Apparently, Ron Barber – the Democrat running to replace Gabby Giffords in the AZ-08 special election – has a bit of a problem with the entire ‘Democrat’ thing: “[Republican nominee Jesse] Kelly asked Barber to declare who he’ll vote for in November for president, and Barber – although a Democrat with an incumbent president of his party – refused, saying he’s focused on his own campaign.” This is a somewhat eyebrow-raising evasion – one would think that a Democrat currently running in a Democratic-held seat with a Democrat in the White House would be less coy – and it tells us several things:
Ron Barber (D CAND, AZ-08) refused to say whether he’d vote for Barack Obama in November.
Spoiler warning: he will.
‘Day One’ – President Romney’s first day, part two
The Romney Campaign is out with another positive video about what a Romney Presidency would be like “Day One, Part Two.”
In the “Part Two” video we are told that on his first day in office, President Romney will:
- Announce deficit reductions, ending the Obama era of big government and helping to secure our kids’ futures.
- Stand up to China on trade — demanding they play by the rules.
- President Romney will begin repealing job-killing regulations that are costing the economy billions.
Tom Barret’s Crime Prevention Program
If You Beat Someone WIth An "Other" Its Not A Violent Crime
Another Assault With "Other" In Wilwaukee, WI
Mayor Tom Barrett likes to brag that he has lowered violent crime in Milwaukee, WI. As Caleb Howe pointed out yesterday in Daily Links, Mayor Barrett currently makes this a centerpiece of his campaign against Scott Walker to become the governor of Wisconsin. He has lowered violent crime in Milwaukee. But as Erick points out, only for certain values of violent that are limited and not applicable to things like getting smacked around good and hard with a belt while tied up with duct tape.
A Closer Look at Mitt Romney’s Education Plan
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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Joy Pullman, to discuss Mitt Romney’s education plan, his school choice proposal, and how he would change higher-ed.
We’re brought to you as always by Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.
Related Links:
A Chance for Every Child
Romney Comes Out for School Choice
Romney’s Boldest Education Idea Would Never Become Reality
Joy Pullmann at The Heartland Institute
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Democrats Lie About Violent Crime to Beat Scott Walker
They thought it would help Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, running as the Democrat against Governor Scott Walker in the Wisconsin Recall. If the headlines said Milwaukee had lowered its violent crime rate under Barrett’s leadership, well then he must be a real leader. So that’s what the headline said. Only problem was it is a lie. Crime has not gotten better. State and local officials are demanding an audit of the Milwaukee Police Department’s crime numbers.
The Journal Sentinel found enough misreported cases in 2011 alone that violent crime would have increased 1.1% instead of falling 2.3% from the reported 2010 figures, which had their own errors.
Dozens of misclassified assaults were sent to FBI crime reporting experts, who confirmed that they should have been marked as aggravated assaults, which are counted in the city’s violent crime rate.
When even violent crime becomes a political topic to be fudged in advance of the left’s agenda, you know the situation has gone Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull bad for them. Oh, and we are at 7 of the 7 most recent polls having Scott Walker ahead of Tom Barrett.
Thanks unions for blowing all your cash and credibility in Wisconsin!
Senate GOP Appropriators Will Consume Any Rubbish Democrats Offer
As we’ve chronicled here in great detail over the past year, House Republicans are no pikers when it comes to conservative legislation. This is especially true when examining the records of House appropriators. Yet, even those big government types have [begrudgingly] agreed to abide by the spending and policy decisions of the House-passed budget when considering the 12 appropriations bills during committee markups.
As mediocre as some of the appropriations bills emanating from the House are to most conservatives, they are far superior to the bills going through the Senate Appropriations Committee. Those bills reflect the priorities and policies of Obama and Reid. That is to be expected. What is astounding and appalling is the fact that the Senate Republicans on that panel are exhibiting more solidarity with the Democrats than with their fellow Republicans in the House. In fact, not a single major Democrat proposal has been opposed by the bulk of Republican appropriators during the markups of the spending bills thus far.
It all started in April when the appropriators, led by Mitch McConnell, sided with Obama and Reid over House Republicans in voting for the higher topline spending figures for all the 12 bills. Now they are rubber stamping the individual expenditures and the policies established in each individual appropriations bills. First it was the Transportation-HUD and Commerce-Justice-Science bills that Ron Johnson was the only Republican on the committee to hold the line. On Tuesday, the State-Foreign Operations Subcommittee marked up the draft FY 2013 bill that funds the State Department and foreign aid programs. Here are some of the highlights:
Bomber Turned Left Wing Activist, Brett Kimberlin, Tries to Silence Conservative Opposition
Tip of the hat to Michelle Malkin, whose May 23 column does one of the best jobs I’ve seen of laying out the convoluted tale of a low-level Democratic activist named Brett Kimberlin and his attempts to shut down those who criticize him. She applies the “disinfectant of sunshine” to a seamy story that deserves mainstream play.
Brett Kimberlin, subject of the book Citizen K, is the Speedway Bomber. If that is not familiar to you, you might remember him as the man who claimed he sold Vice President Dan Quayle drugs. Kimberlin is also, now, decades later, a left of center activist, former Independent Music Awards Industry Judge, involved in organizations getting Tides Foundation and Heinz Family Foundation grants, and is back in the media for harassing and bullying anyone who mentions his past.
