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Lew nails it far better than I. The cult-like following, unjustified by talent, accomplishment, capability, vision or grasp of the issues surrounding Jaime Herrera remains the biggest political mystery of my professional life.
There's no there, there. And otherwise sane people have lost their collective minds over this girl for reasons that quite simply escape me.
Please read Lew's take on this if you haven't already. It's a sad commentary on a segment of political support that is shameful in every respect.
Cross posted at Jaime Herrera Watch.
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Thursday, April 08, 2010
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Major in juvenile delinqincy at the University of Oregon
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I've had a thing or two to say about Duckville, which resembles nothing so much as the football team at the juvenile camp immortalized in "Gridiron Gang."
Well, there are a few differences.
Like the fact that the coaching staff in the movie was more motivated by the positive effects of individual hard work, football teamwork and sacrifice for the greater good than the "winning at any price" crock that is Oregon football.
How many arrests this year? How many crimes? These, of course, are just the issues we know about. There's no telling how much has been swept under the rug... or where the pay offs have gone.
Well, it's frequently said that the fish rots from the head down.
Mike Belloti is an Oregon sports icon. I believe he's failed the school and failed his athletes by not stepping in as athletic director and taking the approrpiate steps to deal with the criminal element of the football team.
And then, to accept a $2.3 million dollar goodbye gift... almost like something from the hearts and flowers fund, is unimaginable in scope and justification.
There is no excuse for paying Bellloti this money. None. And that, as the administration of the school tells us, the money is private-sourced instead of from the taxpayers neither excuses the expenditure nor provides any justification.
But then, the criminal acts of players from Blount on down to Masoli has proven it to be next to impossible to be held properly accountable for their acts in the form of getting kicked off the team and out of school.
Why would anyone expect accountability for this buffoonery? Belotti's ability as a coach cannot be denied. As a judge of character... well, my spaniel does a much better job.
The stench of the Ducks football team will waft over the Pac 10 for years to come.
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I've had a thing or two to say about Duckville, which resembles nothing so much as the football team at the juvenile camp immortalized in "Gridiron Gang."
Well, there are a few differences.
Like the fact that the coaching staff in the movie was more motivated by the positive effects of individual hard work, football teamwork and sacrifice for the greater good than the "winning at any price" crock that is Oregon football.
How many arrests this year? How many crimes? These, of course, are just the issues we know about. There's no telling how much has been swept under the rug... or where the pay offs have gone.
Well, it's frequently said that the fish rots from the head down.
Mike Belloti is an Oregon sports icon. I believe he's failed the school and failed his athletes by not stepping in as athletic director and taking the approrpiate steps to deal with the criminal element of the football team.
And then, to accept a $2.3 million dollar goodbye gift... almost like something from the hearts and flowers fund, is unimaginable in scope and justification.
There is no excuse for paying Bellloti this money. None. And that, as the administration of the school tells us, the money is private-sourced instead of from the taxpayers neither excuses the expenditure nor provides any justification.
But then, the criminal acts of players from Blount on down to Masoli has proven it to be next to impossible to be held properly accountable for their acts in the form of getting kicked off the team and out of school.
Why would anyone expect accountability for this buffoonery? Belotti's ability as a coach cannot be denied. As a judge of character... well, my spaniel does a much better job.
The stench of the Ducks football team will waft over the Pac 10 for years to come.
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The stupidity of threats against elected officials, (Death threat against Murray.)
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It takes a full-blown idiot to threaten to harm an elected (or any other, for that matter) official because you might disagree with their vote or their position.
We have precisely one place and one place only where we can acceptably "attack" someone duly elected by the people of this country, and that's at the ballot box.
God knows that I can't stand that woman's politics. But nothing she has done is worthy of death threats (or any kind of threat, come to think of it) in return. Don't like her positions? Then this November, use the opportunity our Constitution provides and vote her butt out.
But no threats. No violence.
I have sworn an oath to protect this Nation and the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Threaten any elected official, and that makes you a domestic enemy of mine and millions of others.
Our situation sucks. But threatening, assaulting, burning, shooting, or any other injury by those who see their way as the ONLY way will just make it worse.
Correcting the course of the ship of state cannot and will not be done through violence. The Constitution is the thing, you see, and while I understand that many out there believe our president and our federal government use it as some variation of toilet paper, that does NOT excuse the use of violence as a part of your disagreement with those policies.
Let's pull our hotels out of our alphas people... and knock this stuff off.
.
It takes a full-blown idiot to threaten to harm an elected (or any other, for that matter) official because you might disagree with their vote or their position.
We have precisely one place and one place only where we can acceptably "attack" someone duly elected by the people of this country, and that's at the ballot box.
God knows that I can't stand that woman's politics. But nothing she has done is worthy of death threats (or any kind of threat, come to think of it) in return. Don't like her positions? Then this November, use the opportunity our Constitution provides and vote her butt out.
But no threats. No violence.
I have sworn an oath to protect this Nation and the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Threaten any elected official, and that makes you a domestic enemy of mine and millions of others.
