Where Are My Keys?

It's not working because voters aren't idiots..

Udall's "war on women" platform is a joke.

Colorado pollster Floyd Ciruli, who’s done work for both parties, said that “for a while, the national environment turned very negative against the Democrats” — and agreed that Udall’s “war on women” attacks may be growing stale.

“I do think there is a case to be made that it has run out of impact, that it’s gotten to its marginal utility,” said Ciruli. “And now, there may be a feedback loop making fun of it.”

He added it seemed as though Udall has been running a single-issue campaign for some time, and while “it is a litmus test for some people, it is not a major issue for everyone.”

Udall spokesman Chris Harris said, while the campaign has indeed run about half of its ads on birth control and personhood, “it’s not too much.”

“Not only do most voters agree with Mark on this issue, they are flabbergasted that it’s an issue at all,” he said.

No, Mr. Harris. 

Colorado voters are worried about real issues, like unemployment, Obamacare, our weak foregin policy, our rudderless President, and the lockstep Democrats (like Udall) that support everything he does, no questions asked.

Colorado voters aren't buying what you are selling.  Udall doesn't have anything in his voting history that shows he supports the needs of everyday Coloradoans, so he has to fall back on a issue that isn't really an issue.  And it's not working.

Go figure.

Gardner has been running a positive campaign, and the voters like it:

Gardner’s main line of attack against Udall has been to argue he’s a rubber stamp for the president and a quintessential Washington politician. 

How damaging the affiliation with the president could be became strikingly clear in July, when Udall was out of the state when Obama was in town headlining a fundraiser for him.

It’s not only the president's unpopularity that’s been challenging for Udall. His decision to postpone taking executive action on deportations until after the election has turned immigration reform from one that could’ve been a rallying issue for Hispanics to one both candidates are now largely avoiding.

“It’s taken the immigration debate off the table,” said Colorado GOP strategist Dick Wadhams. 

Wadhams, a former state party chairman, noted that the race remains close, even though Udall had a head start on TV attack ads and has gone aggressively negative on Gardner for months.

“They’re in a position to win after being pounded unmercifully for six months,” he said of the GOP. 

“Cory Gardner is running an energetic campaign that is full of enthusiasm, positive advertising and, as a result, voters are responding,” said NRSC spokeswoman Brook Hougesen. “Democrats have every reason to be panicked about Colorado, in large part because it’s their failed strategy that’s backfired and the responsibility for it goes straight to the top.” 

PLEASE go nuclear, Harry Reid..

The GOP is warning the President not to ram Eric Holder's replacement through Congress during this lame-duck session.

Republican lawmakers quickly vowed that whomever Obama taps would be subject to intense scrutiny following an era when the GOP was often at odds with the Justice Department.

But even if, as many predict, Republicans reclaim control of the Senate in the approaching midterm elections, they would be largely powerless to block Democrats from using their current majority to confirm an attorney general before the new Congress is gaveled into session in January.

“Rather than rush a nominee through the Senate in a lame-duck session, I hope the president will now take his time to nominate a qualified individual who can start fresh relationships with Congress so that we can solve the problems facing our country,” said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Grassley, who voted to confirm Holder in 2009, lamented that his tenure “was strained by his lack of respect for Congress, the American taxpayer and the laws on the books. “

...

Since those appointments, however, Democrats pushed through a Senate rule change known as the “nuclear option,” allowing most presidential nominees to advance with support from a simple majority of members.

The rule has significantly strengthened Obama’s ability to have his way for the time being. But that could quickly change in November.

“If Republicans gain control of the Senate, the lame-duck period represents the last chance to confirm a new attorney general without GOP support,” said Dan Holler, spokesman for the conservative group Heritage Action for America.

I'd enjoy watching the Democrats use the "nuclear option" for Holder's replacement, knowing that the precedent set would then benefit Republicans in the future when the shoe is on the other foot, and the party in power gets to do whatever they want to.

You've changed the rules Democrats, you get to live with the results.

 

"What would you do in the last hour of your life?"

 

I'm suuuuuure this will never be abused..

Google is ratting out potential criminals.

Technology giant Google has developed state of the art software which proactively scours hundreds of millions of email accounts for images of child abuse.

The breakthrough means paedophiles around the world will no longer be able to store and send vile images via email without the risk of their crimes becoming known to the authorities.

Details of the software emerged after a 41-year-old convicted sex offender was arrested in Texas for possession of child abuse images.

Police in the United States revealed that Google’s sophisticated search system had identified suspect material in an email sent by a man in Houston.

Child protection experts were automatically tipped off and were then able to alert the police, who swooped after requesting the user’s personal information from Google.

I'm all for catching the creeps, but who decides who and what is a "creep" in the future?  Slippery slope. 

The President and his AG have indicated it is okay to ignore laws they don't like, so citizens can do that as well, right?

It's happening in New York:

With some tearing up gun registration forms in public protest on Tuesday, some 1 million New York gun owners shrugged off an April 15 deadline to register assault-style weapons under a tough post-Sandy Hook gun control law.

