What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever.
Henry Van Dyke
Election Watch
The RCP race of lean/likely/safe seats slightly widens to 223-178 in favor of the GOP , with another toss up shifting to lean GOP along with a net one loss between lean Dem and toss ups. The Senate race goes to 48-45 in favor of the Dems, with RCP shifting Kentucky (Rand Paul) from toss up to lean GOP.
There's an embarrassing debate kerfuffle involving Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink battling Rick Scott, former Columbia/HCA CEO, perhaps more familiar to readers as having led CPR (Conservatives for Patients' Rights), a prominent group opposed to Obamacare ; Rick Scott noticed that Alex had gotten a message (against debate rules) during a break; the Scott people subsequently made humorous reference to iCheat (although FactCheck, probably to the few whom really care about such nitpicking trivia, will surely point out that the phone in question was a Droid, not an iPhone) No doubt Joe Biden finds a kindred spirit in Alex Sink...
Rhode Island Democratic nominee for governor, Frank Caprio, is steamed at Barack Obama, whom had earlier decided not to endorse a candidate out of respect for independent candidate Lincoln Chafee, a former moderate Republican Senator whom endorsed him in 2008; Caprio said that Obama could take his endorsement and "shove it".
Proof of Citizenship to Vote an Onerous Burden? THUMBS DOWN!
A 2004 Arizona state proposition, requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration, was overturned by a split decision of a 3-judge panel, including retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (voting with the majority). The majority held that Arizona had established an undue burden over and beyond the federal National Voter Registration Law, which established a perjury penalty for fraudulent registration. This seems to be yet another judicial activist departure from common sense. I have to file an I-9 (proof of my legal right to work), with appropriate documentation, typically on a first day of work. I understand that the Congress was interested in ensuring as many legitimately eligible voters as possible are able to vote in a timely fashion, but I believe that the risk of fraud undermining the integrity of any election outweighs say, the inconvenience in assuming the same type of burden of someone starting a new job. I believe that the barriers to voter fraud in the federal law are low, and penalties to fraud are ineffective if the government isn't seriously and proactively enforcing the law but simply paying lip service; it is a moral requirement for any republic to ensure the integrity of elections.
James O'Keefe and "Teacher Unions Gone Wild"
James O'Keefe is a modern-day conservative activist muckraker, perhaps best known for his ACORN exposé, where he posed as a pimp and associate Hannah Giles as a prostitute, meeting with lower-level ACORN employees, soliciting advice in 6 different offices on how to work around authorities on a variety of crimes. I should note that O'Keefe doesn't view himself as a conservative but as one whom exposes hypocrisy or hidden agenda wherever it leads him, in the public or private sector; he is founder of the Project Veritas website. More recently he was famously caught in a kerfuffle involving Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (the recipient of the infamous "Louisiana Purchase" in corrupt deal making during the Senate health care deliberations); he was caught trying to get evidence that the Landrieu office wasn't paying attention to constituent feedback during the debate.
This work focuses on self-serving New Jersey teacher unions, allegedly at the NJEA conference. Any faithful reader of this blog knows that I am, by most orthodox standards, more of a radical educational reformer whom opposes tenure, pay materially out of step with market supply and demand, or raises not earned by performance, wants a more globally competitive school year and a laser focus on objective measures of student performance and criteria such as graduation rates, believes in real educational choice, and does not believe any public servant (including the military, police, fireman, or teachers) deserves exemption from public sacrifice.
WARNING: This video captures a teacher or union representative using an inappropriate term for a person of color.
Political Humor
The Census says that college educated young adults are the most likely to be married. That just shows there is a big difference between being book smart and having common sense. - Jim Barach
[They also tend to vote for Democrats; isn't it obvious to any educated person that you should vote for someone with less than 4 years in Congress and no administrative background or experience President? Or you would put in charge of the nation's pursestrings the Democrats, whom have not balanced the books in decades?]
They now say the Titanic sank because the captain had a big problem when he tried to turn way to the left. To which President Obama said, "Tell me about it." - Jay Leno
[The federal bureaucracy was designed by some of the world's best Democratic progressives, staffed by the career government employees with better compensation packages and job security than in the private sector, and run by lawyers and others without significant experience in the private sector. Clearly, the Obama Administration, like the Titanic, is "too big to fail"...
Seriously, could you imagine Obama as captain of the Titanic? First, he would have blamed the McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft Administrations for having recklessly failed to regulate shipbuilding. Second, he would have blamed the fact of the freakish iceberg on those same Republican Administrations for having failed to enact global warming legislation. Finally, you can predict the kind of excuses Obama would make if anyone pointed out that his ship had room on lifeboats for only 1178 of the 2227 people on board: Obama would have blamed the GOP Congress for not allowing the ship's administration sufficient time to count the lifeboats before leaving port...]
A bonus original:
- Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink got caught cheating when an aide sent a text message to Alex via her makeup artist's cell phone (see Election Watch above). Alex explained that she had watched "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" earlier in the day and mistakingly thought she was entitled to one "phone-a-friend" lifeline.
Maynard Ferguson, "Gonna Fly Now" (Theme from 'Rocky')
