ICYMI: President Obama's job approval is now at an all-time low of 40%. The U.S. opinion poll about Obama whose negative results were buried by the very TV network who paid for it... Surprise! It's NBC News; Thanks to Fox News Channel's Chris Stirewalt, I know what they were ignoring. @cstirewalt continues the great work at "FOX News First" of finding the news & news nuggets I want to hear more about

The following is from an email that I sent out yesterday, early Wednesday afternoon, to my always-curious and very well-informed crew of friends and associates with a News Junkie gene located around Florida and thw world beyond, who, like me, can't watch and read everything, so you have to pick and choose your times and share what you know, when you can, oui?
In retrospect I really should've blogged it and simply sent an email out with links to it, but sometimes, even after all these years of having a blog and now an ever growing Twitter feed, @hbbtruth https://twitter.com/hbbtruth you don't think of it first at the time.

My post today are my thoughts regarding something I'd read in the FOX News First daily email, which is written by Chris Stirewalt, @cstirewalt, which I have previously mentioned here on the blog because of how often I see some interesting facts or anecdotes that I don't see elsewhere.

---
The poll referenced below in the Fox News newsletter that I get in my email inbox every weekday, which was financed in part by NBC News, is the very same opinion poll that last night's NBC's Evening News
conscipuously avoided mentioning last night. Really.


The very last thing that you'd expect, competition being what it is or at least used to be... once upon a time.
No, you would expect that absent some terrible/amazing story that knocks everything else off the lineup, given their direct involvement, the results of the poll would be one of the first 10 news stories reported upon, but it wasn't.
Why do you suppose that is?

That sort of attitude is precisely the sort of thing that only encourages most reasonable people, regardless of their personal or political positions, to doubt the veracity of so much of what they see reported upon -and only encourages them to wonder as I often have on my own blog over the past few years about the increasing number of legitimate news stories I know about taking place in South Florida that are either being consciously ignored, spiked or buried.

Despite all the advances in technology over the last two decades with regards to improved newsgathering equipment that makes it easier than ever to report, in my part of South Florida, more than ever, the stories that are being ignored by the news media greatly outnumber the ones that are actually reported upon in some manner or fashion, no matter how compelling or important they genuinely are.
A muzzled or lethargic press is not the same thing as a free press, no matter how many more instances we see all the time of this discouraging attitude.

-This is just an excerpt- see bottom for whole newsletter
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Fox News First Daily Politics
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 09:51:27 -0400
Subject: Fox News First -- Crisis mode: Obama leadership woes sinking
Dem hopes | Walsh heading for the exits? | Grimes gets a 'Billigan'
from Bubba | Establishment scores, doesn't sweep in primaries | What
cheese?

FOX News First:  August 6
By Chris Stirewalt

CRISIS MODE: OBAMA LEADERSHIP WOES SINKING DEM HOPES

The WSJ/NBC News poll dropped like a bucket of cold water on Washington, where fevered attacks over legislative minutiae and blame-placing in recent weeks has caused politicians to forget what is actually going on. And what’s going on is that Americans are deeply frustrated with their president, his refusal to govern by normal means and his handling of crises at our border and around the world. Foreign policy seldom intrudes into the midterm election discussion, but when the world seems to be falling apart, Americans get anxious and upset with their commander in chief and his party. That’s clearly what’s happening here. Sixty percent of respondents said the U.S. is in decline, only 35 percent were satisfied with America’s role in the world, and just 21 percent said that the next generation would be better off.

The president likes to say that he can act alone on domestic issues, a dubious supposition. But on international affairs, an area in which American presidents have enormous latitude, the situation is dire.

Respondents offered a negative assessment of the U.S. response to the Ukrainian war, the Syrian civil war, the conflict in Gaza, the rise of ISIS and especially the flow of illegal immigrant minors across the southern border. Just 11 percent were satisfied with the handling of the border crisis. Overall, just 36 percent of respondents approved of Obama’s handling of foreign policy, 12 points lower than ahead of the 2010 vote.

