Tommy Thompson has an Obamacare shadow problem with the Tea Party types….

My friend Daniel here is high on Wisconsin Republican  (former Governor and HHS Secrtary), Tommy Thompson …

Thompson has a GOP Primary contest coming up on August 14…

And Tea Party people are after him for being a bit ‘moderate on Healthcare in the past’….

Ouch!

fox6now.com

“While Tommy Thompson has always been at the forefront of health care reform, he has been an aggressive, consistent and outspoken opponent of Obamacare as it harms both the quality of care while introducing 21 new taxes further burdening businesses struggling to make ends meet in an economy driven to a low point by President Obama,” Nemoir said in a statement. “Any effort to say otherwise would be a gross misrepresentation of his position.”

A Marquette Law School poll earlier this month showed the race was tightening ahead of the Aug. 14 primary, with wealthy businessman Eric Hovde closing in on Thompson, and Neumann and state Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald well behind. Thompson still had a double-digit lead over his opponents and was the only Republican candidate ahead of Rep. Tammy Baldwin, the Democrat running for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl.

The race has enormous implications nationally. A GOP victory in the state would give Republicans a major shot at regaining control of the Senate, which currently stands at 53-47 in favor of the Democrats.

Thompson’s tea party opponents believe that his health care stances give them an opening with GOP primary voters who detest the law. While Thompson has laid out an ambitious plan to replace the health care law, some comments he made before he became a Senate candidate are coming back to haunt him.

In 2006, he hailed the individual mandate included in the Massachusetts health care law. In 2009, he called a Democratic bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee an “important” step to expand coverage and provide “affordable, high-quality health care for all.” Eager to hear praise from a prominent Republican, Obama touted Thompson’s remarks.

More…

NY Governor Andrew Cuomo starts his march at 2016…..

His poll ratings are in stratosphere *…..

He has more money in the political bank than the majority of the countries Governor’s combined….

And just before the Democratic Convention he’s holding a get together for policy Democrats…..

Anderew Cuomo IS running for President in 2016 folks….

That is if Hillary Clinton DOES NOT run…..

Cuomo Plans Policy Summit

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) “has studiously avoided talk of a 2016 White House run, but he has positioned himself on two fronts, amassing the nation’s largest gubernatorial war chest and organizing a series of August policy summits with Democratic leaders and academics,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Mr. Cuomo has raised nearly $1 million a month since he took office in January 2011 and has about $19.3 million to spend –more than 40 other governors combined… Meanwhile, just two weeks before his party gathers on Sept. 3 for the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., Mr. Cuomo is hosting a summit of his own, inviting Clinton administration veterans and others to Manhattan for a policy forum.”

Politicalwire…

*A new Quinnipiac poll finds New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) with a staggering 73% to 16% approval rating, an all-time high.

Perhaps even more striking, Cuomo holds a 69% to 19% approval rate among Republicans.

photo….articles.nydailynews.com

Political Roundup for July 26, 2012…Red Racing Horses

by: Ryan_in_SEPA

President Romney/Bush/Rubio: Jeb Bush has urged Mitt Romney to select Florida US Senator Marco Rubio to be his vice presidential choice.  Bush has been making the push in public and private as of late, but ruled out himself being a candidate for vice president.  He recently admitted he should have ran for president this cycle. More Romney/Rubio: In light of the Aurora shooting, the Romney campaign has cancelled the campaign visit featuring Marco Rubio.  While the Colorado visit has been cancelled, Rubio intends to still appear at a Las Vegas event. Christie: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says he would be interested in running in 2016 if Mitt Romney does not win in 2012 or elects to not serve a second term.  Christie has been courted for vice president, but interest has waned as of late apparently over a personality difference with Romney.  Who would have suspected. O’Malley: Speaking of 2016, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley has set up a federal PAC.  The Democratic Governor of Maryland is viewed as a favorite of progressive members of the party who are looking for a candidate to run in 2016. Obama/Leaks: The Obama campaign seems to be on the defensive and changing its story regarding the leaking of classified information.  Senior campaign advisor David Axelrod said on Morning Joe that President Obama did not leak the information or authorized its leak.  This is a change in the White House’s previous stance that nothing was leaked from the White House. Portman: Ohio US Senator Rob Portman is considered to be near the top of Mitt Romney’s short list for vice president, but even if he is not selected, he will be a valuable asset in the Senate.  Portman has a strong relationship with several moderate Democrats and could be a key ally for Romney in any budget deal. North Carolina:  Is North Carolina trending right again or is still a competitive battleground? The Romney campaign is treating it as a Republican leaning state while the Obama campaign seems to still think its in play.  While I think Romney wins North Carolina, I am not sure it is completely in the bag. Polling: The Hill provides an interesting analysis on the obscene nature of the amount of polling the Obama campaign is performing especially during June. Enthusiasm: Republican voters have opened a significant enthusiasm gap over their Democratic counterparts.  Democratic Enthusiasm is lower than in 2004 and 2008 while Republican Enthusiasm is in line with 2004 and substantially higher than 2008. More….