According to the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, Brett Kimberlin was convicted of a series of bombings in Speedway, Indiana, and other drug related matters. From the Court of Appeals:
Kimberlin was convicted as the so-called “Speedway Bomber,” who terrorized the city of Speedway, Indiana, by detonating a series of explosives in early September 1978. In the worst incident, Kimberlin placed one of his bombs in a gym bag, and left it in a parking lot outside Speedway High School. Carl Delong was leaving the high school football game with his wife when he attempted to pick up the bag and it exploded. The blast tore off his lower right leg and two fingers, and embedded bomb fragments in his wife’s leg. He was hospitalized for six weeks, during which he was forced to undergo nine operations to complete the amputation of his leg, reattach two fingers, repair damage to his inner ear, and remove bomb fragments from his stomach, chest, and arm. In February 1983, he committed suicide.
After being convicted of the bombings and related offenses, Kimberlin was sentenced to a fifty-year term of imprisonment for manufacturing and possessing a destructive device, and malicious damage by explosives with personal injury in violation of 26 U.S.C. §§ 5861(d) and (f), and 18 U.S.C. §§ 844(f) and (i). He received a concurrent twelve-year sentence for impersonating a federal officer, illegal use of a Department of Defense insignia, and illegal use of the Presidential Seal in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 912, 701, and 713, respectively, and a five-year term for receipt of explosives by a convicted felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 842(i)(1). Finally, he was given a four-year sentence by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas on an earlier, unrelated conviction for conspiracy to distribute marijuana.1
Kimberlin’s sentences were aggregated by the Bureau of Prisons and, pursuant to 28 C.F.R. § 2.5, were treated by the Commission as a single aggregate sentence of fifty-one years, six months, and nineteen days. He received an initial parole hearing by a two-person panel of the Commission on July 28, 1988.
Of late, Kimberlin’s name has surfaced because one blogger claims to have been driven from his home due to Kimberlin’s harassment. Why the harassment? Various bloggers and others have pointed out that Kimberlin runs a variety of left-wing organizations getting money from the deep pockets of the left. As the web of connections has increased, so has the harassment. Yet again, the left tries to silence dissent.
Morning Briefing for May 24, 2012
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English Common Law and American Law (A Digression)
Promoted from Diaries.
This post is based upon a comment I made on my earlier post. The person I was originally replying to was banned before I could hit send. I hadn’t intended to write this as a diary post originally, but at the suggestion of acat (and a little inkling I had while writing the comment as well), I am going to post it here with a little extra elaboration. I don’t plan on making this as thorough as Part I, but I would like to lay these things out. This isn’t my planned Part II. Rather, it is a digression to explain some things.
To help us understand the meaning of the phrase “natural born citizen” in the United States Constitution, let us look at what James Madison, who was the “author” of the work, had to say (quote is from Part I):
Tech at Night: Split decision in Google vs Oracle, Marketplace Fairness, Net Neutrality, Anonymous attacks Justice?
Quick hits night. Enjoy!
Google beats Oracle on the matter of patent infringement in the big Java/Android case. So the only question left is how the copyright matters will be resolved.
New York legislators want to censor the Internet? Come on guys, come on.
Obama campaign spokesman bears false witness
Is Obama betting the election on Bain attacks?
Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt was caught in a deviation from the truth when asked whether anyone from the White House or the 2012 [Obama] campaign had reached out to Mayor Booker, to make him reel his words. LaBolt answered, “We did not.” When the incredulous reporter immediately gave LaBolt another chance, he doubled down on his prevarication
Shortly thereafter, Mayor Booker threw Labolt under the bus by admitting that he had spoken with the Obama campaign before he decided to “clarify” his remarks about the Obama attacks on Bain Capital.
The Republican National Committee quickly produced a video rightly taking LaBolt to task for trying to cover-up the dissension among Democrats concerning the Obama attacks on free enterprise. The video, which you can watch at Right Side Politics, sums it all up succinctly:
Dishonest Attacks, Dishonest Cover-up, The Opposite of What Obama Promised in 2008.
The GPPF T-SPLOST Analysis
Here is the T-SPLOST analysis from the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. The GPPF is less than thrilled with the T-SPLOST (Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax) and the Atlanta area T-SPLOST’s emphasis on rail. There is one graphic that stands out in my mind.
From page 19 of the report:
Atlanta and Barcelona have the same number of people and Atlanta uses 30 times the physical land area as Barcelona. In other words, rail works great in Barcelona due to population density, but not Atlanta for the same reason. Zoning in Atlanta doesn’t help the matter.
Tonight on the Erick Erickson Show, I’m going to get into this topic and also Joe Biden’s comments that the tea party is to blame for the lack of economic recovery. You can listen live tonight on the WSB live stream and call in at 1-800-WSB-TALK. The show is from 6pm to 9pm ET on the nation’s most listened to talk radio station.
Consider this an open thread.
Moe Lane
Dan McLaughlin
Dan Spencer
Jeff Emanuel
Neil Stevens
Caleb Howe
Daniel Horowitz