The consequences for November are ominous for Democrats. Republicans are in slightly better shape in the generic-ballot test than they were at this point in 2010, the year that a wave election washed away the Democratic majority in the House. The president’s job approval, now at an all-time low of 40 percent in this poll, is 7 points lower than it was four years ago. The reality is setting in that Democratic hopes of

holding the Senate are winnowing, a realization that could turn a bad year into a rout. The president promises more executive action to mobilize base supporters on immigration and corporate taxes, but with numbers like these, Democrats will be increasingly unwilling to hustle for what looks like a lost cause. And the harder the president goes in rallying his base, the deeper he will sink in the estimation of moderate voters who are so fed up with his administration.

-- 90 days until Nov. 4 --

You can read the whole thing here, via Chris Stirewalt's Twitter account:

Fox News First -- Crisis mode: Obama leadership woes sinking Dem hopes #FNPolitics | http://t.co/VQAXhERjZY
— Chris Stirewalt (@cstirewalt) August 6, 2014

Troubling American foreign policy story unfolding in Moscow with Radio Liberty, with WSJ's John O'Sullivan and WaPo's Kathy Lally adroitly describing the change in public poilicy that has Russians confounded by a move that seems destined to HELP Putin, not Russians who want genuine democracy and access to relatively-honest news and information

TechnerVideo: Shortwave Radio Bandscan 1. Uploaded December 25, 2009.

http://youtu.be/pQtEttXN6yg

To me, the very troubling American foreign policy story unfolding in Moscow, described so well and with so much nuance by John O'Sullivan in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed and Kathy Lally's article in Thursday's Washington Post, is also one of the most confounding of the year.

Confounding because it manages to connect what I believe is a very misguided change in U.S. public policy and the perplexed public perceptions of millions of average Russians, who can't understand why we as a nation are seemingly helping Vladmir Putin, the architect of the frightening nightmare of a reality show they wake up to everyday under his misguided leadership.

Under Putin's manic and oversize ego, every week seems to bring fresh news and all-too obvious evidence of his callously using the instrument of the Russian government as a giant club to vent and exercise his personal pique -and reveal his loss of bearings.
See Spotlight on Russia blog by Vladimir Kara-Murza
Standing Up to Russia's 'Herod's Law'

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/vladimir-kara-murza/standing-russias-herods-law

I should admit at the outset here that part of my concern about what I perceive to be some very 

troubling developments is in large part shaped by my own past experience.

Unlike 99% of you who are reading this blog post now, I used to listen to (and depend upon) my high-quality Radio Shack shortwave radio for many HOURS a day.

I listened everyday to foreign news services, as well as the Voice of America and some of its foreign services, when I was in college at IU in those precious pre-Internet days of the early 1980's, and then later when I lived in Evanston and Wilmette, just a few blocks from the shores of Lake Michigan.

Radio Tirana, Sveriges Radio Int'l., Swiss Radio International, Radio Deutsche-Welle, BBC World Service, Radio Moscow, Radio Canada, Radio Nederland... 

I knew those broadcaster's musical intros as well as I knew the names of the people who lived on my dorm floor or on my apt. floor.

Actually, usually better... 

humanracer28 YouTube Channel video: Sveriges Radio/Radio Sweden jingle and ident. Uploaded March 18, 2010. http://youtu.be/_QhzQYKFOlU

English service now at: http://sverigesradio.se/sida/default.aspx?programid=2054

While I've been following it in bits and pieces over the past few months, mostly on blogs and in The Post, for reasons known only to themselves, most other Mainstream Media outlets have consciously chosen to ignore this story, like it's the spoiled mayonnaise left out on the picnic table at the huge Fourth of July get-together that the last person using it forgot to put back in the cooler when they were finished with it.

But they could find space for the Justin Bieber kidnapping & castration case that never happened.
LA Times - Justin Bieber murder plot: Tie, pruning shears, unrequited feelings

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/gossip/la-et-mg-just-bieber-murder-castration-plot-20121213,0,6636059.story

It goes without saying that this story has been completely ignored by the South Florida press, even though once upon a time, it would have been on the front page of what used to be the Miami Herald's halfway decent Sunday Op-Ed section in the 1970's and ''80's, but which as I have described here in some detail in many posts is now a four-page running joke.

And no, not just because they NEVER EVER include something compelling about some aspect of Broward County public policy in it, even though it's roughly 40% of this ADI.

