Bounce Boxer!

Longtime readers here will note the delicious irony in this, from Michelle, "Babs Boxer tries to recruit kiddie campaigners in L.A. public schools." (Via Memeorandum.)

Here's the clip social studies teachers were encouraged to share with their students, in violation of the California Education Code:

AND REMEBER: It's okay if Democrats do it, but not conservatives: "Bulletin Board Defacement - Leftist 'Tolerance' at LBCC!"

'You've Got to Know Who Your Enemy Is...'

Hey, if Obama wants to slam his opponents as enemies, that's fine by me:

In a radio interview that aired on Univision on Monday, Mr. Obama sought to assure Hispanics that he would push an immigration overhaul after the midterm elections, even though he has not been able to attract Republican support.

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re going to punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s going to be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.”

Sure. I'm down bro. "You've got to know who your enemy is" (from Canada's D.O.A., here, here, and here):

Meg Whitman Profiled at Los Angeles Times

By now I've pretty much laid out my feelings about Meg Whitman. But what the heck, I'll post today's profile at the Times anyway, in keeping with my election reporting. See, "Meg Whitman is All Business, All the Time." I'm not seeing any choice passages to quote, so readers can read it all at the link. The main thesis is that Whitman's obsessively private. She refused multiple interview requests by the Times. She's kept her family completely off the campaign radar screen, and her husband's been relegated to the sidelines (and he's only given one interview in 30 years of marriage). Perhaps, as some interviewed at the following campaign clip suggest, Meg Whitman's a genuinely down home woman who represents old-fashioned, small-town values. But how would anyone ever know? I met Steve Poizner during the primaries, but Meg Whitman must have considered the tea parties undignified. Maybe massive media buys would propel her to Sacramento. Who knows? Mostly, she's not run an effective campaign. She's especially failed to offer the voters something genuinely different. Why should we elect you, Meg? You don't sound so different than the dozens of cookie-cutter moderate Republicans who've come before. Indeed, by appearing as though you'd do just about anything to win office you've revealed more of yourself than you could ever buy with that endless spigot of campaign cash. It's seems like such a waste, and some say that it's not going to matter much on election day anyways. So there you go. See, "Good-Bye, California."

Lauren Valle Claims She Was 'Chased Around' Rand Paul's Car Before Being 'Pulled Down' and 'Stomped On' — UPDATED!!

A full report from Red State: "Exclusive Video: Lauren Valle Before The Head Stomp Vid." As noted at the post, and to reiterate, no one should be excusing head-stomping. It's not okay. That said, Lauren Valle's a liar? Here's her statement to Keith Olbermann, and at the top video. Below is a clip showing Rand Paul's vehicle pulling up to stop, just before the altercation. It's clear from the images that Lauren Valle's account is inaccurate, especially her claim that Paul supporters "chased me around the car":

Well just before the tape I was identified by the Rand Paul campaign because they’ve seen me around town at these events. And they realized they know me because of my work and they don’t support it. So they actually formed a blockade around me once they realized that I was there. And as Rand’s car pulls up they step in front of me and start to block me so I stepped off the curb to try and get around them and at that point they pursued me around the car, chased me around the car, and what you see in the video is when I’m in the front of the car and that’s when I’m pulled down and then my head is stomped on.

More details at Red State. But honestly, she's a young woman with a criminal history. And as we can see she's obviously lying about being "chased around the car," which is typical for leftists. And of course, commie idiots like Blue Texan and Scott Lemieux are simply suborning the dishonesty. It's all plain as day. Pathetic.

Lots more on this at Memeorandum.

**********

UPDATE: No More Mr. Nice Blog suggests I get an eye test. Is that Lauren Valle at 53 seconds running around the front of the car? Could be, so I'll concede the point, although that post is from "Red State Insider" and not Erick Erickson, so perhaps Steve M. will join me in getting an eye test:

Negative Ads Roil California Governor's Race

I don't see why folks are complaining. Some research shows that negative advertising supplies voters with more information on the candidates than any other source. At RCP:

Also: "Brown, Whitman Challenged to Pull Negative Ads in California Governor Race."

RepubliCorp

Neon Tommy has the background: "MoveOn Recruits Olivia Wilde From "House" For New RepubliCorp Ad." And let it be noted: This isn't gonna help lefties for squat.

Mayor-Elect Rob Ford

At the Toronto Sun (via Blazing Cat Fur, who's been blogging the Toronto mayoral election almost exclusively of late, on this stuff, for example, "Ontario Minister Accuses Mayor-Elect Rob Ford of Bigotry").

