AP on Rubio Assumes He’s Still the One on the Defensive Over Parents’ Cuban Departure
October 24, 2011 No Comment
Despite all the huffing and puffing over Florida Senator Marco Rubio's alleged “embellishing” at the Washington Post , the fact is that his parents were Cuban exiles (meaning number 5 at link: “anyone separated from his or her country or home voluntarily or by force of circumstances”). That fact essentially undercuts everything about the WaPo article except the problem with the opening sentence of the biography at Rubio's Senate web site, which has been corrected. That didn't stop two Associated Press writers, Brendan Farrington and Laura Wides-Munoz from doing quite a bit of embellishing of their own (a better word would be “mischaracterizing”) in an item currently time-stamped early Saturday morning, while pretending that the rebuttal to the Post written by Mark Caputo at the Miami Herald doesn't exist. The AP pair's pathetic prose has two particular howlers which simply must be debunked. First, there's the matter of whether Rubio is getting a break from the Cuban exile community which he somehow doesn't deserve (bolds are mine throughout this post): So far, prominent members of the Cuban American community are standing by him, including the head of one of Miami's oldest and most respected exile groups, who said Friday that he is willing to give the rising GOP star and tea-party favorite a pass. Uh, no, that's not what the Cuban exile lead the AP pair quoted said: The head of the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation, Pepe Hernandez, himself an exile and longtime opponent of Castro, said Rubio's parents' initial departure date was unimportant. That's not a “pass.” It's an example of “Don't waste our time with this irrelevant garbage. His parents were exiles.” . Giving someone a “pass” presupposes that the person involved has done something wrong. There's nothing which requires a “pass.” Second, the AP woefully mischaracterized Rubio's U.S. Senate victory last year to the point of parody: But Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the GOP National Committee, said the attacks will only strengthen Rubio by causing Republicans to come to his defense. The conservative was elected in 2010 after an upset over the GOP establishment's choice, Gov. Charlie Crist. Upset? What a joke: Rubio's command of the GOP primary race during the Spring of 2010 was so obvious that incumbent Governor Charlie Crist withdrew before the party's primary even took place. In the general election , Rubio was heavily favored for months and took 49% of the vote. Crist got 30%, and the Democrat received 20%. An ” upset ,” in context, means “to defeat or overthrow an opponent that is considered more formidable, as in war, politics, or sports.” Rubio's was the prohibitive favorite on election night. Besides breathtaking ignorance, which I wouldn't buy if claimed, the only reason the AP would want to describe Rubio's win as an “upset” would be to miscommunicate an impression that the election was close. It wasn't; it was an utter rout. Besides, I wasn't upset about the result, and I suspect few readers here were either. :–> Unfortunately, those who haven't followed the Rubio story closely and are relying on their local paper or broadcaster to relay accurate information will instead find some or all of the AP pair's work. That's why nicknaming the self-described Essential Global News Network as “The Administration's Press” is not at all out of line. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .
Continue reading …Title: The Black Widow Artist: Alice Cooper Tonight, we kick off the ‘Seven Days Of Halloween’, an LNMC celebration of my favorite holiday. Every night from now until the 31st, I will post my favorite creepy/dark/wacky/heavy selections that always get me in the mood for the darkest of nights. Here’s one from Alice Cooper featuring the always creepy Vincent Price. Boo!
Continue reading …Title: The Black Widow Artist: Alice Cooper Tonight, we kick off the ‘Seven Days Of Halloween’, an LNMC celebration of my favorite holiday. Every night from now until the 31st, I will post my favorite creepy/dark/wacky/heavy selections that always get me in the mood for the darkest of nights. Here’s one from Alice Cooper featuring the always creepy Vincent Price. Boo!
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Sure way to stay schnockered between now and presidential Election Day: sling a shot every time a liberal plays the race card.
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Maybe Princeton professor Cornel West should redirect his get off the crack pipe suggestion to MSNBC's Chris Matthews. On Monday's Hardball , the host actually said with a straight face that John F. Kennedy is “the American president we Americans most want to see joining Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt up there on Mount Rushmore (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHRIS MATTHEWS: “Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero” appears in bookstores next Tuesday. It tells the story of the American president we Americans most want to see joining Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt up there on Mount Rushmore. Apart from drugs and/or alcohol being the culprit, one has to imagine Matthews was referring to a November 2009 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair online poll that asked the question, “If you could add a president to MOUNT RUSHMORE, which one of these would you pick?” Kennedy came in first at 29 percent in this highly unscientific poll placed at two extremely liberal websites where people could vote as many times as they wanted. Such surveys are typically looked upon with a grain of salt. This was especially the case here as the folks designing this poll actually put Barack Obama up as one of the answers. Despite him having only been in office for ten months, sixteen percent of respondents chose him. Nice poll to gauge public opinion by, don't you think? Significantly more scientific is a fairly comprehensive list of presidential rankings done since 1948 available at Wikipedia. To be sure, these kinds of polls normally get the opinion of academics, political scientists, and presidential historians that typically lean left, but they're far better than an online poll done by CBS and Vanity Fair. With that in mind, Kennedy's aggregate ranking in these surveys is eleven putting him well down the list of folks to be added to Mount Rushmore. Sorry, Chris, but this isn't something you're likely ever going to see no matter how many books you write about this man: For those interested, here's the aggregate top ten: Abraham Lincoln Franklin Delano Roosevelt George Washington Thomas Jefferson Teddy Roosevelt Woodrow Wilson Harry Truman Dwight Eisenhower (tie) Andrew Jackson (tie) James Polk Anticipating the question, Ronald Reagan's aggregate rank is 17. Remember: the folks doing the ranking are mostly liberals.