The things is, as bad as the decisions and the policies described below have been, and they have been both counter-intuitive and terrible, it actually only seems to get worse and worse by the week from the point-of-view of responsible Americans who want to see the U.S. continue to shine a beam of relative honesty about the news into Russia -and falling-thru-the-cracks Belarus and Ukraine.

It highlights the dangerous minefields that can emerge when public policy intersects both the news media and pop culture and the people making the decision forget what is most important -the customer, not managements and the consultant's tastes.

But then there always someone in radio who wants to reinvent the "Morning Zoo," isn't there? 

The Washington Post

Radio Liberty loses its license in Moscow, and Russians raise voices in dismay

By Kathy Lally

Published: January 3, 2012

MOSCOW — American-financed Radio Liberty, which penetrated the Iron Curtain with news of the outside world during the Cold War, has been trying to join today’s information revolution — and the static crackling around its efforts has been loud enough to reach Washington.

The radio station, funded by Congress but independent of it, has embraced a digital future, dismissing 37 journalists as it downsized just before it lost its only local broadcasting license here in November, when a 2011 law preventing foreign ownership came into effect.

Read the rest of the story at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-radio-liberty-silenced-in-moscow/2013/01/03/7865d02e-55d0-11e2-bf3e-76c0a789346f_story.html

-----

Wall Street Journal

OPINION

Turmoil Over America's Radio Voice in Russia

The mass firing of Radio Liberty journalists prompted a protest by human-rights activists in Moscow.

By JOHN O'SULLIVAN

December 30, 2012, 7:43 p.m. ET

A few years ago Peter Pomeranzev, an Anglo-Russian journalist, found himself in a Moscow taxi where the radio was playing Radio Liberty, the U.S.-financed station that transmits uncensored broadcasts in Russian. As a boy Mr. Pomeranzev had been taken to hear his father, a Russian poet in London, deliver regular broadcasts to a closed Soviet Union. But that was another era. Why, in 2009, would a Moscow taxi driver listen to Radio Liberty?

Read the rest of the Op-Ed at:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323320404578211454109934528.html

Mitt Romney's summer of discontent: GOP discontent with the message AND the messenger 17 weeks before the election: "He wants to stick to biography. It's not enough." Romney's political instincts are increasingly seen as tone-deaf & defensive, not proactive

Journal Editorial Report on Fox News Channel, July 7, 2012. "Romney's tax confusion." Host: David Asman. Romney's faltering response to SCOTUS ruling on Obamacare over whether mandate is a middle-class tax increase or penalty has GOP activists concerned that the campaign is not nearly as savvy as it ought to be, and his jet-skiing on holiday in front of photographers has many saying his political instincts are tone-deaf, esp. when it comes to his family. Guests: James Freeman, assistant editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page and Mary O'Grady, member of The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/07/07/wsj_the_problem_with_romneys_campaign_is_mitt_romney.html
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1725168420001/


Mitt Romney's summer of discontent: GOP discontent with the message AND the messenger 17 weeks before the election: "He wants to stick to biography. It's not enough." Romney's political instincts are increasingly seen as tone-deaf & defensive, not proactive


Of course, a lot of these sorts of points also apply to South Florida pols.



George F. Will: Mitt Romney "Can't Get To The Presidency Running Out The Clock"
ABC News "This Week", July 8, 2012.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/07/08/george_will_romney_cant_get_to_the_presidency_running_out_the_clock.html


Charles Krauthammer: Mitt Romney "Hasn't Been Ideological Enough"
FOX News "Special Report", July 6, 2012.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/07/07/krauthammer_romney_hasnt_been_ideological_enough.html

Amazing! Curiosity's "Seven Minutes in Heaven"? No, its "Seven Minutes of Terror." WSJ video: The Technology Behind NASA's 'Curiosity' Landing on Mars on August 5th

Wall Street Journal Digital Network video: The Technology Behind NASA's 'Curiosity' Landing on Mars on August 5th. Posted July 2, 2012. http://youtu.be/47JanXuYlNo

Amazing! Curiosity's "Seven Minutes in Heaven"? No, its "Seven Minutes of Terror." Wall Street Journal video: The Technology Behind NASA's 'Curiosity' Landing on Mars on August 5th. 

