sean's blog

08/26/2011

Early this morning I heard rain on my window and decided to wear my big giant built-for-the-Scottish-marshland rain boots. Obviously this was a premature decision, since by the time I actually stomped into the office, it was all sticky and sunny without any wet stuff. Many thanks to the guy at Flora and Pearl who [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dmagazine/frontburner/~3/IU4Ku3oHzOI/

laser politic politic political blogs canadian political parties politic politic leave political websites

Aug 26, 2011 4:00:33 AM

Riot Gear

Libertarians think property owners should be armed, conservatives want the police or army to come and crush the rioters and socialists want to create more entitlements that would suggest these hooligans are owed something. Meanwhile, on amazon.co.uk…

Source: http://www.stephentaylor.ca/2011/08/riot-gear/

data data politic political collectibles politics 1 the daily politics political liberalism

Aug 26, 2011 2:00:34 AM

Bob Packwood: The Debt Ceiling Was Only the Beginning

There was never any question. The United States was never going to default on its obligations. It was a wonderful news story, but not a realistic one.

There are, however, two very real questions that came out of the debt-ceiling debacle: How much do we want our government to spend every year, and is it possible to bridge our leaders' strong and seemingly impossible partisan differences?

Consider what occurred in 1986, when I was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. We were attempting to pass the most sweeping tax-reform bill since the creation of the income tax early in the last century. And we succeeded. Why? Because of tremendous bipartisan cooperation. I held secret meetings in my office with three Republicans and three Democrats and behind those closed doors we crafted the reform. And who were those three Democrats? George Mitchell, later to become the Democratic majority leader in the Senate; Pat Moynihan, the legendary Senator from New York; and Bill Bradley, the leading intellect on the Democrat side on the subject of tax reform.

When we finished our work, the bill passed the Senate Finance Committee 20-0, and passed on the Senate floor 97-3. Congress can achieve great results and reforms, but only with that kind of bipartisan consensus. Compare that with the voting on the final debt deal and you'll see just how far we've come.

But the greater problem is not the debt ceiling; it is total government spending at all levels of government....

Source: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/debt-ceiling-vote-senate-6187249?src=rss

cnn politics political jobs daily politics united states politics political ads

Aug 26, 2011 12:00:59 AM

08/25/2011

Is This How Newt Gingrich Hushed-Up the Callista Affair?

Did Bill Clinton find out about the affair Newt Gingrich was having with a Senate staffer named Callista Bisek, and did he use it to ~~blackmail~~ encourage Gingrich to back off the impeachment?

That was one of the more explosive storylines Marianne Gingrich introduced to me last summer for the Esquire story that offered her first interview since Newt Gingrich dumped her for another woman — the woman who would become his much talked-about third wife and accompany him for his run for 2012. (Or what's left of it anyway.) Now a new story in World magazine — or at least one far too overlooked amidst the deficit debate, one written from a conservative perspective by Marvin Olasky, a longtime Christian conservative who was an advisor to George W. Bush — comes along with some startling new revelations.

For some context, here's an excerpt of my conversation with Marianne, as she remembers Newt telling her:

He said, "Remember the time Bill Clinton called one night?"

I'm like, "Yeah, I answered the phone."

And he says, "And I went down and went in the back door to the Oval Office?"

"Yep, I remember, you had your driver take you."

And he said, "You know, during that meeting, Bill Clinton said to me: "You're a lot like me, and here's why."

And he wasn't talking about another woman.

He said he couldn't tell me. That's why he had to walk.

By which Marianne meant that Newt was off the map for the 1998 campaign trail, near the end of which he met Kenneth Duberstein, a prominent Republican and Ronald Reagan's former chief of staff.

Now Olasky builds on all this, by asking more prominent Republicans if they think Gingrich betrayed the Republican Party....

Source: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/newt-gingrich-affair-with-staffer-6165256?src=rss

political buttons political consulting firms political advertisements political quiz laser politic politic

Aug 25, 2011 10:00:25 PM

Obama team scouts for anti-Perry Texans

The Obama campaign team is asking Texans to share complaints about Gov. Rick Perry, and compiling the critiques for possible use in Perry-bashing ads and other material - a sure sign the president's advisers are taking no chances.

