is not an expression of free speech!” [video]
Eleven people were arrested as Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren was repeatedly interrupted while trying to deliver an address Monday night at the University of California, Irvine.
Oren was speaking about US-Israeli relations and was interrupted nearly a dozen times.
A young man began with the first outburst, yelling, “Michael Oren! Propagating murder is not an expression of free speech!” The man’s yelling was followed by both heavy applause and objections.
Paul Ryan’s Express
A congressman with a presidential-level agenda.
BY MATTHEW CONTINETTI
February 15, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 21
Representative Paul Ryan’s 40th birthday coincided with the House GOP retreat in Baltimore on January 29. Ryan’s wife and three children joined him for the event. President Obama was also there, at the invitation of the House Republican leadership, to deliver remarks and answer questions from selected members. And he had a surprise in store for the six-term Wisconsin Republican: a spur-of-the-moment, presidential-level debate over the federal budget.
Hmm, Ryan thought. This is interesting. The two engaged in a back-and-forth over the president’s increase in discretionary spending during fiscal year 2010. Later, Obama said that Ryan, the ranking member of the House Budget and Ways & Means Committees, is “a pretty sincere guy” with “a beautiful family.” Later still, the two went at it once more, this time over the politics of Medicare. “I want to make sure that I’m not being unfair to your proposal,” Obama said.
He was talking about Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future,” an ambitious plan to overhaul the welfare state and pay off the national debt (you can read the 95-page document at www.americanroadmap.org). For Americans under 55, the Roadmap would fundamentally restructure Medicare and Medicaid through means-tested vouchers, while introducing opt-in personal accounts to Social Security. It would replace the corporate income tax with a business consumption tax; repeal the Alternative Minimum, dividend, capital gains, and estate taxes; and reduce the six current tax brackets to two—one at 10 percent, the other at 25 percent. And that’s not all. Other parts of the plan include job training programs, budgetary reforms, and a free-market health care proposal modeled on Ryan’s Patients Choice Act. “This works,” Ryan told me last week. “It solves our fiscal crisis. It turns it around.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office agrees with him.
Afghan assault on Taliban to test US strategy
February 8, 2010
By Lynne O’Donnell (AFP)
KABUL — A planned assault on a major Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan is the first real test of a new US-led counter-insurgency strategy to re-establish government control and end the war.
Operation Mushtarak is an experiment in combining the military objective of eradicating the Taliban with the need to replace their brand of harsh control with the civilian authority of Kabul, analysts said.
The battle for Marjah, an agricultural plain in the central Helmand River valley, is the proving ground for US General Stanley McChrystal’s counter-insurgency theory for winning the hearts and minds of Afghan people.
Washington Examiner 2010 Primary Election Calendar
02/04/10 1:12 PM EST
March 2:
Texas, last polls close at 7:00 p.m. MST
May 4:
Indiana, last polls close at 6:00 p.m. CDT
North Carolina, polls close at 7:30 p.m. EDT
Ohio, polls close at 7:30 p.m. EDT
May 11:
Nebraska, last polls close at 7:00 p.m. MDT
West Virginia, polls close at 7:30 p.m. EDT
via Washington Examiner 2010 Primary Election Calendar | Washington Examiner.