Continue reading …Dublin city council declares emergency as flooded rivers and canals cut off rail and road routes after incessant rains A young Irish police officer is missing after reports he was swept away in floods in County Wicklow on Monday night. A joint Garda, the Irish police force, and coastguard search has been launched with the police force’s helicopter and several mountain rescue teams involved in the operation. The garda, in his 20s, was off-duty but had gone out to help divert traffic away from a dangerous bridge, which was under water at Ballysmuttan at around 7pm. Dublin city council has declared an emergency in the Republic’s capital with the rivers Liffey, Dodder and Tolka bursting their banks. The Belfast to Dublin rail link had to be shut after flooding in the Clontarf area of north Dublin while all the internal rail services within Greater Dublin were shut down. Dublin Bus reported several buses were affected by floods and got stranded along routes close to the city’s canals. One of Dublin’s major shopping centres at Dundrum had to be evacuated after the first floor of the mall was flooded. Ireland Europe Flooding Natural disasters and extreme weather Dublin Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Dublin city council declares emergency as flooded rivers and canals cut off rail and road routes after incessant rains A young Irish police officer is missing after reports he was swept away in floods in County Wicklow on Monday night. A joint Garda, the Irish police force, and coastguard search has been launched with the police force’s helicopter and several mountain rescue teams involved in the operation. The garda, in his 20s, was off-duty but had gone out to help divert traffic away from a dangerous bridge, which was under water at Ballysmuttan at around 7pm. Dublin city council has declared an emergency in the Republic’s capital with the rivers Liffey, Dodder and Tolka bursting their banks. The Belfast to Dublin rail link had to be shut after flooding in the Clontarf area of north Dublin while all the internal rail services within Greater Dublin were shut down. Dublin Bus reported several buses were affected by floods and got stranded along routes close to the city’s canals. One of Dublin’s major shopping centres at Dundrum had to be evacuated after the first floor of the mall was flooded. Ireland Europe Flooding Natural disasters and extreme weather Dublin Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
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Under-fives, 16 to 19-year-olds and building programmes will suffer as spending is slashed by 14.4% over next four years Education spending is being slashed by more than 14% – the largest cut since the 1950s, Britain’s leading tax and spending experts have warned. Researchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), a highly respected thinktank, have calculated that public spending on UK education will fall by 14.4% between 2010-11 and 2014-15. They said this represented the largest cut in education spending over any four-year period since at least the 1950s. Their study – Trends in Education and Schools Spending – found school and college building projects will suffer the most from cuts to funding. The budgets for these projects will be more than halved. Universities will fare the next worst with a 40% cut, although this will be offset by higher tuition fees of up to £9,000. The education of 16 to 19-year-olds and the under-fives will each suffer a 20% funding fall in real terms, the study found. The majority of schools will see a real-term budget reduction over the next four years, the researchers said, although those with the most deprived pupils will see a real-term increase in state funds. The IFS study found that, since the late 1990s, education spending had risen “substantially”. While Labour was in power, public spending on education moved from universities towards schools, the under-fives and further education, the study shows. The number of teachers grew by 12% while the number of teaching assistants more than tripled. Luke Sibieta, senior research economist at the IFS and co-author of the study, said the UK’s education budget was set for a “historically large fall over the next few years”. “The biggest challenges lie ahead for the early years, youth services and 16-19 education, where spending is set to fall by around 20% in real terms,” he said. “The key question is what these cuts in financial resources will mean for the outputs of the education system, such as young people’s exam results or earnings potential.” But a spokesman for the Department for Education said the government was increasing the budget for schools and said that funds for building works were now higher than they were on average between 1997-98 and 2004-05. He said the schools budget was increasing by £3.6bn over the next four years and the pupil premium – the £488 given to schools for each pupil eligible for free school meals – would rise over the next three years. On the provision of free early learning, he said: “We’ve increased the free entitlement to 15 hours per week for all three and four-year-olds from last September – and are now extending this to all disadvantaged two-year olds.” He said government was “right to look at the amount of money spent on school buildings. An independent review showed taxpayers money was being wasted on red tape and consultants, not on building schools. Our new plans will build schools cheaper and quicker than before.” Public finance Schools Colleges Further education Higher education Liberal-Conservative coalition Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Under-fives, 16 to 19-year-olds and building programmes will suffer as spending is slashed by 14.4% over next four years Education spending is being slashed by more than 14% – the largest cut since the 1950s, Britain’s leading tax and spending experts have warned. Researchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), a highly respected thinktank, have calculated that public spending on UK education will fall by 14.4% between 2010-11 and 