Typical leftists. Anyway:

Given the huge endorsement he received from Toronto voters Monday, Mayor-elect Rob Ford now has the moral authority to do what he said he would do at City Hall.

That is, grab the place by the throat, cut taxes, eliminate waste and, as he repeated thousands of times on the campaign trail, “stop the gravy train.”

Monday’s election was clearly a game-changer. With a new mayor and at least 14 new councillors, one-third of council was replaced in one fell swoop.

Five incumbents were defeated, one is teetering, virtually unheard of in a municipal election. Torontonians — with a stunning 52% voter turnout — made it clear they want massive changes at City Hall and they want them now. They want their municipal politicians to start listening to them and an end to the tax-and-spend madness and political and bureaucratic indifference and arrogance of the last seven years.

As mayor, Ford now has an obligation to work with this new council and to govern for the good of the entire city.

But make no mistake. Both newly-elected and incumbent councillors also have an obligation to work with Ford in the interests of doing what taxpayers want, especially given the size of Ford’s victory.

So let’s have no more foolish, arrogant talk as some on council’s left-wing started, that they would choose their own mayor and freeze Ford out.

Torontonians won’t stand for it and the voters are never wrong ...

And at National Post, "A Right Turn."

'I'm Voting for Liberty in November'

From the Chicago Tea Party:

Hat Tip: AT THE POINT OF A GUN.

Van Tran Sends Out Scratch-and-Sniff Mailer

At the Fresno Bee:

Something stinks in the 47th Congressional District race.

Republican candidate Van Tran has sent voters a scratch-and-sniff mail piece taking aim at Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez.

"Something smells rotten about Loretta – it's the stench of Washington," the mailer reads.

Wrote one Capitol Alert reader who received the mailer: "It is a horrible odor – like a combination of five or six of the worst possible scents you can imagine."

Carl Costas (photo at left) and Jay Mather Bee file Democrat Ami Bera, left, and Republican Rep. Dan Lungren will tangle in their only debate of the election campaign this morning on radio station KQED. They're competing to represent the 3rd Congressional District.

The mailer was designed by Ryan Clumpner, a former California Republican campaign operative and legislative staffer who now works for the Missouri-based Axiom Strategies.

"It's definitely eye-catching when you have all sorts of mail pieces in the last couple of weeks," Tran campaign manager George Andrews said.

The Sanchez campaign found the mailer's smell and approach nauseating. "Talk about bad taste," Sanchez spokeswoman Caroline Hogan wrote in an e-mail. "While our opponent is busy spamming voters with ill-smelling mailers, Rep. Sanchez is talking about the issues that matter to Orange County families."

Tran isn't the only candidate making an olfactory appeal. Republican Carl Paladino, the tea party candidate running for New York governor, has mailed out fliers that smell like garbage to make a point about corruption in Albany.

Palestinians Back Hamas Murders in Hebron, Poll Finds — 49 Percent Support Killing 'Israeli Civilians Inside Israel'

Background via Melanie Phillips, "The True Reason for the Middle East Impasse."

But check the full survey, "PSR - Survey Research Unit: Poll No. 37":

... a majority of 51% supported and only 44% opposed Hamas's latest armed attack near Hebron which led to the death of four settlers.

And also at Question #55, 49 percent support:

... armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel.

There's a roundup at Solomonia: "Murder Near Hebron."

Nate Silver: '52-Seat Gain For G.O.P.'

Sounds about right:

If Democrats were hoping for a late surge to improve their chances of retaining control of the House, there isn’t any evidence of it yet. Instead, Republicans have generally had the better of the polls in individual House districts released in the past 24 hours.

FiveThirtyEight’s forecast now projects the most likely composition of the House to be 231 Republicans and 204 Democrats. This is a one-seat improvement for the Republicans from yesterday’s forecast, and would mean that they’d gain a net of 52 seats over all.

There is uncertainty in the forecast: Democrats have a 20 percent chance of maintaining control of the House, essentially unchanged from a 21 percent chance yesterday. Much of this 20 percent probability reflects the potential for there to be systematic errors in the polling, as there were in years like 1998.

Since there are a very large number of competitive seats, relatively small anomalies in the polling could potentially affect the outcome of dozens of races. Although the Democrats’ overall position is poor, it is not yet so poor that it couldn’t be salvaged if they beat their polling averages by 2 or 3 points nationwide.