Why I think the US should NOT invade Syria……

 

I want you to take a look at two places the US and it’s Allies have tried to HELP….

Iraq and Afghanistan….

I want to remind you of todays headlines….

In Iraq there have been steady bombing for last several days…..

In Afghanistan there have been protests……

The bombings in Iraq have been done as the political sides manuever for power in a THEIR country after the Americans and NATO packed up their combat troops and left….

The protests with shootings in Afghanistan have been ignited by a dumb decision by someone in the military to burn koran’s instead of disposing of them more ssesabliy …..

Or giving them away …..

Both incident demonstrate the limits of ANY outside power to HELP the natives….

While the ‘help’ will Always embraced with open arms……

History has taught us that sooner or later the help WILL become the enemy….

So while the US STILL has Special Ops ‘Hunter’ squads operating in Iraq…

The troops are gone…

The same will be the case in Afghanistan in a year or two…

Libya the last place the American’s and Allies offered help is a mess……

There is NO reason to think that Syria won’t be after this Civil War/Arab Spring fight is over….

There is news that the Arab states ARE shipping arms to the resistance…

That only means more guns….

More bloodshed….

We need to take a breather….

And  wait to see how the slow ramp up of Special Ops in Africa play…

Let Syria be Syria….

We can deal with the survivor’s

Ron Paul may be right afterall…

From Politicaldog101.Com

 

Mitt Romney may be lousy….His Campaign isn’t……

 

Last night I re-read the John Hellemann  piece written right after last weeks Arizona debate…..

About half way into the piece that basically states that the Republican party has got itself into the mess that finds itself in now in the nomination race…

Hellermann writes this about about how Mitt Romney’s campaign apparatus chewed up Newt Gingrich and spit him out….

Sure Newt helped but in all the noise ….

The media ….And indeed most of us miss this….

An hour or so after the Republican debate in Jacksonville on January 26, Romney’s chief strategist, Stuart Stevens, was in the spin room employing his iPad as a weapon. Stevens asked if I knew how many times Gingrich was mentioned in Reagan’s memoir. Calling up the text onscreen andsearching the document, he revealed the answer: zero. Stevens then asked the same about a different memoir—Jack Abramoff’s. Here the number of mentions was larger: thirteen. Stevens asked, “What does that tell you?” I ventured, “That Newt is full of shit?” Stevens: “You said it, buddy.”

Stevens’s parlor trick was a minor, albeit delightful, element of the two-front assault waged by Team Romney on Gingrich in Florida: strafing him from the air with negative ads and badgering him on the ground, which involved not only working the press but sending operatives to Gingrich’s every event to offer instant rebuttals. One objective here was to refute Gingrich’s claims to being at once instrumental to the Reagan Revolution and a Washington outsider; another was to rattle him, to piss him off, to get inside his head.

Together with two stellar debate showings by Romney, the anti-Newt incursion accomplished all that and more, driving Gingrich to fits of defensive distraction, undisguised irritation, and an in toto effort in Florida that was every bit as feeble as his South Carolina bid had been robust. And in its indiscipline, lassitude, and wackiness—how many news cycles did he squander on that freaking lunar colony?—it made manifest why he was never a plausible Republican nominee…….* 

Folks…..

Mitt Romney keeps screwing up when he opens his mouth…

But Mitt Romney STILL leads the field….

He is still the man EVERYONE is trying to knock off…

And that because of his campaign organization…

Not particularly him….