Our situation sucks. But threatening, assaulting, burning, shooting, or any other injury by those who see their way as the ONLY way will just make it worse.
Correcting the course of the ship of state cannot and will not be done through violence. The Constitution is the thing, you see, and while I understand that many out there believe our president and our federal government use it as some variation of toilet paper, that does NOT excuse the use of violence as a part of your disagreement with those policies.
Let's pull our hotels out of our alphas people... and knock this stuff off.
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Obama invites non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction attack, plus double miles if they use American Express.
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Time and time again, our president has proven himself to be a clueless idiot in almost every area of both foreign and domestic policy.
Yesterday, he effectively sent out an invitation for those who would destroy us to come on in and do it.
For some not paying attention, that sounds a bit over-the-top. But one of the main reasons this country has been mostly safe from these attacks has been, I believe, our overwhelming nuclear deterrence.
And much of that deterrence was taken off the table yesterday by the ACORN-in-Chief, who even after all these months STILL doesn't get that most nations around the world will only respect strength instead of weakness.
So, this simple moron announced to the world yesterday that only SOME efforts to destroy this country and our 330,000,000 people qualify for nuclear attack response.
From the fringe left paper of record, the New York Times:
With a little editing, this is what that paragraph REALLY means:
What's a few tens of millions of casualties and the crippling of this country to this moron?
Based on his most recent babble, it ain't much. And I'm just giddy at the prospects that those who would destroy us view this most recent collapse of common sense as precisely the kind of gesture from this empty suit that will make us weaker... while making them stronger.
Aren't you?
.
Time and time again, our president has proven himself to be a clueless idiot in almost every area of both foreign and domestic policy.
Yesterday, he effectively sent out an invitation for those who would destroy us to come on in and do it.
For some not paying attention, that sounds a bit over-the-top. But one of the main reasons this country has been mostly safe from these attacks has been, I believe, our overwhelming nuclear deterrence.
And much of that deterrence was taken off the table yesterday by the ACORN-in-Chief, who even after all these months STILL doesn't get that most nations around the world will only respect strength instead of weakness.
So, this simple moron announced to the world yesterday that only SOME efforts to destroy this country and our 330,000,000 people qualify for nuclear attack response.
From the fringe left paper of record, the New York Times:
For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use
nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with
biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.
With a little editing, this is what that paragraph REALLY means:
For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing to encourage ourSo, using the scenario of the Tom Clancy books "Executive Orders and "Rainbow 6," some country paying lip service to a piece of paper that doesn't even involve biological, chemical or internet attacks (and face it, Chinese hackers have been coming after us for years without any known retaliation of any kind) can feel free from the fear of the past penalties that could be invoked for using non-nuclear weapons of mass-destruction.
enemies to attack us if the attack is launched from nonnuclear states that
are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they
attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a
crippling cyberattack.
What's a few tens of millions of casualties and the crippling of this country to this moron?
Based on his most recent babble, it ain't much. And I'm just giddy at the prospects that those who would destroy us view this most recent collapse of common sense as precisely the kind of gesture from this empty suit that will make us weaker... while making them stronger.
Aren't you?
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Sunday, April 04, 2010
Why is Dino Rossi working to re-elect Patty Murray?
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A while or so back, I asked the almost rhetorical question: Will Rossi's intransigence cost the GOP a US Senate pick up?
At the time, it was more a matter of confusion about what was motivating him in this bizarre position he keeps holding on to: that he doesn't need to campaign until May or June.
Today, a few thoughts occurred to me in the wake of the news that former Rossi stalwarts and former chiefs of staff to Slade Gorton Tony Williams and Jay Vander Stoep won't work for Rossi if he were to announce... Williams going so far as to hold a fund raiser for Murray, an event that most would have felt to be as possible as being hit by an astroid.
So, the "Why?" questions kept going off in my head.
As I wrote 3 weeks or so ago:
That has been his plan all along.
Dino Rossi will NOT be announcing for the US Senate in Washington State. Dino Rossi is deliberately doing this to protect Patty Murray's re-election.
You see, Rossi's alleged popularity would not REQUIRE him to campaign at this point. But announcing and filing with the FEC IS a requirement to accept donations.
So, why not do that?
Why not just announce; file, set up a small office with a couple of people in it, and do nothing else except to pick up the checks?
Right now, a lot of people won't donate to candidates in the senate race because they're concerned about what Dino Will Do.
Dino knows this. Dino also knows, as I or anyone else knows, that there is absolutely NO advantage of any kind to waiting several months while Murray puts, say, $15 million away before he were to announce. None.
But if he fails to announce until filing; or fails to file, period, Murray will have built up a monumental amount of cash that no one else running could possibly hope to even come close to achieving.
Rossi's foot is on the fund raising throat of this US Senate campaign. If he waits too long to lift that foot, he will even strangle himself. But by keeping his foot on that throat, he certainly knows he's strangling everybody else.
By itself, this could have been the product of a massive, out of control ego, a character trait that Rossi has shown in the past.