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory News video: Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover Animation. Posted June 24, 2011.  http://youtu.be/P4boyXQuUIw

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory YouTube Channel: 
http://www.youtube.com/user/JPLnews/ 

So desperately wanting to belong: Is Elizabeth Warren's desire to finally find a sense of belonging what animated her use of race identity (politics) prior to the Massachusetts Senate race? It may very well be much more personal than you think once you know her back story

WSJ Opinion: Questions Over Elizabeth Warren's Claims of Native American Heritage Linger. May 3, 2012.  http://youtu.be/MN1lvOq2opA

So desperately wanting to belong: Is Elizabeth Warren's desire to finally find a sense of belonging what animated her use of race identity (politics) prior to the current Massachusetts Senate race? It may very well be much more personal than you think once you know her back story

Please see also:

Boston Herald

Elizabeth Warren: I just wanted to find others like me

By Hillary Chabot and Chris Cassidy

Thursday, May 3, 2012

http://bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1061128893&format=text

Boston Globe video: Scott Brown reacts to Elizabeth Warren's Native American status. April 30, 2012. http://youtu.be/2Kpu7yBpnUE

Massachusetts: Brown-Warren Senate Race Statistically Tied  

By Joshua Miller 

Posted at 10:56 a.m. on April 1

http://atr.rollcall.com/massachusetts-brown-warren-senate-race-statistically-tied/

Boston Globe video: The Back Story: Dina Rudick speaks with Globe reporter Noah Bierman about his profile on Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren

http://youtu.be/BV5VALnPRJM

FYI: per the mention in the video above, film and TV star James Garner was also from Oklahoma like Warren, and had even attended the same elementary school years prior.

The first in a series of profiles Noah Bierman is doing on Warren is here:

Once you read this, regardless of what you think about her politics, a lot of things will make a lot more sense in trying to figure her out.

Boston Globe

A girl who soared, but longed to belong.

Elizabeth Warren grew up amid the infinite expanse of Oklahoma, the finite expectations of her place and time, and financial pain at home. The lessons of those years still drive her.

By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff

February 12, 2012

Article at 

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/02/12/girl-who-soared-but-longed-belong/rx59B8AcqsZokclyJXkg7I/story.html

Video: An Oklahoma childhood: http://bcove.me/d5ojwpi2

Peggy Noonan thinks dithering & detached "O" has now become "creepy. "Obama increasingly comes across as devious and dishonest." She's right, of course.

Audiobook: What I Saw At the Revolution -A Political Life in the Reagan Era by Peggy Noonan. http://youtu.be/nDvF7SispPU

Peggy Noonan thinks dithering & detached "O" has now become "creepy. "Obama increasingly comes across as devious and dishonest." She's right, of course.

In this installment from the audio version of the book I bought the first day it was available in 1990 at The Trover Book Shop on Capitol Hill, where I spent hundreds of hours over the years, Peggy Noonan recounts the end of an era of innocence in the days before the 1960 Presidential election on Massapequa , Long Island.Noonan shoots and she scores with: "[Obama's] hermetically sealed inner circle, which operates with what seems an almost entirely abstract sense of America."


From personal experience I can tell you that when you are seated just a few feet away from her and she starts talking about these sorts of cultural issues in that lilting voice of hers, it's positively mesmerizing.

After reading/listening to her impart a little bit of what she saw and remembers that Fall of 1960 about what America was about, you know exactly why her criticism of Obama and his myopic cronies rings so true and causes so many heads to nod in agreement, which is precisely why I placed the audio here for you to listen to yourself. 
The proof is in the pudding.

And even the Europeans have finally come to see him for what he is, esp. the Poles.
Unreliable.


American Crossroads: Operation Hot Mic
http://youtu.be/-Czo5Vf8KZs


Wall Street Journal
Declarations
Not-So-Smooth Operator
Obama increasingly comes across as devious and dishonest.
By Peggy Noonan
Updated March 30, 2012, 6:35 p.m. ET,

Something's happening to President Obama's relationship with those who are inclined not to like his policies. They are now inclined not to like him. His supporters would say, "Nothing new there," but actually I think there is. I'm referring to the broad, stable, nonradical, non-birther right. Among them the level of dislike for the president has ratcheted up sharply the past few months.

It's not due to the election, and it's not because the Republican candidates are so compelling and making such brilliant cases against him. That, actually, isn't happening.

