I LikeStockton: August 2015

Monday, August 31, 2015

Walker goes full Forrest Gump, says Canadian border wall is “legitimate issue for us to look at”

Update: Readers who hunger for more mockery of Scott Walker should check out the #CanadaWall tag on twitter. ————————————– Today on Meet the Press, Scott Walker said that a border wall between the United States and Canada is “a legitimate issue for us to look at”. I expect his campaign will tomorrow release a “clarifying” more »

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Walker goes full Forrest Gump, says Canadian border wall is “legitimate issue for us to look at”

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Donald Trump Kicks Jorge Ramos Out Of Press Conference

Donald Trump on Tuesday dismissively told highly respected television anchor Jorge Ramos to "go back to Univision" before security physically removed the Mexican-American journalist from a press conference in Dubuque, Iowa.

Ramos was trying to ask Trump about his plan to deport all undocumented immigrants, but the business mogul and GOP presidential candidate said he was interrupting. He insisted that security had made the decision to kick out Ramos, but said he was fine with it.

"This guy stands up and starts screaming," Trump said. "He's obviously a very emotional person."

Trump claimed he didn't know much about Ramos, which may have been true. But he probably should -- Ramos is wildly popular as a Spanish-language anchor and well-regarded for pressing politicians from both parties on issues, particularly immigration.

Trump, by contrast, is mostly disliked by Latinos, and going after Ramos is unlikely to help that fact.

The anchor was eventually let back into the press conference and got the chance to have an extended back-and-forth with Trump. Ramos pointed out that denying citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants, as Trump wants to do, would be a violation of the Constitution. Trump said he was wrong. Ramos asked how he would build a 1,900-mile wall; Trump said he could do it because he builds 95-story buildings.

When Ramos noted that an estimated 40 percent of undocumented immigrants came to the U.S. legally and overstayed their visa, Trump said, "I don't believe it."

Trump promised to deport undocumented immigrants who are gang members "so fast your head will spin." Others will also be deported but "good ones" would be allowed to come back, Trump insisted.

As to how he would do such a thing, Trump -- yet again -- wouldn't say.

"You know what it's called? Management," he said.

It wasn't Trump's first point of awkwardness with Univision, which he sued for $500 million in June after the network ended its contract to air the Miss USA pageant, which he co-owns.

Univision president of news and Fusion CEO Isaac Lee released a statement following Ramos' treatment at the event: "We'd love for Mr. Trump to sit down for an in-depth interview with Jorge to talk about the specifics of his proposals."

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Latinos Don't Love Donald Trump

Business mogul Donald Trump proclaimed last month that Latinos love him. He might want to check the latest polling from Gallup, which found Latinos were more likely to say they disliked than liked him by a 51-point margin.

His results were disastrous compared to every other Republican presidential candidate on the survey, as illustrated by this chart released on Monday:

It's not surprising that Trump is unpopular with Latinos. He opened his campaign by claiming the Mexican government was sending rapists and other criminals into the U.S. as undocumented immigrants, and his stance has hardened from there. Last week, he proposed ending birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S., and vowed to deport all undocumented immigrants.

Gallup notes that it did not poll Latinos on Trump before his announcement speech, so there's no clear mark for how it affected his image. In their polling since, he's been consistently viewed unfavorably.

Although Latinos don't typically rank immigration as the top issue for choosing a candidate, harsh rhetoric against undocumented immigrants was considered a major factor in the GOP's dismal result with Latinos in the 2012 presidential election.

Trump has succeeded in drawing Latinos' attention, at the very least. Gallup reports that 8 in 10 of those polled had formed an opinion on Trump, compared to about 6 in 10 who had formed an opinion of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. None of the other candidates hit the 50 percent mark for familiarity with Latinos.

Bush is faring the best with Latinos, who were more likely to say they viewed him favorably than unfavorably by an 11-point margin. His margin of favorability has actually gone up, although it's yet to be seen whether there will be fallout from his recent stumbles over the term "anchor babies." The former governor has taken a more moderate tack on immigration than Trump, and opposes changing the 14th Amendment to end birthright citizenship.