We look back to how Romney got slugged by Cain, Perry, Newt and now Santorum….

We see a Republican who HAS money…

Who CAN’T tell a story without backing up….

You HAS learned to attack…

(He got the best of Santorum last week…..Just like he got the best of Newt)

A week ago Rick Santorum was tearing up the polling charts….

Now HE is fighting for HIS political future……

Low on money……

Described by even Republican’s as a ‘throw back’ to the 1950′s….

And has the headache of having the Romney people defining him as the past Washington ‘Insider’ he was……

Let me finish this piece by reminding everyone…..

Rick Santorum IS the Blue collar, white guy, who wants to tell females to stay barefoot and pregnant…..

If he wins the GOP nomination……

With little or no organization and less money….

Being a Washington insider that was liked just a hair more than Newt……

It will be because in the end….

If the guy who has run a dogged campaign….

Looping off ALl of his opponents …..

STILL can’t make it as the parties BEST/WORST Choice against a younger challenger who appeals to a segment of the American population

That is shrinking everyday under the weight of a country moving into the 21st Century…..

In this Dogs mind….

The GOP REALLY does NOT want to elect a President….

And I’m ALL for that…..

Obama WILL WIN

It IS just that simple…

From Politicaldog101.com

 

 

Here’s one guess …..

Or…

Could you call it a suggestion for the President’s handlers?…

How Obama Will Run Against Romney

Kevin Drum: “My guess: the flip-flopper charge probably won’t get much traction. It’s mostly a problem for conservatives, who don’t fully trust that Romney is one of them, but by the time summer rolls around they’re going to be his most fire-breathing supporters. They’ll have long since decided to forgive and forget, and independents won’t care that much in the first place as long as Romney seems halfway reasonable in his current incarnation. It’s possible that Obama can do both — Romney is a flip-flopper and a right-wing nutcase! — but if he has to choose, my guess is that he should forget about the flip-flopping and simply do everything he can to force Romney into the wingnut conservative camp. That’ll be his big weakness when Labor Day rolls around.”

Politicalwire….

This Post is from Politicaldog101.com….

The Truth……Keith…..

The economy grows when the government spends money — period. Infrastructure projects are good for short term employment and the long term health of our nation’s transportation system. Republicans find deficits only when Democrats are in the White House. How many hot checks did GWB write throughout his long, long eight years in the White House — for wars of choice and unfunded medicare beneftis (just to mention a few) without a peep from the Republicans here.

It is tough to hold sensible political discussions with folks who believe “everyone in Cambridge hates the cops” or who say things like “politics ain’t fair.” In fact, it is impossible. Actually that may be one of the reason why we have the current crop of insane folks running the House of Representatives. People are just too myopic to see that forest as they look for those radioactive grains of sand in the desert, and would rather vote their sillly prejudices than vote for the greater good (wouldn’t want to give the other guy an advantage — especially the black boy in the White House). If the Speaker wants to play chicken with the world economy in an attempt to get back the White House when a worldwide recession starts –then so be it.

Keith….

From Politicaldog101….

The Cap IS working on the Oil pipe in the Gulf…….

Slowly they WILL get this thing done……

I commend the President for now jumping on the media ‘hype’ express…..

And Thad Allen for do a damn good job under intense pressure….

They need to keep him …….

[ CG Admiral Thad Allen ]

“The vents remain open,” Adm. Thad Allen of the Coast Guard, who is in charge of the federal response to the oil spill, said in a briefing Saturday morning.

Admiral Allen said that while engineers had so far been able to bring 6,000 barrels of oil to the surface, they had been hesitant to close the vents. If they do so, they fear, water will rush in and form the kind of icy hydrates that doomed a previous attempt to cap the leak.

“When we put the cap down, there were four vents on the cap that allow oil to escape that’s not going up through the pipe,” he said. “What you want is you want to keep oil in the containment cap and not let water in, because when water gets in you form hydrates.”

The admiral had initially said that engineers hoped to begin closing the vents on Friday. But on Saturday he said they had not because of fears that the pressure inside the cap would become so great that oil would blast through the imperfect seal.