The rebellious stance is being taken by a subgroup of Americans who often make a show of being “law-abiding.” But it’s now set off a possible standoff with the New York State Police over registering assault-style weapons – a sore subject in a country simmering with gun-confiscation fears after myriad high-profile shootings.

For now, gun rights experts say, the outcome in New York is uncertain. Will the state take the initiative to seize unregistered weapons? If it doesn’t, will the new gun controls be exposed as toothless, even meaningless?

“The line in the sand has been drawn, and if Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to send state police out on house-to-house searches and put hundreds of thousands of people in prison, they can do that,” says Dave Kopel, research director at the Independence Institute, a free-market think tank in Denver.

Tuesday’s protests were another sign of New York emerging as a battleground on gun issues. In late 2012, The Journal News in White Plains, N.Y., drew heavy criticism after publishing addresses of pistol permit holders in the county. Just this week, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged $50 million toward a national effort called Everytown for Gun Safety, focused on improving background checks.

As for the legislation in question, the SAFE Act, it bans semiautomatic rifles that can take detachable magazines and those with military features like pistol grips, folding stocks, second hand grips, bayonet mounts, and flash suppressors.

New York residents who already own those guns can legally keep them so long as they register them with the state – the failure of which is punishable as a misdemeanor and, possibly, a felony.

Your move, Mr. Governor.  Are you going to issues warrants, and arrest a million of your taxpaying citizens, or are you going to do nothing?

Dissent is patriotic.  Right?

 

Why the UAW getting beat down by VW employees is a big deal..

On the surface, one might think that a black eye on the UAW for getting beat in Tennessee was the big story.  It's not.  The big story is what happens next:

No wonder they wanted card check:  I remember, toward the end of the last Bush administration,  whippersnappers all the confident young Dem policy warriors repeating labor’s talking points about the need to allow the secret ballot in union recognition elections to be replaced by “card check,” a system in which workers sign cards in the presence of union organizers. Without card check, management would “coerce” workers by pointing out the downside of unionization in mandatory propaganda meetings.

Wasn’t it possible that workers who turned down unions simply looked at what Wagner Act unionism had done, say, to Detroit, and decided for themselves that this wasn’t what they wanted to happen to their company? Nah.

Now we know different: At Vokswagen’s Chattanooga factory, the UAW was actually welcomed by the employer. No union-busting propganada sessions. VW, which already has a powerful union back home in Europe, wanted to set up German-style “works councils,” where rank and file employees could have a say in production decisions. But, according to many U.S. labor lawyers, it needed a union partner — otherwise, under the Wagner Act the works councils would be considered an illegal “company union.” The UAW seemed ready to be that partner. UAW organizers were allowed in the plant to make their case. Management didn’t argue back.**

The union even claimed to have a majority of signed “cards.”***

But, in a secret ballot election,  the workers still said no. We learned Friday that VW’s Chattanooga employees had voted against unionizing by a margin of  712 to 626. The UAW couldn’t even win an election it had been handed on a silver platter by management.

The most interesting part comes next: If Volkswagen now goes ahead and starts its works councils anyway, without the UAW, will organized labor sue to have them declared illegal? That would give the Roberts Court a precious opportunity to interpret the Wagner Act in a way that actually allows non-legalistic, non-adversarial forms of worker participation in management (despite the “company union” prohibition). In effect, the courts could help VW create what those on the left have been (correctly) demanding of the right: a reasonable alternative to traditional unionism, giving workers a voice without subjecting every management decision to a war of bargainers and lawyers and (ultimately) the formalized pitched battle of a strike.

Now that would be a threat to Big Labor. Which is why they might not sue.

**–Though local politicians, like Sen. Bob Corker, did.  President Obama sided with the UAW, at least behind closed doors.

***–The cards apparently contained distracting language about wanting to join VW’s works council. If the union did have a majority of cards, of course, it has now provided us with a near-textbook example of the difference between a) a secret ballot and b) signing a piece of paper in the presence of union representatives.

So if VW moves forward, and sets up the Works Councils, the UAW has a choice to make: Do nothing, and appear weak to your members (and other organizations that have UAW members working there), or sue, and quite possibly lose.

Neither one is a good outcome for the UAW.

Who does America want to win?

Deadspin has a pretty cool "heat" map, showing which parts of the Country have which type of Facebook "likes" for each of the eight teams left in the playoffs.

This is why you'll be losing seats in 2014, Democrats..

Benghazi, Fast and Furious, NSA spying, IRS, the list of scandals surrounding this Administration go on and on.  While each is damaging and disgusting on its own accord, they don't "stick" with the average American for one reason-they don't affect the average American. 

They are "merely" stories in the paper or online, ones that upset people, but to quote the Democrat 2016 frontrunner, "what difference does it make"?  Most of us were unlikely to be touched by the scandals mentioned (beyond disgust, that is), so what politically fallout exists?  Maybe a few demonstrations that get minimal media coverage, but it's mainly preaching to the choir.