Among Democrats, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a major advantage. She has a net 40 favorability score, and about 75 percent of Latinos know who she is. Only 25 percent of Latinos were familiar with Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders. The results were even worse for former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and former Rhode Island Sen. and Gov. Lincoln Chafee -- only 14 percent of Latinos were familiar with them.

Gallup conducted the poll by telephone from July 8 to Aug. 23 as part of the U.S. Daily Survey. They polled a random sample of 2,183 Hispanic adults in the U.S. The margin of sampling error is ±5 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Monday, August 24, 2015

Quinnipiac poll of FL,OH,PA: fortunes of Walker and Clinton sink as Biden’s rise

Notice that in the crucial state of Ohio, Scott Walker is only at 2%. This is all come to a poll looking for these days: Walker’s failure. But other people are paying attention to the bigger picture, of course. Rubio is the only Republican polling ahead of Clinton in Ohio. Quinnipiac Poll: @MarcoRubio is the more »

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Scott Walker flip flops on birthright citizenship. Blames tiredness.

"Scott Walker said he accidentally took a position on [citizenship] because he was 'tired'" https://t.co/BBMDYMZQJo pic.twitter.com/vqBv0rSU8b — Billmon (@billmon1) August 21, 2015 At the Iowa state fair, Walker was for elimination of birthright citizenship. By Friday he had “no position” on it. “I’m not taking a position one way or the other,” Walker said in an more »

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Scott Walker flip flops on birthright citizenship. Blames tiredness.

Friday, August 21, 2015

Safe Streets Pioneer Deb Hubsmith Has Died

Today the Streetsblog Network is mourning Deb Hubsmith, who died this week at age 45.

Deb founded the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, a nationwide program that is saving the lives of children endangered by reckless drivers.

If you’ve advocated for or cared about safer streets in the last 10 to 15 years, chances are you’re aware of or have been influenced by Deb’s work, even if you don’t know it.

From the League of American Bicyclists:

She dedicated her career to bicycling and walking advocacy at the local, state and national levels.

She began her advocacy as the founding executive director of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, where she helped develop the county’s Safe Routes to School pilot program. She championed the nation’s first statewide Safe Routes to School program in California and also a nationwide program, which passed the U.S. Congress and resulted in more than $1 billion for Safe Routes to School programs across the country.

She also brought the Safe Routes to School National Partnership from an all-volunteer organization to a coalition with 750 partners, 30 staff and a $3 million budget.

Deb was director of the partnership for nine years. You can read the partnership’s tribute here.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Marquette U. Poll of Wisconsinites: 39% approve of job Walker is doing as Guv, 57% disapprove

The most significant bit of news in this poll, in my opinion, is the fact that Wisconsinites are taking a dim view of Scott Walker’s performance. His 39% “job approval” rating is down 2 points from where it was in April when 41% approved of his performance as Governor. Walker’s doing much worse than Obama more »

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Keystone XL review drags on 5 times longer than average

Graphic by PBS NewsHour

WASHINGTON — For six and a half years, the White House has had a quick comeback to questions about its yet-to-be-announced decision on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline: Talk to the State Department.

Under a George W. Bush-era executive order, oil pipelines crossing U.S. borders require a presidential permit, setting off a government-wide review that the State Department coordinates. President Barack Obama, in no rush to anger either environmentalists or energy advocates, has deflected criticism about the long-delayed decision by arguing that his administration is merely carrying out his Republican predecessor’s directive in the ordinary way.

But an Associated Press review of every cross-border pipeline application since 2004 shows that the Keystone review has been anything but ordinary.

Since April 2004, when Bush signed his order, the federal government has taken an average of 478 days to give a yes or no to all other applications — less than a year and a half. The company hoping to build Keystone has been waiting for a decision for nearly 7 years — or more than five times the average.

And while the State Department does bear responsibility for reviewing potential pipelines, former Bush White House officials who helped craft the policy say it was never intended that the final decision would be outsourced. After all, it’s called a presidential permit. The revamped process Bush created was intended to speed up, not slow down, permits for major infrastructure projects, those officials said.

“It was seen as the most routine, boring thing in the world,” Robert McNally, Bush’s senior energy adviser at the time, said of approving pipeline permits.