Readers comments at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303816504577312043447691520.html#articleTabs%3Dcomments
-----
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/168909-1 
C-SPAN: In Depth with Peggy Noonan. March 3, 2002. Three hours.
When this first aired, I made videocopies of it for friends overseas.

Archive of Noonan's WSJ columns at:
http://online.wsj.com/search/aggregate.html?article-doc-type={Declarations}

http://online.wsj.com/public/page/peggy-noonan.html

http://peggynoonan.com/ Read the rest of the column at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303816504577312043447691520.html

Location, location, location! Anna Kournikova sells her Home Sweet Home off Miami Beach for $7.4 million; video

Wall Street Journal video: Private Properties: WSJ correspondent Lauren Schuker on Anna Kournikova selling her home on Sunset Island off Miami Beach for $7.4 million. February 2, 2012. http://youtu.be/Z18liMWHHMI


Article at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204652904577195441423876730.html

Contrary to MSM's contention, while I'm neither an Undecided, Early, Hispanic or I-4 voter, it looks like I "may hold key" to 2012 Florida GOP Presidential Primary

Wall Street Journal video: Florida Tea Party to Vote Against Mitt Romney. January 31, 2012. http://youtu.be/6V1muYp0bGU

Contrary to MSM's contention, while I'm neither an Undecided, Early, Hispanic or I-4 voter, it looks like I "may hold key" to the 2012 Florida GOP Presidential Primary. I am definitely NOT undecided.

Before I leave to go cast my ballot in today's Florida primary, can I please make two quick points about ALL the very bad reporting that I've seen the past year, nationally and in Florida, along the lines of "What's new with the Tea Party?"

First, in a large grass-roots movement that is intentionally decentralized, in large part because so many of its supporters have regular lives, jobs and family responsibilities, and do NOT have a taxpayer-paid PR flack like members of Congress to arrange sit-downs with reporters, the news media's insistence that any story about the Tea Party, esp. one that is filmed, involve a conversation with a purported "leader" is especially problematic.

Problematic since 99.9% of the people within that particular state who support the movement in a general way, likely have never heard of this person interviewed.

And frankly, in many cases, it makes them wonder why if this bottom-up point is so well understood by them, and is actually part of its appeal to them and many others, i.e. effort over ego, why does this person in the news video -any video- seem so unaware of the central tenet of the movement and unwilling to say so during the interview.

Is it simply the way the piece is edited they wonder?

And so it is today in this Wall Street Journal video at the top of the post.

Why does the MSM persist in expending so much time and energy looking for someone that is simply not there? 

There's no Tea Party Oz behind the curtain.

Certainly many liberals want to believe that there is, despite all the evidence to the contrary,  because this fits into their mindset that,

a.) people who think differently than they do are clearly sheep being led around by someone else that the sheep are too stupid to see for themselves,

b.) they'll have a face in particular to hate and a person to write snarky comments about in newspaper and blog reader comments at 2 a.m., when they can't get their venom out of their system and fall asleep.

You see this more and more frequently all over the blogosphere and on YouTube, when you see the time stamp next to their remarks, that is to say, when they aren't posting meet-up times and locales for their local Occupy Wall Street protests, on news stories that have nothing to do with it.

Second, Tea Party supporters are the main reason that the GOP took over the U.S. House of Representatives in the election of November 2010, NOT some grass roots movement that desperately wanted to see much more of uninspiring, charisma-challenged, Cincinnati tear-jerker John Boehner appearing on Sunday morning TV chat shows.

In the process, they defeated many of the few remaining moderate House Democratic incumbents -some of whom I'd met- and elected many conservative Republicans in districts that weren't necessarily leaning GOP, but had gotten past the goal line because of a larger-than-expected Tea Party turnout.

This, of course, also had the practical effect of making the Democratic Party in Washington MUCH more liberal and less able to keep itself tethered to reality, given that the most liberal Democratic members of Congress also have long had the advantage of being able to run from gerrymandered districts.

Unlike most of the Dems who lost, who'd previously won elections in either Neutral or Leans GOP districts, but had somehow found a way to win, either personality, experience or campaign fundraising.