"Your feedback will help hold him accountable on the campaign trail, inspire fellow Texans to get involved, and introduce his record -- his actual record -- to voters across the country," Hector Nieto, the campaign's Texas director, told Texas supporters by email blast today. "Your words will remind him that even as he runs, he won't be able to hide -- a lesson he apparently hadn't learned as recently as last week. That's when his campaign explained that the positions he took in the book he wrote just nine months ago, like saying that Social Security is unconstitutional and `a crumbling monument to the failure of the New Deal,' no longer represent his views.

"But what other Americans are just starting to learn about -- and, frankly, reject -- Texans have dealt with for more than a decade. It's up to us to make sure he doesn't get to run away from the truth."

Nieto's email says hundreds of Texans have already shared their dim views on Perry, directing critics to an online form where they can suggest their own favorite "failed policies" for which he should be held accountable.

Submitting a suggestion grants the Obama campaign perpetual rights to use the comments in any form of political advertising.

Last week, Nieto sent an email blast seeking donations as small as $5 to help counter Perry's "tall tale" of a Texas economic miracle.

"We've seen this movie before. A Republican governor from Texas decides to run for president on a record of `results,' " he wrote. "...It's up to us to introduce folks around the country to the Rick Perry we know in Texas: the man who supports the Tea Party plan to end Medicare as we know it, who would cut K-12 education spending and important investments in research and jobs, and who's so far out of the mainstream on climate change that he actually believes the globe is cooling."

Source: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/08/obama-team-scouts-for-anti-per.html

political cartoons 2009 love processor politic politic crack processor soft crack politic enter stuff politic

Aug 25, 2011 8:00:32 PM

Brookings: 8.5% of local households have no car

Interesting fact: About one out of twelve local households do not have a car. The Brookings Institution has a new study on “zero-vehicle households” in metro areas. In general, western cities have the best transit systems. “Millions of zero-vehicle households live in areas well served by transit. Yet hundreds of thousands of zero-vehicle households live [...]

Source: http://cincinnati.com/blogs/politics/2011/08/22/brookings-8-5-of-local-households-have-no-car/

politic processor crack processor crack politic political parties political candidates political memorabilia

Aug 25, 2011 6:00:30 PM

Ed Miliband: 'We got it wrong on immigration'

Ed Miliband has told me that his party "got it wrong in a number of respects" over immigration and identified the issue as one reason the party "lost trust particularly in the south of England". However, he insisted that his friend and former speechwriter Lord Glasman was wrong to say that Labour had lied about the extent of immigration.

I travelled to Dover and Gravesend yesterday with Labour's leader - both places where Labour's vote collapsed by the end of its time in government. Asked why that had happened Mr Miliband said:

"I think the problem is that we lost trust and we lost touch particularly in the south of England. I think living standards is a big part of it, immigration is a big part too. I think maybe a combination of those two issues - most importantly."

I also asked him to respond to the comments of Maurice Glasman who he recently ennobled and who wrote in Progress magazine that "Labour lied to people about the extent of immigration and the extent of illegal immigration and there's been a massive rupture of trust."

He said:

"I don't think we lied but I do think we got it wrong in a number of respects. I think that first of all we clearly underestimated the number of people coming in from Poland and that had more of an effect therefore than we would otherwise have thought. And secondly, I think there's this really important issue about people coming into the country and the pressures on people's wages. People aren't prejudiced but people say to me look I'm worried about the pressure on my wages of people coming into this country, I'm worried about what it does to housing supply - all those issues. Now some of that is real and some of it isn't but I think you have to address not just tough immigration policy but underlying issues as well."

When I put to him Lord Glasman's suggestion that Labour had been "hostile to the English working classes" he paused and then changed the subject. My sense is that he may well share that analysis.