Still, such errors could also work in Republicans’ favor, potentially enabling gains in excess of 60 or even 70 seats....

Oh, a Storm is Threat'ning...

My favorite Rolling Stones song, ever since I was a teenager. Admire the idealism, enjoy the sounds. "Gimme Shelter":

Oh, a storm is threat'ning
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away

War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away

Ooh, see the fire is sweepin'
My very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way

War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away

Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away...

Death to Blue Dogs Coming From Both Sides

Actually, I thought leftist Ari Berman made a perfectly good attack on centrist Democrats in Sunday's New York Times, "Boot the Blue Dogs." He's a little hypocritical on GOP "ideological purity," since his push to purge the Blue Dogs amounts to a de facto endorsement of the right's resurgence and unity at the conservative base. And thus for the Blue Dogs, with the clear loss of support among progressives, these centrist Democrats in Congress are taking fire from both sides. Why should voters reelect a waffling Democrat when they can get a real fighter in a conservative GOP partisan? The Wall Street Journal has more, with a piece mentioning former Democrat star Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota, now expected to fall to Kristi Noem, the Assistant Majority Leader in South Dakota's House of Representatives. See, "Blue Dogs Face Sharp Losses in Midterms":

WASHINGTON—More than half the members of the Blue Dog Coalition—the organization of moderate to conservative Democrats in the House—are in peril in next week's election, a stark indicator of how the balloting could produce a Congress even more polarized than the current one.

The Blue Dogs are often seen as a kind of human bridge, connecting left and right in the House. But that bridge is imperiled by the coming Republican wave in midterm elections, the most stark example of how the midterms are likely to weaken Capitol Hill's political center.

Of 54 Blue Dogs in the House, six already have retired or decided to seek other offices. Of those trying to stay, 39 are in competitive races, according to the Cook Political Report, and 22 of those are in pure toss-ups.

Among those facing the toughest races are some of the Blue Dog Coalition's leaders. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota, one of the co-chairs of the group, is locked in a contest with State Rep. Kristi Noem; in the most recent polling earlier this month, conducting by Rasmussen Reports, Ms. Herseth Sandlin trailed 47% to 43%.

Similarly, Rep. Baron Hill of Indiana, a fellow Blue Dog leader, is battling Republican attorney Todd Young in a deadlocked race both parties see as an indicator of the size of the GOP wave.

The bottom line is that the Blue Dog population could be cut significantly, conceivably by half, in next week's voting.

More at the link.

And obviously, there's no sanctuary for Democrats, Blue Dog, Harry-Pelosi dawg ... it's the same thing.

Jerry Brown Profiled at Los Angeles Times

Continuing my coverage of California's elections, today's Times features a glowing profile of Jerry Brown, "Older and Wiser, Brown Proudly Embraces His Father's Legacy":

At times, Jerry Brown seemed to go out of his way to distance himself from his father.

Edmund G. Brown Sr., California's governor from 1959 to 1967, called himself a "big government man." He built aqueducts, universities and freeways. He liked to shake hands with strangers and slap them on the back. A block might take him half an hour to walk because he greeted everyone he passed.

His only son, Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr., could be aloof, even acerbic. He became governor eight years after his father lost a bruising race for a third term. The son preached an "era of limits" and railed against the kind of politics his father practiced.

Now the brash young governor who thought he knew it all marvels at his father's accomplishments, both privately and publicly. He is acutely aware of Pat Brown's admired legacy, and invokes his name with reverence.

Brown says he is wiser now — an admission that he was wanting before — and that he has mastered the nuts and bolts of governance. He even tries to smile more.

"I was looking for new ideas," Brown said of his first two terms as governor. "I wanted to break the stagnation. Right now the ideas are pretty clear. We need management and forging a consensus and a common purpose regardless of party…. The very extreme positions will not hold."

Is he attempting to vindicate himself, eying his father's legacy and finding his own lacking? Or is his candidacy a calculated stroke, fueled by the strong ego and ever restless spirit that has primed his previous reinventions?

For answers, Brown points to the writings of a 4th century philosopher and developer of Christian thought.

St. Augustine wrote about "not going back to what was said before, always creating and finding new things…," Brown said. "Life is a discovery, and you are always learning and formulating anew."

Folks can read the rest.