With the oil staining beaches and killing wildlife across the gulf, and tar balls beginning to surface on the shores of the Florida Panhandle, President Obama said in his weekly Saturday radio address, “We are prepared for the worst, even as we hope thatBP’s efforts bring better news than we’ve received before.”

BP and government officials have said it will take at least until Sunday to fully deploy the containment device and make a definitive assessment of the amount of oil it can collect. BP executives have said that as much as 90 percent of the escaping oil may be contained by the cap if all goes well. A ship on the surface is capable of collecting 15,000 barrels a day, Admiral Allen said.

The cap is a temporary measure. The well cannot be cemented shut until two relief wells are drilled, by August at the earliest.

Technicians, employing submarine robots, worked through the night to begin closing the vents. So far the cap has been able to bear the pressure and there is no sign of hydrates forming. That is viewed by experts as a positive sign because hydrates clogged a similar containment device a month ago and prevented it from capturing the oil effectively.

[ A drawing of the cap ]

More……..

Was the Israeli Raid the IDF’s ‘Finest Moment’?

Not really……

According to former member of the Israel Defense Forces ( IDF) Marine Assault Team Shayetet 13 ……..

Victor Ostrovsky spoke to the Washington Post and outlines some countra-views to the Israel company line on the raid……

He points out that raid was poorly planed tactically….

Landing Special Ops soldiers  at night directly on boast that could have had weapons on board….

Poorly researched…

And that the IDF had have had people infiltrated on board..reporting to the inbound troops…..

Interesting piece …from a man who ran the IDF teams in the past……

The Israeli commando attack on a civilian flotilla was “so stupid it is stupefying,” says former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky.

Ostrovsky spent six years in the Israeli navy, rising to the rank of lieutenant commander before Mossad recruited him in 1982. He quit after four years and in the 1990s he wrote two highly critical, first-person books about the intelligence service.

Monday’s raid on a seaborne civilian aid mission to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which left nine dead and about 75 wounded, was carried out by the Israeli navy’s commando unit, “Shayetet 13,” Ostrovsky said.

“It’s a fantastic unit. … It was not typical of Flotilla 13,” he said, using the English translation for Shayetet, which he called “one of the top units in the Israeli military.”

Members of the unit “have trained extensively for overtaking a ship,” he said. “However, their training was directed at overtaking a hijacked ship.”

Evidently the tactics weren’t adjusted for this mission.

“Mossad probably had more than one man on board” the ships, Ostrovsky said, secret agents who would have been giving Israeli mission planners an accurate picture of what was happening on the vessels.

Were their reports ignored?

“At this point,” says Jeffrey White, a former Middle East analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, “it is hard to say if this was a failure of collection, assessment or operational preparation.”

“My sense is that somewhere in the process from collection to conduct, the notion that this would be an action against moderate opposition became fixed ….”

“The mistakes were on every level,” said Ostrovsky, “from the order to forcefully board outside the territorial waters to the actual attack.”

Responsibility for the raid, which has provoked widespread condemnation and a diplomatic uproar, should be laid at the feet of “the shoot-from-the-hip prime minister,” Ostrovsky said — Binyamin Netanyahu, whom he blamed for two previous messy intelligence operations in Dubai and Jordan.

More……..

Meanwhile Israel has released almost all of the 700 people involved in the Gaza Relief Ship caper……

The whole Caper has been a HUGE POLITICAL  embarrassing screw-up…..On many different levels…..

The Israeli’s lost on this one……

With hundreds of activists already released from jails and en route to Ben Gurion International airport, Israel’s High Court of Justice heard a petition to reverse a cabinet decision to forgo criminal procedures against activists to allegedly attacked soldiers in clashes that left nine dead.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected criticism of a deadly raid against a flotilla carrying aid to Gaza earlier this week, saying the blockade of the Palestinian territory is needed to prevent missile attacks against Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Israel’s cabinet on Tuesday had debated pressing charges against activists for allegedly attacking Israeli commandos during the confrontation, but decided instead to send them home, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.

The move to deport the activists was intended as a gesture to ease growing international isolation and a clash with Turkey over the violent incident, which Turkey said killed four Turkish nationals on the Turkish-owned ship Mavi Marama.

In a statement to the High Court, Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinshtein defended the expulsion by arguing “public, security and diplomatic interests prevail” over the need to pursue a criminal investigation.

