Thursday, August 27, 2009

Thursday August 27 -- Got news or an update?

If you have news or an update, leave it in comments.
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50 comments:

Anonymous said...

With all the information overload from the MSM (which I tend to ignore) and the REAL news from talk radio and blogs like these, sometimes I wonder what a guy can do to change things Re: Obama care, the shading dealings of the self righteous left wing libs, even more shady dealings with the unions etc.
Will T. Kennedy's passing really affect the health care bill?

Wagging the dog seems to be the play of the day.

Any suggestions are appreciated. I guess I could call/write/email my congressional representative, but him being a no show at home democrat (Thanks Cardoza) I figure my voice won't be heard.

As far as The Fresh Prince of D.C. goes, he is becoming a joke. A proverbial crack in the dam of politricks. He keeps chipping away at our constitution with the full backing and endorsement of the lefty Democrats. As his ratings keep heading down (like McClatchy's stock) will this country rise up and have a revolution?

I noticed one of the books he was reading while on his (taxpayer paid) Marxist's Vineyard vacation was:
John Adams by David McCullough
An excerpt from the book...

"...when he realized the struggling colonies needed men of wisdom and dedication to guide the events that were unfolding, he became one of the most tenacious patriots of the Revolution."


And a John Adams quote: "Let us dare to read, think, speak, write...Let it be known that British liberties are not the grants of princes or parliaments...that many of our rights are inherent and essential..."

So will our President take any of John Adams' lessons to heart and stand up and really try to change America for the better, or will B.O. call John Adams a Colonial anarchist?

McClatchyWatch said...

Here's something you can do to stop Obama Care - send $10 to Tark. Then email your receipt to Harry Reid. Danny Tarkanian is already leading Reid by 11 points.

If enough people do this Reid will get the message that his political career will end -- and the same with dozens of elected Dems -- if he pushes Obama Care through without the support of the American people.

Anonymous said...

Why no tort reform in this great health care reform? Howard Dean admits they fear trial lawyers! Obama has an army of lawyers.
--
@ CNS, Video: Dean Says Tort Reform Left Out Of Health Care Bill For Fear Of Trial Lawyers

Anonymous said...

Stimulus money to convicts is the result of a "Sucker Package" that had to be rushed past legislators, without reading, and the public's knowledge. The media would have ignored it either way, fast or thoughtful. In Obama’s socialist mindset, stimulus money to cons would not be a mistake, IMO.
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Feds: Stimulus money sent to 4,000 cons

One day after the Herald reported some surprised Bay State inmates - including murderers and rapists - were cashing in $250 stimulus checks, federal officials revealed the same behind-bars bonus was mailed to nearly 4,000 cons nationwide.

A federal watchdog is now probing how the cons were cut the checks. The same cash also may have been sent to fugitive felons, people kicked out of the country and even individuals now deceased.
http://www.bostonherald.com

Anonymous said...

McClatchy types are calling him the “Liberal Lion” when it should be the “Lyin’ Liberal”.

Ted Kennedy didn’t have a death book. Ted Kennedy wasn’t asked to say, “Is my life worth living?” His life was worth living, to him and his family. He did everything he could to survive it.

The state was excluded from that part of Ted Kennedy’s life, and it speaks well of the country and government Ted Kennedy was elected to serve that the state had nothing to do with his end.

So placing his name on a health care bill in memoriam or using his name as a sympathy ploy to advance a health care bill that would deny Americans the choices Senator Kennedy had, is an insult and is supreme hypocrisy.

Anonymous said...

I sure wish someone would estimate the medical expenses for Kennedy’s last illness.

Democrats want to deny my family what they deem “non cost-effective” medical treatment. So I want to see Kennedy's medical costs compared with the same standard my family gets.

I only wish a reporter had the guts to ask Obama or other administration officials directly how much of Kennedy’s care would be deememed unnecessary under the proposed plan.

All the statements about “spending too much money” at the end of life should be thrown back at them!

Anonymous said...

Obama Can No Longer Pass the Buck on Economy (WSJ)

It's Barack Obama's economy now.

For the seven months since his inauguration, Mr. Obama and his economic team have pushed the blame for everything bad onto former President George W. Bush and taken credit for everything good.

The gaping hole in the federal budget for the next decade? Team Obama blames Mr. Bush's tax cuts, the Medicare prescription-drug benefit he signed and the recession he bequeathed. The encouraging signs that the economy and banks are stabilizing?

Team Obama credits its captain's fiscal stimulus and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's stress tests and the bank capital-raising that ensued.

That argument worked for a while.

Anonymous said...

AND YOU WONDER WHY NO ONE BUYS YOUR POSTAGE STAMP SIZE PAPER?