For whatever reason, Keystone emerged as a political flashpoint, elevated by supporters and opponents alike into a proxy battle over climate change and U.S. energy policy. Republicans and energy advocates have pressed Obama to approve the $8 billion project, but environmentalists say it would promote dirty tar sands oil and risk dangerous spills.

The company first applied in September 2009 for a permit to build the 1,179-mile pipeline, which would connect Canada’s tar sands with crude oil refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast. When Congress in 2012 gave Obama a deadline to make a decision, he rejected the permit on grounds he didn’t have enough time to thoroughly review it, but allowed TransCanada Corp. to reapply.

The administration has declined to say what’s taking so long, or to offer insight into the deliberations.

“This is under a review process at the State Department. That particular process is a process that predates this administration, so I’m not going to have any update for you from here,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters recently. With a flat “yes,” though, he did promise a decision sometime before Obama leaves office.

Under Bush’s executive order, the State Department receives permit applications and circulates them to agencies like the Commerce Department, Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. Those agencies have 90 days to offer their opinions. If the State Department decides to grant approval, it notifies other agencies, which have 15 days to object before a permit is issued.

The final call comes down to whether the project is in the nation’s interest. In a major climate change speech in 2013, Obama established a litmus test, saying Keystone wouldn’t move forward if it was shown to significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions — a matter still hotly contested.

More than 16 months have passed since the State Department’s 30-day public comment period closed. The State Department hasn’t disclosed whether any federal agencies have objected to the pipeline, but has said it’s continuing to review the application “in a rigorous, transparent, and objective manner.”

The process doesn’t typically drag on for so long. The first permit issued after Bush revised the process in 2004 took less than four months from application to signature. Express Pipeline, L.L.C., was expanding a crude 785-mile pipeline crossing the Canadian border from Hardisty, Alberta — the same town where the proposed Keystone XL would start.

Even the pipeline that took the longest to approve — the 435-mile Vantage Pipeline Project, approved during Obama’s tenure — took fewer than three years, despite requiring complex negotiations with multiple Native American tribes concerned about historical preservation. The 1,000-mile Alberta Clipper Project, which drew legal challenges from Earthjustice and other groups, took 25 months to approve.

“When we brought the Alberta Clipper suit, nobody was really paying attention to pipelines,” said Sarah Burt, an Earthjustice attorney. “It hadn’t become this big bargaining chip, this symbolic ask of the administration that Keystone became.”

Not including Keystone XL, eight applications for new or significantly upgraded petroleum pipelines have been processed since April 2004. The AP’s review excluded permits reissued for existing pipelines due to change of ownership.

Piecing together the record of presidential permits is complex because there is no single repository for applications and pipeline decisions. To come up with an average processing time, the AP culled data from the Federal Register, State Department records, congressional correspondence, Congressional Research Service reports and data provided by pipeline owners.

The post Keystone XL review drags on 5 times longer than average appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Thursday, August 6, 2015

John Doe developments: Walker was target in 2011, Appeal impending

Eagle Scout integrity: “Gov. Scott Walker was under criminal investigation in 2011 for misconduct in office — even as he insisted he wasn’t — over a proposed real estate deal when he was Milwaukee County executive, according to records filed Wednesday in federal court” Source: Despite denials, Scott Walker was target of probe in 2011 more »

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Proof: Scott Walker’s aide Archer lied. Maltreatment she claimed rec’d during #JohnDoe raid refuted by newly released recording

Recorded audio from the FBI-assisted raid of Cynthia Archer’s home has been released. “The audio of the raid is being released now in an attempt to rebut claims Archer makes in her suit. For instance, she said in her filing that officers stormed into her house “throwing the (search) warrant at her without giving her more »

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Milwaukee Bucks arena is product of bizarre and bipartisan bedfellows

It takes an incestuous bipartisan pile of snakes to foist this expense upon Wisconsin when only 9%* of the Wisconsin public wants to help fund it AND when the administration is slashing public education funding. Steve Horn and Michael Arria have a long and interesting piece out on Truthdig that exposes backroom bipartisanship and public more »