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.
White House playing politics with terror
February 9, 2010
Ralph Peters
In a breathtakingly cynical example of playing politics, the White House just accused Republicans of playing politics over its Miranda-rights Christmas gift to the crotch bomber.
With fumbling terrorism czar John Brennan walking point, administration spokesmen attacked those who believe that treating would-be suicide-bomber Umar Abdulmutallab the way we handle shoplifters harms our national security.
The White House position is a PR blend of lies, half-truths and ignorance. Let’s strip out the politics and lay out the facts from an intelligence professional’s perspective:
* The administration claims Abdulmutallab is now cooperating. That’s either dishonest or idiotic — or both.
If he is cooperating, jeez, you don’t tell the terrorists. Why on earth leak it that the guy’s blabbing, thus warning the enemy? Could the administration — just possibly — be playing politics?
* Even if he’s talking now, Abdulmutallab won’t provide actionable intelligence. It’s too late: His contacts had time to vacate the premises and alter their modes of operation.
The best information that a low-level operative like the Jockey-shorts jerk possesses is highly perishable — the captive isn’t privy to long-term plans, just the immediate details of his mission and a few basic contacts.
Beck – David Horowitz Explains True Progressives
Sen. Bond calls for Brennan’s resignation
By Michael O’Brien – 02/09/10 04:15 PM ET
Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) called on Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan’s resignation on Tuesday.
Bond said Brennan, with whom he’s tangled publicly over the Obama administration’s handling of the attempted bombing of a flight on Christmas, to resign.
Brennan “needs to go,” Bond said in an interview with National Review Online, a stance that was confirmed later by a spokeswoman.
via Sen. Bond calls for Brennan’s resignation – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.
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.
BYRON YORK: GOP winning war over Miranda rights for terrorists | Washington Examiner
GOP winning war over Miranda rights for terrorists
By: BYRON YORK
Chief Political Correspondent
February 9, 2010
(AP File)
On Capitol Hill, there’s a war being fought over the War on Terror, and so far, Republicans are winning. Or at least they’re winning the Battle of Miranda.
GOP lawmakers believe they are having some success in the effort to stiffen the spine of the Obama administration as it makes policy for dealing with captured terrorist suspects in the future. Even as the administration defends its decision to grant accused Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab the right to remain silent, the president himself is hinting that things might be done differently in the future.
“Should the practice of reading suspected terrorist their Miranda rights be reviewed?” CBS’s Katie Couric asked President Obama during Sunday’s Super Bowl interview.
“Absolutely,” Obama answered. “Everything should be reviewed.”
via GOP winning war over Miranda rights for terrorists | Washington Examiner.
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.
Cheney’s Revenge
February 9, 2010
The Obama Administration is vindicating Bush antiterror policy.
Dick Cheney is not the most popular of politicians, but when he offered a harsh assessment of the Obama Administration’s approach to terrorism last May, his criticism stung—so much that the President gave a speech the same day that was widely seen as a direct response. Though neither man would admit it, eight months later political and security realities are forcing Mr. Obama’s antiterror policies ever-closer to the former Vice President’s.
In fact, the President’s changes in antiterror policy have never been as dramatic as he or his critics have advertised. His supporters on the left have repeatedly howled when the Justice Department quietly went to court and offered the same legal arguments the Bush Administration made, among them that the President has the power to detain enemy combatants indefinitely without charge. He has also ramped up drone strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan.
However, the Administration has tried to break from its predecessors on several big antiterror issues, and it is on those that it is suffering the humiliation of having to walk back from its own righteous declarations. This is Dick Cheney’s revenge.
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.