I'm not finding anything inspiring, and my thoughts are pretty clear on a Brown governorship: Been there, done that. He's an old-fashioned Democrat --- in the pocket of big labor --- who won't do much to improve California. The state needs major structural reforms. Known previously as an independent free-thinker, Brown is all washed up. He's basically riding the pubic gravy train into retirement, hoping to put even larger stamp on his father's big government legacy. Pat Brown took office nearly 40 years ago, ultimately presiding over the gargantuan expansion of state government and popular expectations for more. Jerry Brown could do well to revisit his early motto claiming the "era of limits," except it's the state government that should be limited, not the people of California. Cut taxes and regulations, reform budgeting and pensions, and revitalize the entrepreneurial spirit. The populace will respond. California always leads the nation. We can do it again, for the next era of innovation and growth. We just need good leadership, and I'm underwhelmed by the promise of Governor Moonbeam.

Lauren Valle, MoveOn Activist and Accused Criminal Trespasser, Subdued While Attempting to Harass Rand Paul

Well, that's an alternative headline you won't get from the MFM. See Gateway Pundit, "Unhinged MoveOn.org Activist Tackled and Stepped On at Rand Paul Rally," and "UNHINGED LEFTIST Who Lunged at Rand Paul Is Paid Far Left Activist." And some criminal background on the alleged attacker, "Activists Face Felony Charges." Valle is a Greenpeace militant and environmental extremist, as The Other McCain notes:

Given the nature of the May vandalism in Louisiana – which seems to have aroused security concerns for two Cabinet secretaries — Valle’s actions in Kentucky take on a completely different cast. Environmentalists have been known to commit acts of violence and, in the mob scene outside the Lexington debate, some of Paul’s supporters might have feared that this wild-eyed person shoving her way through the crowd was trying to do some kind of weird Squeaky Fromme thing.

Iraq Casualty Myth

At GSGF:

An important article of faith among faithless Great Satan haters (that for decency's sake shall remain linkless) is that Operation Iraqi Freedom unleashed horrific new millennium warmaking on a hapless, helpless populace of a wonderfully despotic illegit Ba'Athist regime and gleefully slaughtered nigh unto a million innocent Iraqis...

RELATED: IBD, "Iran's Imperialism."

Van Tran Counts on Big Vietnamese Turnout in CA-47

At RCP:

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. - California's 47th may be the only congressional district in Orange County where Democrats have a registered voter advantage over Republicans. Still, GOP challenger Van Tran argues that D.C. pundits who assume Democratic incumbent Loretta Sanchez has an inherent edge over him are missing a key point.

The blue-collar district may be two-thirds Hispanic, which offers Sanchez a clear leg up, but it also has one of the lowest voter turnout records in the nation. Tran, a Vietnamese-American, is banking on the likelihood that his own ethnic community, which makes up about 15 percent of the district, will vote in massive numbers to help him unseat Sanchez - a 14-year incumbent who is facing her first serious challenge since first winning office.

"The Viets come out," Tran said in an interview with RealClearPolitics on Monday. "Although they're small, they're powerful and potent because they come out in force as a bloc."

Tran's campaign operates a satellite office in the district's Little Saigon, and the candidate said that he expected to benefit additionally from the presence of other Vietnamese-Americans on the ballot, including a Vietnamese Democrat who is running to replace him in the California State Assembly.

Sanchez drew national condemnation last month when she said in an appearance on the Spanish language network Univision, "The Vietnamese and the Republicans are, with an intensity, trying to take this seat from which we have done so much for our community - to take this seat and give it to this Van Tran, who is very anti-immigrant and very anti-Hispanic."

The Sanchez campaign downplayed the remark's impact, but it was clearly a major distraction, as the Democrat was forced to devote precious time and resources to explain what she meant.

Sanchez is counting on her appeal to the district's blue-collar Democrats, who overwhelmingly backed Barack Obama in 2008 but also twice voted for George W. Bush.

"Loretta is a very moderate and in many ways conservative Democrat," Sanchez chief of staff Adrienne Elrod said. "Every vote she casts, she looks at the issue and how it will affect the district. She has no problem bucking her party whatsoever."

More at the link.

Also, "California 47th District - Tran vs. Sanchez."