2014-15. They said this represented the largest cut in education spending over any four-year period since at least the 1950s. Their study – Trends in Education and Schools Spending – found school and college building projects will suffer the most from cuts to funding. The budgets for these projects will be more than halved. Universities will fare the next worst with a 40% cut, although this will be offset by higher tuition fees of up to £9,000. The education of 16 to 19-year-olds and the under-fives will each suffer a 20% funding fall in real terms, the study found. The majority of schools will see a real-term budget reduction over the next four years, the researchers said, although those with the most deprived pupils will see a real-term increase in state funds. The IFS study found that, since the late 1990s, education spending had risen “substantially”. While Labour was in power, public spending on education moved from universities towards schools, the under-fives and further education, the study shows. The number of teachers grew by 12% while the number of teaching assistants more than tripled. Luke Sibieta, senior research economist at the IFS and co-author of the study, said the UK’s education budget was set for a “historically large fall over the next few years”. “The biggest challenges lie ahead for the early years, youth services and 16-19 education, where spending is set to fall by around 20% in real terms,” he said. “The key question is what these cuts in financial resources will mean for the outputs of the education system, such as young people’s exam results or earnings potential.” But a spokesman for the Department for Education said the government was increasing the budget for schools and said that funds for building works were now higher than they were on average between 1997-98 and 2004-05. He said the schools budget was increasing by £3.6bn over the next four years and the pupil premium – the £488 given to schools for each pupil eligible for free school meals – would rise over the next three years. On the provision of free early learning, he said: “We’ve increased the free entitlement to 15 hours per week for all three and four-year-olds from last September – and are now extending this to all disadvantaged two-year olds.” He said government was “right to look at the amount of money spent on school buildings. An independent review showed taxpayers money was being wasted on red tape and consultants, not on building schools. Our new plans will build schools cheaper and quicker than before.” Public finance Schools Colleges Further education Higher education Liberal-Conservative coalition Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …David Brooks: To Hell With the Polls! President Obama Should Not Campaign on Raising Taxes on the Rich
October 24, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media As our own Driftglass rightfully pointed out this week , apparently David Brooks has got his panties in a bunch because heaven forbid anyone is paying attention to what the dirty, filthy, hippies in the Occupy Wall Street movement are complaining about, as opposed to those lovely “adult” “centrists” he loves to carry water for that are calling for austerity measures, despite the fact that, as Driftie noted in his post, there is overwhelming support for taxing ultra wealthy Americans. Here’s Brooks doing his best to spin his way around those inconvenient facts on this weekend’s Meet the Press : GREGORY: But, but, David, David Brooks, this is an interesting poll that shows whom the American people blame for economic problems in the country; 78 percent blame Wall Street, 87 percent blame the federal government. One of the big questions that you’ve posed about President Obama is, can he run a conventionally liberal campaign, a populist campaign, tax the rich more, and prevail? BROOKS: No. You know, the most important polling statistic in our lifetime is they ask people, “Do you trust government to do the right thing most of the time?” Through the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, it was like 80 percent trusted government. Then that drops–Vietnam, Watergate–gets down to like 20 percent under Bush. Well, now it’s down at an historic low point of 15 percent. So if you’re a Democrat, the party of government, you can’t run “I’m the–I’m government, he’s the market,” you cannot run that campaign. You have to confuse that debate the way Bill Clinton did, the way Obama did in ’08, by being post-partisan. What I see Obama doing is being the liberal fighter over the last couple of months, and that may help with the fundraising, but I do not see that winning. Brooks also ignores the fact that a good part of the reason most Americans don’t have any faith in our government working is because that is exactly what Republicans want them to think. They run the government like a personal piggy-bank for their campaign contributors when they’re in charge and then they muck up the works and make sure government is incapable of doing anything for working class people while they’re in the minority, and with sadly enough help from enough Conserva-Dems aiding and abetting them get away with it. This country and the voters are not fed up because there isn’t enough bipartisanship in our Congress. They’re fed up because what bipartisanship there is has meant that conservative legislation has been passed that’s doing real harm to the working class and that there aren’t enough people in our halls of Congress looking out for their interests. If David Brooks thinks Americans are fed up with government, he needs to take a look in the mirror with the type of snake oil he’s been helping to sell them since he’s unfortunately been given a national spotlight to try to gloss over how damaging conservative policies have been to the working class. And if he thinks an earnest attempt to level the playing field a bit and raise taxes on the rich is going to be harmful to Democrats in the upcoming election, I think he should be sharing a bit of what he’s been smoking with the rest of us.
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