Excellent video by NRO's Jim Geragthy on the 32 House Democrats who are desperately doing all they can to switch from "Yes" to "No" on the Health Care Bill to save their skins. After all, as Jim points out, this is all about avoiding the NIT next year.
That would be the "Not In Office Tournament" taking place in 2011.
For years, ESPN has been making feature-length bio films on its network. For the first time since starting these projects, the worldwide leader in sports has bagged an Oscar-winner for one of these projects as Robert DeNiro has signed on to the network's planned bio of Vince Lombardi and the Packers Glory years.
No word if this movie will first hit theaters or make its premiere on ESPN.
Robert De Niro is set to play Vince Lombardi in an upcoming movie.
ESPN announced Tuesday that the Academy Award-winning actor has agreed to play the Hall of Fame coach in the film it is developing with Andell Entertainment and the NFL.
“Lombardi” will chronicle the years in which he transformed the Green Bay Packers from the NFL’s worst team to league champions. It is tentatively scheduled to be released in 2012 during the weekend between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl.
Screenwriter Eric Roth, who won an Oscar for “Forrest Gump,” has also signed on to the project. De Niro’s Tribeca Productions will join the producing group. A director has yet to be chosen.
Caught this on Sunday when I saw "Alice in Wonderland" in 3D, so admittedly, after seeing this trailer in 3D, I have to probably try to catch the feature in 3D later this year as well.
I'd have gone with a YouTube embed, but for some reason Disney is being very protective of its content there.
Yeah, this was probably something the Democratic Party of Wisconsin didn't want to see the very day the Dan Bice column on the Milwaukee Co. District Attorney's office complaining about slow police action from the Milwaukee Police Department on fraud cases came out. Surprisingly, there's very little in a press release from them on the matter currently.
Congrats to Attorney General Van Hollen, who's on the case.
Five Wisconsin residents have been charged with criminal counts of voter fraud in the November 2008 general election, state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced Monday.
Two of those charged - Maria Miles, 36, of Milwaukee, and Kevin Clancy, 26, of Racine - worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the embattled community organizing group.
"The complaint alleges that Miles and Clancy submitted multiple voter registration applications for the same individuals, and also were part of a scheme in which they and other (special registration deputies) registered each other to vote multiple times in order to meet voter registration quotas imposed by ACORN," the Van Hollen news release says.
Both were charged with one felony count.
ACORN could not be reached for comment Monday.
Also charged were a couple - Herbert Gunka, 60, and Suzanne Gunka, 54, both of Milwaukee - for supposedly double voting in November 2008, once absentee and once at the polls.
Michael Henderson, 40, was charged with two felony counts of being a felon who cast a ballot even though he was still on probation. The Milwaukee man was convicted in 2005 in Rock County with two felonies for bail jumping and one disorderly conduct misdemeanor.
He was sentenced to five years' probation.
A felony for voter fraud carries a maximum penalty of up to 3 1/2 years behind bars and a $10,000 fine. All five individuals are scheduled to appear in court on April 20.
The charges were brought as part of the Milwaukee Election Fraud Task Force.
It's too early to suspect the Milwaukee Police Department is intentionally dragging its feet. Let's be honest with ourselves, would you rather have the police chasing a serial murder or a serial vote defrauder? But the attitude coming from the department -- especially in the past when it became known they were not pleased with the "early release" of a report on the 2004 election aftermath -- is not welcoming to those of us who wish to see clean, honest, and untampered elections in the Badger State.
In the past, I've listed a number of legit reforms which the state should consider. Sadly, with the legislative session about to come to an end in less than two months before the next election, nothing's going to come out of it both for scheduling reasons, and an almost ideological commitment to the flawed status quote by Democrats in Madison and Milwaukee.
Oh, this little moment of media puffery last night on Channel 11 in Green Bay won't come back to haunt the guy this November at all.
<sarcasm>Not. One. Bit.</sarcasm>
"Let me put it this way: you're asking whether or not I trust the United States Senate, where they came up with a deal for Nebraska that the other states didn't get; where Louisiana would get a special deal. No, I don't trust the U.S. Senate," said Rep. Steve Kagen (D-8th District). "So I think I'd like to have a vote on something very meaningful."
Kagen said the health care bill should be split up into smaller bills.
"I have made the case to the speaker and also to the White House that we should take small pieces, small bites," Kagen said. "In the practice of medicine, I can't give a child a big pill. What do we do? We cut it up into pieces. Let's find things we can agree on."
Let's just go with the facts here shall we?
1) Has Nancy Pelosi listened to Kagen one iota in the past during the health care bill debate? Um, No.
2) Does it appear that Kagen is trying to cloud the picture as to what is the reconciliation process need to be accomplished (i.e., House passes the Senate bill, President signs it, then a "corrected bill" passes both the House and Senate by simple majority votes)? Likely.
3) Will Kagen be a "No" vote on what is the first step of reconciliation, which he has said publicly he backs? That also be a No.
If the reporter, Robert Hornacek of WLUK Fox 11 bought what Kagen spewed, he seriously needs to get his head examined. When it's time for the vote, Kagen will be a solid "Yes."
See the video for yourself here:
According to the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, the American Future Fund will become the latest independent political group to run an ad on health care targeting Wisconsin's Steve Kagen (D-Appleton). Kagen will not be alone, he's one of 18 Democratic Congressman in toss-up seats the group is airing the ad on for a cost of $900,000.
It sure looks like it's going to be a good Christmas for the sales guys in Green Bay television and radio.