The difference with Obamacare?  It's affecting millions of folks, Republican, Democrat, and Independant.  It's also affecting folks in the Media, who can't ignorethe ramifications of the implementation of this poorly written law:

 Dean Griffin liked the health insurance he purchased for himself and his wife three years ago and thought he'd be able to keep the plan even after the federal Affordable Care Act took effect. But the 64-year-old recently received a letter notifying him the plan was being canceled because it didn't cover certain benefits required under the law.

The Griffins, who live near Philadelphia on the Delaware border, pay $770 monthly for their soon-to-be-terminated health care plan with a $2,500 deductible. The cheapest plan they found on their state insurance exchange was a so-called bronze plan charging a $1,275 monthly premium with deductibles totaling $12,700. It covers only providers in Pennsylvania, so the couple wouldn't be able to see the doctors in Delaware whom they've used for more than a decade.

"We're buying insurance that we will never use and can't possibly ever benefit from. We're basically passing on a benefit to other people who are not otherwise able to buy basic insurance," said Griffin, who is retired from running an information technology company.

As much as Obama and his friends try and spin "if you like it, you can keep it" into "of course some policies will have to be scrapped, but only a small amount", the average American recalls what he saw and heard Obama proclaiming over and over on the campaign trail.  It's likely a substantial reason many voted for Obama in the first place.

With the other scandals, they don't really "hit home".  A cancellation notice sent to your mailbox, telling you your policy is going away specifically because of Obamacare does.

Expect to see/hear account of folks jumping the aisle in 2014, and most likely again in 2016:

Bill Fullner has reached his breaking point.

It started with the letter from his health-insurance company informing him it was canceling his plan and offering him a new one that’s nearly twice as expensive. Then the 60-year-old retiree from Mount Vernon heard about more people like himself with canceled plans and soaring premiums. Finally, he spent hours on the phone and computer trying — and failing — to find a new option that he likes.

“This whole experience has converted a lifelong Democrat into a foot soldier for the Republican Party,” Fullner said.

He’s not alone in his frustration.

In Washington, most of the 290,000 people covered by insurance plans they purchased on the individual market received letters this fall telling them that their plans are going away.

Deja vu, all over again..

Mark Steyn lets us in on a lttle secret:

The witness who coughed up the intriguing tidbit about Obamacare’s exemption from privacy protections was one Cheryl Campbell of something called CGI. This rang a vague bell with me. CGI is not a creative free spirit from Jersey City with an impressive mastery of Twitter, but a Canadian corporate behemoth. Indeed, CGI is so Canadian their name is French: Conseillers en Gestion et Informatique. Their most famous government project was for the Canadian Firearms Registry. The registry was estimated to cost in total $119 million, which would be offset by $117 million in fees. That’s a net cost of $2 million. Instead, by 2004 the CBC (Canada’s PBS) was reporting costs of some $2 billion — or a thousand times more expensive.

Yeah, yeah, I know, we’ve all had bathroom remodelers like that. But in this case the database had to register some 7 million long guns belonging to some two-and-a-half to three million Canadians. That works out to almost $300 per gun — or somewhat higher than the original estimate for processing a firearm registration of $4.60. Of those $300 gun registrations, Canada’s auditor general reported to parliament that much of the information was either duplicated or wrong in respect to basic information such as names and addresses.

Sound familiar?

Also, there was a 1-800 number, but it wasn’t any use.

Sound familiar?

So it was decided that the sclerotic database needed to be improved.

Sound familiar?

Read the whole thing.

Dump 'em both, I say..

Which do you pick, the serial texter, or the "screeching harpy"?

Poor Huma. Married to one of the biggest clowns on the planet, and now she’s got to choose between her loser husband or this screeching harpy.

Top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin has been given an ultimatum: dump serial-sexting hubby Anthony Weiner, or get out of Clintontown.

“Huma has a choice to make,” a close associate tells New York magazine. “Does she go with Anthony, or does she go with Hillary?”

Abedin’s decision over whether to leave the “Clinton bubble,” where she’s seen as Hillary’s most trusted aide, has emerged as “the biggest question among Hillary’s circle” as the former Secretary of State mulls a 2016 run for the White House, the magazine reports.

The Clinton camp was blindsided by revelations over the summer — during Weiner’s disastrously failed New York mayoral run — that he’d kept up his secret online sexting even after resigning from Congress in shame in 2011. Abedin was quickly advised to keep her distance from her scandal-scarred mate, and vanished from Weiner’s side for the rest of the campaign. The candidate’s bird-flipping parting shot to reporters after his humiliating defeat this month made a bad situation even worse, according to New York.

She’s probably better off just fleeing the country. You know how messy these love triangles can be.

Funny how the lady that stood by the lying guy that got hummers in the Oval Office, feels she can pass judgement over a fellow woman with an equally creepy husband.

Maybe Huma will wake up, and ditch the whole lot.  I bet she'd be happier in the long run.