Chicago Tribune Writer Likens Palin's Endorsement of Beck TV Show to 'Palin’ Around with Terrorists'

Mark Silva, a blogger for the Chicago Tribune's "The Swamp," in an Aug. 26 post took it upon himself to try to rationalize why Palin would possibly suggest to her friends and followers on social media networks to tune in to Glenn Beck's Aug. 26 program, as NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard alluded to earlier.

Anonymous said...

Glen Beck a terrorist?

Funny, I don’t remember Glenn Beck ever blowing up the Pentagon, the NY Police Headquarters, or dedicating his book to Sirhan Sirhan?

Anonymous said...

Al Capone might not be the most crooked person in Chicago.

Anonymous said...

Real US unemployment rate at 16 pct: Fed official (Breitbart.com)

The real US unemployment rate is 16percent if persons who have dropped out of the labor pool and those working less than they would like are counted, a Federal Reserve official said Wednesday.

"If one considers the people who would like a job but have stopped looking -- so-called discouraged workers -- and those who are working fewer hours than they want, the unemployment rate would move from the official 9.4 percent to 16 percent, said Atlanta Fed chief Dennis Lockhart.

Anonymous said...

During Bush's presidency, if the rate was 4.50 and it hit 4.51, every damned liberal media mouthpiece would be screaming from the mountaintops on much of an utter failure Bush was.

Today, all I hear from McClatchy types is CRICKETS

Anonymous said...

EDITORIAL: Bonuses For Congressional Staff [College Repayment Benefits Worth Up To $60,000] The Washington Times

Pelosi rewards a job NOT well done August 27, 2009

In debates all year long and in legislation passed just before the August recess, Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives have made one thing clear -- companies taking federal bailout money and other emergency aid shouldn't be doling out executive

Anonymous said...

Palin spooks McClatchy
(The Charleston Daily Mail)

Lucianne Goldberg pointed out that the headline originally said: “Palin supports Fox’s Beck over Obama’s a racist comment.”

It now reads: “Palin comes out in support of Fox’s Beck over boycott.”

The story is that Palin wrote on Facebook that people should watch Glenn Beck.

Well, Sarah Palin is a former journalist — OK, sports journalist but so was Keith Olbermann — and of course, she is going to stand up to a boycott.

I don’t see it as much of a story. But the fourth paragraph was interesting:

Palin is referring to Beck’s attack this week on the background of Van Jones, who the Los Angeles Times describes as “a White House environmental advisor and co-founder of an African American political advocacy group that organized an advertising boycott of his program.”

I wonder how many McClatchy readers knew that someone in the White House is connected to this boycott?

Anonymous said...

The Kennedy in the Attic
National Post [Canada]

.... In the article, Eunice described Rosemary, the third child of Joe Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald, as "slower to crawl, slower to walk and speak than her two bright brothers." As time went by, the supposedly retarded Rosemary "couldn't keep up" in "social competition," and, by the age of 22, "was becoming increasingly irritable and difficult."

Physicians, Eunice wrote, were unanimous in declaring that Rosemary would have to be institutionalized, and so, with supposed sighs all around, she was bunged up in a nice Catholic "home."

The modern reader is shocked to discover that this "candid" article makes no mention whatsoever of the lobotomy performed on Rosemary in 1941, at age 23.

No one can read Rosemary's story today without horror. The evidence from documents written in Rosemary's hand, and from contemporaries outside the family, suggests that she was probably not clinically retarded.

She happened to have slightly subnormal cognitive abilities -- within one of the most competitive and brilliant families that has ever existed. (Young Teddy, 13-and-a-half years her junior, is said to have teased Rosemary about her "empty head.")

Anonymous said...

Obama's Health Rationer-in-Chief (Zeke Emanuel doesn't believe in the hippocratic oath)WSJ

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama, is under scrutiny. As a bioethicist, he has written extensively about who should get medical care, who should decide, and whose life is worth saving.

Dr. Emanuel is part of a school of thought that redefines a physician’s duty, insisting that it includes working for the greater good of society instead of focusing only on a patient’s needs. Many physicians find that view dangerous, and most Americans are likely to agree.

Anonymous said...

Ted Kennedy: The Senator of Sleaze who was a drunk sexual bully... and left a young woman to die
(London) Daily Mail


[Note: This is a lengthy, blunt, factually correct obituary of Ted written by a liberal British newspaper. It is also another perfect example of foreigners doing jobs Americans won't touch.]


Senator Edward 'Ted' Kennedy stood for sleaze. Bloated and drunken, he used his standing in the Kennedy clan to chase vulnerable women - which brought his dream of reaching the White House to a shameful end.