With President Obama's March 18 deadline to pass health care reform through Congress rapidly approaching, the American Future Fund, a conservative outside group, is spending $900,000 on television ads in 18 Democratic-held districts calling on members to scrap the current plan. The ads decry the "massive spending" and "backroom deals" including the now infamous "Cornhusker Kickback" in the legislation and quote President Obama's "lipstick on a pig" comments during the campaign. "Tell Congress to start over and get health care right," says the ad's narrator.
The districts that AFF is targeting include: Arizona's 1st, Arizona's 5th, Arizona's 8th, Indiana's 2nd, Indiana's 8th, Indiana's 9th, North Carolina's 2nd, North Dakota at large, Nevada's 3rd, New York's 24th, Ohio's 1st, Ohio's 6th, Ohio's 13th, Pennsylvania's 3rd, Pennsylvania's 10th, Wisconsin's 8th, West Virginia's 1st and West Virginia's 3rd. All 18 Democratic members targeted voted for the health care bill when it passed the House last November; eleven of the 18 districts went for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008. (McCain carried 49 total districts currently represented by Democrats.) The AFF ads are almost certainly the leading edge of a cavalcade of spending by independent groups -- both conservative and liberal -- in the run-up to the vote.
Kagen doesn't qualify for the moniker of "District carried by McCain." In fact, Obama won the 8th (and much of Wisconsin) by a pretty respectable margin. Kagen, however, received less votes than Obama did in his own re-election fight.
Here's a version of the ad targeting Earl Pomeroy (ND-At Large), the only difference from this ad and the Kagen ad will probably be the card and call information at the end.
Meant to talk about this when I saw the press release on Saturday or Sunday, but wanted to point it out. I have no idea who Dr. Marc Trager is -- in fact, a lot of people apparently don't -- but I applaud his thinking here.
Eighth District Congressional Candidate, Green Bay Physician, and former U.S. Air Force Major, Dr. Marc Trager presented an endorsement pledge at the Republican 8th Congressional District Caucus, calling on all Republican candidates to endorse the winner of the September 14th primary within 48 hours of the official announcement.
“The purpose of this pledge is to unify the party,” Dr. Trager said. “We must support one another and work together to help defeat Rep. Kagen in November. I urge the other candidates to join me in this effort.”
Rep. Kagen has not officially announced his re-election bid, but is expected to run for a third term in Congress.
“There are only seven weeks between the primary and general election, and the 8th District candidates must unite and put their personal interests aside,” Dr. Trager said. We must keep in mind at the end of the day, the goal is to defeat Steve Kagen.”
You have a six-way primary fight going on up there, with currently no one really rising out of the crowd, so until you have a leader in the pack, you have to consider it is a possibility that the winner of the WI-08 GOP Primary could win with only 16.68% of the vote. (Though I think that's highly-unlikely.)
Some sort of "Unity Pledge," while hokey-sounding ensures that there shouldn't be any hard or bitter feelings from the losers of the primary (Terri McCormick, I'm looking at you) as all sides combine to join with the eventual winner against Kagen.
Interesting blog post by the Journal Sentinel's Alan Brosuk on Milwaukee Mayor (and Democratic Candidate for Governor) Tom Barrett and what he sees as the biggest hurdle when it comes to truly reforming the finances of the Milwaukee Public School (MPS) System: High-prices health insurance.
Barrett is still pushing for a mayoral takeover of MPS, even though the idea seems all but dead in the Wisconsin State Legislature -- controlled by Democrats. The idea a victim of massive Democratic in-fighting and Republicans unwilling to back the idea for both political reasons and Barrett's own history of antipathy towards MPS and open hostility towards the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program in his tenure as Mayor.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is calling on Milwaukee Public Schools and union leaders to work quickly on ways to get more MPS employees to take less expensive health insurance.
In an interview, Barrett said, "I'm calling on the school district, on the School Board, on the representatives of the employees, to meet as quickly as possible to see if they can find a solution to stave off" what lies ahead for MPS, including projections of cuts in hundreds of teaching jobs and increases in average class size.
"I believe a big component of that is putting more people into the lower cost health care plan," he said. MPS offers two health plans, and about 80% of employees take one that costs $7,380 a year more for a family than the other plan.
Barrett put the issue in personal terms: His wife, Kris, is an MPS teacher. Barrett said that when he became mayor, they considered both MPS plans, as well as the city's plan. They decided that the lower cost MPS plan was equal to the city's policy. MPS offers $500 to employees who decline insurance. So the Barretts took the city plan and the $500.
"I felt the lower cost plan was good enough for my own children," Barrett said.
He said he understands that health insurance is a crucial and emotional issue for MPS employees.
"I'm not trying to take away their insurance," he said. "But I am interested in doing everything I can to make sure we do not have an increase in the average class size per teacher. I don't want to see hundreds of teachers and other employees from the school district laid off."
First of all, let me applaud Barrett's stance on this issue. I just however wonder if he's going to stick with it once he has that behind-closed-door meeting with the powers-that-be at the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC). After all, they're about to lose their wholly-owned subsidiary in Governor Jim Doyle and they're going to need a new champion soon. Barrett, naturally fits that bill.
Recall of course, that the bulk of health insurance for teachers in the state of Wisconsin is provided by WEA Trust; which is nothing more than a side company set up and owned by the very teachers union. Has anyone asked if Barrett; as Governor, going to allow for school districts to shop around for more affordable health insurance packages? Or is he going to bend as soon as WEAC tells him to shut up, as they do ever Democrat running for Governor?
Only time will tell. And an aside, I'm still waiting for that post on WEA Trust's exploding costs from all the folks who've raised holy hell about California seeing a 39% increase from its sole insurance provider. Perhaps there's a lesson in allowing people to shop around in there?