Meg Whitman Tries to Close the Deal

I'm tempted to say Whitman's trying to "pull it out at the wire," but she's trailing too far back for that metaphor to work. She's a businesswoman, so yeah, "closing the deal" sounds good, and that's the sense I'm getting from this ad buy, which I saw on TV yesterday morning. 2010 has been an anti-candidate year, so, since nobody wanted to run, Californians are stuck with the "unhappy" choices she enunciates. It's bad enough that Jerry Brown will bore the hell out of the state's residents (younger generations, including college students, simply weren't alive when Brown first held the governor's office), but with Whitman it's clear that politics provides an attractive post-business career path, and as we saw in the primary, she'll tell voters whatever they want to hear in order to be elected. It's the complete opposite of what the tea party movement represents (populist limited government), and the GOP is collectively kissing grassroots ass as the party prepares to take back at least the House of Representatives. As I've noted previously, I don't care for Whitman. I'll gladly take her over Jerry Brown, and if she'd opened up more like this throughout the campaign perhaps I'd have made an effort at an endorsement. But for her sake, let's hope she has better luck closing the deal with the California electorate than she has with me. The voters are ready for some good government, and that's what will matter most over the next election cycle. Performance count:

Lene Lovich

Change of pace freaky flashback, "Lucky Number" (Lene Lovich on Wikipedia here):

Udy, udy, udy, udy etc...

I never used to cry 'cause I was all alone
For me, myself and I is all I've ever known
I never felt the need to have a hand to hold
In everything I do I take complete control
That's where I'm coming from
My Lucky Number's one

I've everthing I need to keep me satisfied
There's nothing you can do to make me change my mind
I'm having so much fun
My Lucky Number's one
Ah! Oh! Ah! Oh!

Ay ay ay ay ay...
I now detect an alien vibration here
There's something in the air besides the atmosphere
The object of the action is becoming clear
An imminent attack upon my heart I fear
The evidence is strong
My Lucky Number's rung
Ah! Oh! Ah! Oh!

Something tells me my Lucky Number's gonna be changing soon
Something tells me Lucky Number's gonna be oweoweoweoweoweowe...

ObamaCare Already Driving a Wave of Health-Care Consolidation — and Higher Costs

The following graph is from the New York Times, "Health Care Overhaul Depends on States’ Insurance Exchanges." The chart is supposed to illustrate how the exchanges will facilitate "the right mix of regulation and competition." But I'll be darned, I can't see anything here that closely resembles the market, and hence competition. Folks go to the "state health insurance exchanges" (where firms are supposed to be competing for patients), then straight to federal-state Medicaid programs (after passing a means test), then to the Department of Health and Human Services (the federal agency running Medicare), then back to the state insurance exchanges, and then to the patient meeting the service provider. And the line for "eligibility" to Social Security, Homeland Security, and the Treasury Department is not clear. I mean, seriously, eligibility? The Department of Homeland Security is now part of the ObamaCare insurance overhaul? Looks pretty messed up if this chart is any indication. But we have better picture at the Wall Street Journal, "Big Insurance, Big Medicine":

ObamaCare's once and future harms have been well chronicled, but the major effects so far are less obvious and arguably more important: A wave of consolidation is washing over the health markets, and the result is going to be higher costs.

The turn toward consolidation among insurance companies is not new, and neither is it among doctors, hospitals and other providers. Yet the health bill has accelerated these trends, as all sides race to anticipate and manage political risk and regulatory uncertainty. This dynamic is leading to much larger hospital systems and physician groups, and fewer insurers dominated by a handful of national conglomerates. ObamaCare was sold using the language of choice and competition, but it is actually reducing both.

The first surge will come among the 1,200 insurers doing business in the U.S., given that a major goal of ObamaCare is to convert these companies into de facto public utilities. Those regulations are now being written—and once they're up and running some medium-sized carriers will collapse under the new mandates and higher overhead. State insurance commissioners warned the Administration this month that "improper or overly strident application . . . could threaten the solvency of insurers or significantly reduce competition in some insurance markets." They also implied that bankruptcies are likely.

With these headwinds, investors and Wall Street analysts are now predicting a lost decade for health insurance stocks. But it may be more accurate to say that there will be a lot of losers and some very big winners. Mergers and acquisitions will increase dramatically once companies get a better look at the regulation and figure out the valuation of M&A targets. Larger carriers will swallow smaller ones quietly before they fail.

Both publicly traded and nonprofit insurers have been heading in this direction for years, as in any industry where there are returns to scale. Size is also important in a low-margin business in which capital is costly and political clout vital. But scale is far more central now, because ObamaCare standardizes benefits. Once insurers lose the freedom to design their own products, they'll essentially be selling commodities, and survival will depend on enrollment volume and market share.

There's more at the link, but this is exactly what (tea party) critics warned all through 2009: ObamaCare would drive private firms from the market in a process of stealth nationalization, with the end result being state-planned health rationalization (or death panels, but nobody likes to talk about those).