This is not the first occasion Ed Miliband has spoken of Labour mistakes on immigration. In his leadership campaign he spoke about the drop in people's wages due to the interaction of migration with flexible labour markets. But the timing of these comments - in the midst of an election campaign and just days after David Cameron's own pitch to limit immigration from outside the EU to the "tens of thousands" - and his unwillingness to challenge Maurice Glasman's critique makes them especially interesting.

The question is whether his promises of more training, apprenticeships and a living wage will re-connect Labour with the working class supporters who have abandoned it.

---

Here is the transcript of my interview with Ed Miliband:

NR: Southern seats seen massive drops in Labour support in recent years - what's the problem?

EM: I think the problem is that we lost trust and we lost touch particularly in the south of England. I think living standards is a big part of it, immigration is a big part too. I think maybe a combination of those two issues - most importantly. So that people were seeing people coming into the country, worrying about their own standards of living which weren't going up as they had been in the first part of the decade and holding us responsible for it.

NR: You mentioned immigration. A friend of yours, former speechwriter, Maurice Glasman said Labour lied to people about the extent of immigration?

EM: I don't think we lied but I do think we got it wrong in a number of respects. I think that first of all we clearly underestimated the number of people coming in from Poland and that had more of an effect therefore than we would otherwise would have thought. And secondly, I think there's this really important issue about people coming into the country and the pressures on people's wages. People aren't prejudiced but people say to me look I'm worried about the pressure on my wages of people coming into this country, I'm worried about what it does to housing supply - all those issues. Now some of that is real and some of it isn't but I think you have to address not just tough immigration policy but underlying issues as well.

NR: But as he said - and you know him well - as he said to you let's be honest about this Ed you lied about it?

EM: Well, err, the first time I saw it was when he said it - I don't think we did lie. I don't think that's the right thing to say.

NR: But did you mis-lead - if not deliberately. (EM interjects: no, no) Did people get the impression immigration was much lower than it turned out to be?

EM: Well no, I think people actually thought it was the opposite. I think what happened was that we thought there would be a certain number of people coming into the country from Poland - it turned out to be much larger - it did have an affect. And it's something I said very much during my leadership campaign. And look it's part of my leadership Nick - I'm not going to go round saying everything the last Labour government did was right - I think it was a good government, I think it made our country stronger and fairer in a number of respects but I think we got some things wrong as well.

NR: But his analysis and he used to write speeches for you - Labour were "hostile" to the English working classes - that you treated that anxiety about immigration as if sometimes it was racism or bigotry or ignorance and I sense you share a bit of that concern?

EM: Well, look I would say we, we, we did realise the scale of the problem. We talked about the points based system for immigration - we made that one of our key priorities. I think it's this mix of immigration and the impact on living standards. I think that's what.... we were still saying let's have flexible labour markets, maximum flexibility at work and that was, that was causing problems for people and that's why we need to re-think.

NR: But if your message to people is not look we don't want anybody to come to this country but we can help you in other ways what are you driving at with people? If they're saying to you we can't get jobs, I stopped a builder you passed there - we can't get jobs he said to me - I've been unemployed but I'm skilled. What is Labour saying to them if it's not saying we'll stop the immigration?

EM: Well let me give you a practical example, we said before the budget have a bankers' bonus tax and put the young unemployed back to work, get the housing industry moving, help support enterprise - practical differences, practical things that we could have done. I think the thing this government is getting wrong on immigration is that they've got big promises which I don't think are going to be matched by reality but they're not dealing with those underlying economic issues which I think caused a lot of the concern that people had.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2011/04/ed_miliband_we.html

political advertisements political quiz laser politic politic political blogs canadian political parties

Aug 25, 2011 4:00:21 PM

The Supreme Court Strikes a Note for Liberty

In a June 20 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court struck a note for liberty when it overruled federal courts in San Francisco that had allowed all women who worked for Walmart since December 1998 to join in a single, nationwide suit seeking back pay. I say struck a note for liberty, because this was about [...] Related posts:

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheCommonSensePoliticsBlog/~3/EeAFC8iv_ko/

Republican Democrat Governor politics cnn politics

Aug 25, 2011 2:00:28 PM