Yukutiel Guzofky, an American-born law student who petitioned the court early Wednesday against the move, called the cabinet decision “outrageous.”

“Israel can’t say on the one hand say it has the right to use force to raid the boats, and then on the other hand release these people who they say have links to terrorist organizations,” he said.

Meanwhile, Israel continued to transfer the aid from the detained boats into the Gaza Strip, but alleged that Hamas was impeding the shipments, according the news website Ynet.

More……..

Was the Israeli Raid the IDF's 'Finest Moment'?

Not really……

According to former member of the Israel Defense Forces ( IDF) Marine Assault Team Shayetet 13 ……..

Victor Ostrovsky spoke to the Washington Post and outlines some countra-views to the Israel company line on the raid……

He points out that raid was poorly planed tactically….

Landing Special Ops soldiers  at night directly on boast that could have had weapons on board….

Poorly researched…

And that the IDF had have had people infiltrated on board..reporting to the inbound troops…..

Interesting piece …from a man who ran the IDF teams in the past……

The Israeli commando attack on a civilian flotilla was “so stupid it is stupefying,” says former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky.

Ostrovsky spent six years in the Israeli navy, rising to the rank of lieutenant commander before Mossad recruited him in 1982. He quit after four years and in the 1990s he wrote two highly critical, first-person books about the intelligence service.

Monday’s raid on a seaborne civilian aid mission to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which left nine dead and about 75 wounded, was carried out by the Israeli navy’s commando unit, “Shayetet 13,” Ostrovsky said.

“It’s a fantastic unit. … It was not typical of Flotilla 13,” he said, using the English translation for Shayetet, which he called “one of the top units in the Israeli military.”

Members of the unit “have trained extensively for overtaking a ship,” he said. “However, their training was directed at overtaking a hijacked ship.”

Evidently the tactics weren’t adjusted for this mission.

“Mossad probably had more than one man on board” the ships, Ostrovsky said, secret agents who would have been giving Israeli mission planners an accurate picture of what was happening on the vessels.

Were their reports ignored?

“At this point,” says Jeffrey White, a former Middle East analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, “it is hard to say if this was a failure of collection, assessment or operational preparation.”

“My sense is that somewhere in the process from collection to conduct, the notion that this would be an action against moderate opposition became fixed ….”

“The mistakes were on every level,” said Ostrovsky, “from the order to forcefully board outside the territorial waters to the actual attack.”

Responsibility for the raid, which has provoked widespread condemnation and a diplomatic uproar, should be laid at the feet of “the shoot-from-the-hip prime minister,” Ostrovsky said — Binyamin Netanyahu, whom he blamed for two previous messy intelligence operations in Dubai and Jordan.

More……..

Meanwhile Israel has released almost all of the 700 people involved in the Gaza Relief Ship caper……

The whole Caper has been a HUGE POLITICAL  embarrassing screw-up…..On many different levels…..

The Israeli’s lost on this one……

With hundreds of activists already released from jails and en route to Ben Gurion International airport, Israel’s High Court of Justice heard a petition to reverse a cabinet decision to forgo criminal procedures against activists to allegedly attacked soldiers in clashes that left nine dead.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected criticism of a deadly raid against a flotilla carrying aid to Gaza earlier this week, saying the blockade of the Palestinian territory is needed to prevent missile attacks against Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Israel’s cabinet on Tuesday had debated pressing charges against activists for allegedly attacking Israeli commandos during the confrontation, but decided instead to send them home, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.

The move to deport the activists was intended as a gesture to ease growing international isolation and a clash with Turkey over the violent incident, which Turkey said killed four Turkish nationals on the Turkish-owned ship Mavi Marama.

In a statement to the High Court, Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinshtein defended the expulsion by arguing “public, security and diplomatic interests prevail” over the need to pursue a criminal investigation.

Yukutiel Guzofky, an American-born law student who petitioned the court early Wednesday against the move, called the cabinet decision “outrageous.”

“Israel can’t say on the one hand say it has the right to use force to raid the boats, and then on the other hand release these people who they say have links to terrorist organizations,” he said.

Meanwhile, Israel continued to transfer the aid from the detained boats into the Gaza Strip, but alleged that Hamas was impeding the shipments, according the news website Ynet.

More……..