But that momentous election was just 15 months ago, not 15 years ago, yet judging by many of the news stories I've seen and read, there's literally an army of reporters and columnists who have been waiting to declare the Tea Party moment dead or dying, because...

Well, they can't point to anything specifically, but they keep telling us that they 'feel' it.

They were especially keen on mentioning this during the Fifteen Minutes of Occupy Wall Street a few months ago.

The problem is that there is not a national election for Tea Party supporters to weigh-in on for another nine months, and it's as predictable as hurricane warnings in late August down here that lots of well-known liberal columnists and Beltway pundits will be talking about the Tea Party being dead without any tangible evidence, other than them simply wanting it so.

But don't you actually need elections first before you do post-election analysis?

No, for them, their intuition is enough.

More on the dangers of the 'Joe Pa' cult of personality: WSJ's Reed Albergotti gets in-depth re Paterno's battles with PSU officials re punishment

Joe Paterno as Darth Sidious Time Lapse Painting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQa_DBRoNu0&feature=colike

I read this Wall Street Journal article about yet another aspect of Joe Paterno's longstanding attempt to control all aspects of what happens with the Penn State football team

-and to steamroll legitimate scrutiny by others- with rapt attention within minutes of it first appearing online.

Afterwards, I sent the link to just about everyone I know who'd appreciate what was really going on here: Paterno's real character and authoritarian tendencies being revealed, and PSU administrators not eager to get into a pissing contest with a sports icon, even when he was clearly wrong.

To me, this is not unlike what many outsiders and constant critics of him always wanted to believe were true about Bobby Knight but weren't, and when they leveled many of their unfounded criticisms of Coach Knight, many sportswriters and journalists used sainted ol' Joe Pa the Pious as the model for angelic probity.

The only way this could have been better would have been if there was video of kindly Joe Pa saying, "Boys will be boys."

Well, now we are all learning the truth about who really believed in holding everyone on the team accountable to one high standard -Coach Knight- and who wanted special (favorable) treatment and dispensations for his players -Coach Paterno.

Sure would be nice to hear some nationally-known sports writers finally admit they were 100% wrong before they retire for good.

Don't hold your breath!

Joe Paterno really DID believe that the Penn State football players he coached should be held to a lesser standard than the one regular PSU students were supposed to follow, even when they violated the law or ran afoul of school rules. For instance, this nugget after a number of player incidents receive serious push-back from school administrators who wanted one firmly understood standard for everyone:

The incident prompted Mr. Spanier to visit Dr. Triponey at her home. Dr. Triponey confirms he told her that Mr. Paterno had given him an ultimatum: Fire her, or Mr. Paterno would stop fund-raising for the school. She says Mr. Spanier told her that if forced to choose, he would choose her over the coach—but that he did not want to have to make that choice.

Excellent reporting that is long overdue!!!

Wall Street Journal

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

NOVEMBER 22, 2011

A Discipline Problem, Paterno Fought Penn State Official Over Punishment of Players

By Reed Albergotti

STATE COLLEGE, Pa.—Legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno clashed repeatedly with the university's former chief disciplinarian over how harshly to punish players who got into trouble, internal emails suggest, shedding new light on the school's effort to balance its reputation as a magnet for scholar-athletes with the demands of running a nationally dominant football program.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204443404577052073672561402.html

See Reed Albergotti's answers to reader questions about this article, here:

http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2011/11/22/chat-send-us-your-questions-on-paterno/

Wednesday's follow-up to this article is:

Two Views on Administrator

Some at Penn State Call Ex-Official Courageous, Others Say She Micromanaged

By Reed Albergotti and Rachel Bachman

The former Pennsylvania State University administrator who clashed with football coach Joe Paterno over player discipline was seen by supporters during her time at the school as a courageous leader but by critics as a micromanager of student groups.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204443404577054632030945696.html

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: A Perspectives on Leadership, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library; Majority in WSJ reader poll support 2012 run

Reagan Foundation video: A Perspectives on Leadership Forum with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. September 27, 2011, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

http://youtu.be/apledlOUVfs

Wall Street Journal

After Christie Speech, the Answer Is Still 'No'

By Jonathan Weisman

September 28, 2011

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delivered a muscular plea for national unity in a speech Tuesday at the Ronald Reagan presidential library. Although he and those close to him have said repeatedly he won't run for president, the California appearance nonetheless stoked speculation he would enter the Republican nomination contest.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576597371455805398.html

FYI: Wall Street Journal reader's poll as of 2:11 a.m. September 29, 2011

Should New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie run for the Republican presidential nomination?