When added to the facts that waiting makes no strategic political sense and is, in fact, far more crippling to all involved, including Rossi, than announcing last February; when added to the fact that Tony WIlliams held a fund raiser for Patty Murray and that Jay Vander Stoep has indicated he won't work for a Rossi campaign (Very easy to do when Jay most likely knows there won't BE a Rossi campaign) it tends to add up to an ugly, deliberate effort to sabotage any chance we have to get rid of the USS Patty Murray and replace her with someone who won't be an uber-corrupt leftist Obama sycophant.
In spending, literally, days trying to figure this out, there were only so many possible scenarios. When you strip the tenuous partisan element away from it, only one scenario emerges.
Rossi will not run; he knows he will not run; and he's doing this on purpose to keep anyone else from making a run, either; not only taking them out of the race, but making sure that these other candidates running for the Senate cannot resurrect themselves from a close loss as competition for his next run for governor.
No other scenario of any kind makes strategic political sense.
If you're among the tens of thousands scratching your head as to why an otherwise bright candidate would engage in childish, ego-centric and dangerous political behavior, I would ask you to consider the possibility that the main reason is he's doing it on purpose, fully knowing that his actions cripple any other possible outcome but a likely Murray victory.
In 2004, I strongly supported Rossi. In 2008, I opposed him because of a wide variety of reasons that had to do with, among other things, his bizarre position of using tens of millions of tax payer dollars to support keeping the Sonics in Seattle.
But now, I see Rossi as another Herrera type. And that can't be good.
.
A while or so back, I asked the almost rhetorical question: Will Rossi's intransigence cost the GOP a US Senate pick up?
At the time, it was more a matter of confusion about what was motivating him in this bizarre position he keeps holding on to: that he doesn't need to campaign until May or June.
Today, a few thoughts occurred to me in the wake of the news that former Rossi stalwarts and former chiefs of staff to Slade Gorton Tony Williams and Jay Vander Stoep won't work for Rossi if he were to announce... Williams going so far as to hold a fund raiser for Murray, an event that most would have felt to be as possible as being hit by an astroid.
So, the "Why?" questions kept going off in my head.
As I wrote 3 weeks or so ago:
If he waits until May and then tells us "No," the crippling delay will have made it effectively impossible to be even remotely competitive in the important money race against Murray, who will have an open field when it comes to fund raising while everyone else stews in their juices because Rossi was too arrogant to commit in anything approaching a timely manner one way or the other.And that was the answer, right there.
That has been his plan all along.
Dino Rossi will NOT be announcing for the US Senate in Washington State. Dino Rossi is deliberately doing this to protect Patty Murray's re-election.
You see, Rossi's alleged popularity would not REQUIRE him to campaign at this point. But announcing and filing with the FEC IS a requirement to accept donations.
So, why not do that?
Why not just announce; file, set up a small office with a couple of people in it, and do nothing else except to pick up the checks?
Right now, a lot of people won't donate to candidates in the senate race because they're concerned about what Dino Will Do.
Dino knows this. Dino also knows, as I or anyone else knows, that there is absolutely NO advantage of any kind to waiting several months while Murray puts, say, $15 million away before he were to announce. None.
But if he fails to announce until filing; or fails to file, period, Murray will have built up a monumental amount of cash that no one else running could possibly hope to even come close to achieving.
Rossi's foot is on the fund raising throat of this US Senate campaign. If he waits too long to lift that foot, he will even strangle himself. But by keeping his foot on that throat, he certainly knows he's strangling everybody else.
By itself, this could have been the product of a massive, out of control ego, a character trait that Rossi has shown in the past.
When added to the facts that waiting makes no strategic political sense and is, in fact, far more crippling to all involved, including Rossi, than announcing last February; when added to the fact that Tony WIlliams held a fund raiser for Patty Murray and that Jay Vander Stoep has indicated he won't work for a Rossi campaign (Very easy to do when Jay most likely knows there won't BE a Rossi campaign) it tends to add up to an ugly, deliberate effort to sabotage any chance we have to get rid of the USS Patty Murray and replace her with someone who won't be an uber-corrupt leftist Obama sycophant.
In spending, literally, days trying to figure this out, there were only so many possible scenarios. When you strip the tenuous partisan element away from it, only one scenario emerges.
Rossi will not run; he knows he will not run; and he's doing this on purpose to keep anyone else from making a run, either; not only taking them out of the race, but making sure that these other candidates running for the Senate cannot resurrect themselves from a close loss as competition for his next run for governor.
No other scenario of any kind makes strategic political sense.
If you're among the tens of thousands scratching your head as to why an otherwise bright candidate would engage in childish, ego-centric and dangerous political behavior, I would ask you to consider the possibility that the main reason is he's doing it on purpose, fully knowing that his actions cripple any other possible outcome but a likely Murray victory.
In 2004, I strongly supported Rossi. In 2008, I opposed him because of a wide variety of reasons that had to do with, among other things, his bizarre position of using tens of millions of tax payer dollars to support keeping the Sonics in Seattle.
But now, I see Rossi as another Herrera type. And that can't be good.
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