2108 total votes with 66.4% responding that Gov. Christie should run

http://online.wsj.com/community/groups/election-day-684/topics/should-new-jersey-gov-chris?dj_vote=16939

Newark Star-Ledger

Gov. Christie speech reactions: Candidates and pundits sound off

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/09/gov_christie_speech_reactions.html

-----

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/

President Reagan Foundation http://www.reaganfoundation.org

Sobriety & seriousness for 7.46 miles was the NEW difficult task for some fans of the annual of 'Bay to Breakers' race in San Francisco

Wall Street Journal video: Drinking and Running?

WSJ correspondent Geoffrey Fowler reports from San Francisco on the efforts by organizers of the annual 'Bay to Breakers' race to clean-up its image this year by instituting some prohibitions on alcohol and imaginative floats on wheels during the race. But some traditions die harder than others.

http://youtu.be/j-SITi_xtts

Ironically, I'm watching the Marlins at Giants ballgame on TV while posting this, as the Marlins go for the three-game sweep over the reigning World Champs and go ten games above .500.

http://zazzlebaytobreakers.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/WSJDigitalNetwork

Departing FL-17 Rep. Kendrick Meek gave his congressional staff an EXTRA $252,978 in salaries last quarter compared to previous pay periods

On his way out the door, departing FL-17 Rep. Kendrick Meek gave his congressional staff an EXTRA $252,978 in salaries last quarter compared to previous pay periods.
Ninety-six members of Congress did this, but on this one issue -this issue!- Meek finally chose to be a leader!

According to LegiStorm, http://www.legistorm.com/, Rep. Kendrick Meek was one of the two largest-spending departing Members dispensing bonuses to staffers.
Does that include his former staffer Alexander Lewy, now a Hallandale Beach City Commissioner, but for part of that time period, a political candidate and Meek's Deputy Director of Special Operations?
Could be, why don't you ask him?

Like any of this really surprises me -or you!

At LegiStorm's blog, they headline the story this way:
Exodus in the House lets staff bonuses flow
http://www.legistorm.com/blog/exodus-in-the-house-lets-staff-bonuses-flow.html

Salaries for time period: 10/01/10 - 12/31/10:
http://www.legistorm.com/member/371/Rep_Kendrick_Meek_FL/73.html

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Wall Street Journal
POLITICS
March 7, 2011
Big Payday for Some Hill Staffers
By Louise Radnofsky

Departing members of the House of Representatives awarded millions of dollars in extra pay to aides as they closed down their offices, according to lawmakers' spending records.

The 96 lawmakers paid their employees $6.7 million, or 31%, more in the fourth quarter of 2010 than they did, on average, in the first three quarters of the year.

That's about twice as much as the 16% increase awarded by lawmakers who returned to the 112th Congress, according to LegiStorm, an organization that tracks congressional salaries.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703362804576184903976465110.html

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http://www.legistorm.com/

http://www.legistorm.com/blog/exodus-in-the-house-lets-staff-bonuses-flow.html

The National Journal's Yochi Dreazen on the new garrison state of Washington, D.C.: “Walled Off Washington"

Commemorative plaque located by the Document Door in the United States Capitol
IN HONOR AND REMEMBRANCE OF THE HEROISM DISPLAYED BY OFFICER JACOB JOSEPH CHESTNUT AND DETECTIVE JOHN MICHAEL GIBSON UNITED STATES CAPITOL POLICE WHO, ON JULY 24, 1998, HERE BRAVELY GAVE THEIR LIVES DEFENDING THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL
DEDICATED BY THE HONORABLE J. DENNIS HASTERT, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND THE HONORABLE STROM THURMOND, PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Capitol_shooting_incident_%281998%29

At the exact time of the 1998 incident above -near Tom Delay's office- I was over in the Rayburn Building across the street.


Former Wall Street Journal Military Correspondent Yochi Dreazen, now in his sixth month at The National Journal, http://nationaljournal.com/ has a good story on the philosophical and public policy debate on personal security among the official Washington set that's only gotten more hysterical following last week's shooting in Tucson, as that perpetual Inside the Beltway debate over ease-of-access to elected officials vs. adequate security safeguards, and the well-known arguments that underpin the two sides, are both re-evaluated.

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The National Journal
ANALYSIS
Walled-Off Washington

How free can a society be when its elected officials are kept further and further away from those they represent?
By Yochi J. Dreazen
Monday, January 10, 2011 | 2:55 p.m.
Updated at 3:07 p.m. on January 10.

It’s hard to remember, but Washington wasn’t always a city of walls.

Thomas Jefferson held a public reception at the White House after his second inaugural, and citizens were able to freely wander through the building to personally ask presidents like Abraham Lincoln for jobs and other favors. Harry Truman took long walks around Washington each morning protected by just a handful of Secret Service agents. Capitol Hill had no roadblocks or barricades, and cars and trucks passed directly in front of the White House as they drove down Pennsylvania Avenue, one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares.

Today, those seem like postcards from a forgotten era.

Read the rest of the story at: http://nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/washington-not-always-a-city-of-walls-20110110

Frankly, there are some people I can think of on Capitol Hill who have long believed that the public already had TOO MUCH access to them and their staffers, yet had no problem in meeting lobbyists in questionable public places where the security was lax to say the least, and where all kinds of things could happen if someone were so inclined.

I've personally seen questionable personal behavior at the area's three main airports among well-known elected and appointed officials -and the press- that was really over-the-top, and while perhaps not exactly TMZ-worthy, was NOT at all what the constituents back home, or even the top echelons of their Dept would want to see or know anything about.

Okay for South Florida, perhaps, but not among the professional institutional set.

Plus, there are SO MANY sieves in security up there, it's ridiculous.
Anyone who has worked there for any length of time can recite all sorts of specific places and circumstances where something could be done simply and quickly with few the wiser.

After 9/11, some effort was made to change some of these places, but others, well, not as much as you'd expect.

When you live just five blocks from the U.S. Capitol, as I did for a while my first year in Washington, you think about all sorts of things, and when you see the U.S. Capitol Police and The Supreme Court Police everyday, security and safety is on that list, especially when you are walking back at night, after work, from your daily walk over to The Washington Monument and back, listening to either talk radio or NPR.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_Police

I personally believe that elected representatives who have unreasonable fears should simply hire their own security at their own expense, not ours. If you don't like the working conditions, there's always somebody happy to take your job.
You are completely replaceable.

Many new congressmen and staffers come to town under the mistaken belief that The U.S. Capitol Police are like White House-detailed Secret Service agents and are ready to take a bullet for them. They're not!
http://www.uscapitolpolice.gov/home.php

Having gotten to know many of them over the years because I tended to go to the same floors in the same House and Senate building because of my job and interests, and there are only so many places to cross the street, I can tell you that, collectively, their worst fears were very stupid congressmen -or even stupider staffers- who put themselves in harms way by their foolish personal behavior and choices, and who seem to expect the Capital Police to extricate them.

Representatives who refuse to use prudent judgment or who continually cause problems become quickly known among the police force. Then they become quickly well-known to the media and the general public.

Former Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney is perhaps the most obvious example I can think of, and it bears mentioning here that even among the female cops, there's a belief that, for whatever reason, the female Reps are esp. reluctant to follow the simple rules that everyone else MUST follow.

Nobody cares that you used to be the mayor of Dog Patch, ran a Fortune 500 company or were formerly the House Minority Leader in dopey Florida.
You are a dime a dozen!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189553,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/washington/20brfs-010.html?_r=1&ref=cynthiaamckinney

Consider this: based on what we now know about the depth of his myriad problems with substance abuse and anger control, do you honestly think that Patrick Kennedy, now a former Congressman, never drove his car while not under control on the side-streets near the Capitol office buildings? Really?

http://www.wusa9.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=49033 http://www.uscapitolpolice.gov/pressreleases/2006/pr_05-05-06.php

The first thing I thought of when he was arrested was that he was very lucky that he never hit anyone at night, because a D.C. jury would have made an example out of him in a way that would simply not ever happen back in Rhode Island.

See also:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/11/sen-leahy-sees-a-downside-to-more-security/

http://nationaljournal.com/