He was the youngest of the four Kennedy brothers, and by far the longest lived.

[Snip]

As he entered the Senate, Kennedy was admired for his commanding 6ft 2in stature and the good looks that seemed a family blessing. But he was already drinking and womanising with the greed that has become known as a vice of Kennedy men.

Keeping such a vice under wraps seemed to run in the blood (as did charisma). His father, Joe, the patriarch who had got away with bootlegging in the Prohibition years to establish the family fortune, had also behaved that way.

While Ted drank and took advantage of compliant women in Washington, his wife Joan stayed at home in Boston to look after his three children. Like her sister-in-law Jacqui, she seemed to have learned that Kennedy women had to put up with humiliation.

The effort ruined her health, however. Kennedy's unending philandering turned her into an alcoholic and, in 1983, she could take no more.

She could no longer stand the hypocrisy of her husband posing for the public as if he lived for family values. She divorced, publicly confessed to her alcoholism and helped shatter what was left of the Kennedy aura.

Anonymous said...

Democratic Health Care Bill Divulges IRS Tax Data
CBS News (rangel does not qualify)

One of the problems with any proposed law that's over 1,000 pages long and constantly changing is that much deviltry can lie in the details.

Take the Democrats' proposal to rewrite health care policy, better known as H.R. 3200 or by opponents as "Obamacare." (Here's our CBS News television coverage.)

Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and "other information as is prescribed by" regulation.

That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for "affordability credits."

Section 245(b)(2)(A) says the IRS must divulge tax return details -- there's no specified limit on what's available or unavailable -- to the Health Choices Commissioner. The purpose, again, is to verify "affordability credits."

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the Death Panels need this tax information to determine whether or not you get that life-saving procedure?

Anonymous said...

Hell yes, let’s get right into a system like they have in the UK. The Socialist Democrats have a talking point about how great government run health care is there, but of course the bill just HAD to pushed through QUICKLY, without debate. The Democrats have access to this information, and yet they lie, as does the majority of the USA media. This is a sad commentary for our legislators, and our so-called watchdog media.
***
One million NHS patients have been the victims of appalling care in hospitals across Britain, according to a major report released today.

In the last six years, the Patients Association claims hundreds of thousands have suffered from poor standards of nursing, often with 'neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel' treatment.

Anonymous said...

Newsweek Psychiatrist – Health Care Opponents 9/11 Delusions
(Newsbusters)

Don't like ObamaCare? Well, more than likely - you're suffering from some sort of psychological delusion according to Newsweek Senior Editor and self-declared psychiatrist Sharon Begley.

Begley, in a piece posted on Newsweek's Web site on Aug. 25, theorized that the widespread opposition to President Barack Obama's health care reform is from any legitimate reason, but instead it exists mostly because people are not willing to go against their own beliefs, but have a desire to satisfy their need to think they're beliefs are right.

Begley used the analogy that some people refused to dismiss a connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 terrorist as why people won't dismiss some of the "myths" about ObamaCare.

"Some people form and cling to false beliefs about health-care reform (or Obama's citizenship) despite overwhelming evidence thanks to a mental phenomenon called motivated reasoning, says sociologist says sociologist Steven Hoffman, visiting assistant professor at the University at Buffalo," Begley wrote.

Anonymous said...

Americans Flee London(Article on Bloomberg)

The money is leaving London. High taxation having an effect. It's what Liberal/Progressives have not figured out. Do you think revenues will go up or down?

Anonymous said...

Richardson Probe 'Was Killed in Washington' (Foxnews)

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former high-ranking members of his administration won't be criminally charged in a yearlong federal investigation into pay-to-play allegations involving one of the Democratic governor's large political donors, someone familiar with the case said.

The Democrats live under different laws than everyone else. Ted Kennedy was a philanderer, how many times did the press go after him for it?

He even killed a woman he was taking to a one-night stand and yet he is sainted by the media while Gov Sanford is being hounded by calls to resign.

Different laws for different people.

Anonymous said...

Turbo Tax’ defense fails in court
San Antonio Express News

A federal court has rejected an attempt by two Ohio residents to use the so-called TurboTax defense that Timothy Geithner relied on to help win Senate confirmation as U.S. Treasury secretary.

The U.S. Tax Court in Washington rejected an appeal of accuracy-based penalties assessed by the Internal Revenue Service on Kenneth and Linda Hopson, who claimed they relied on tax-return preparation software that failed to detect income they had omitted from their 2006 federal tax returns.

“Petitioners were not permitted to bury their heads in the sand and ignore their obligation to ensure that their tax return accurately reflected their income,” the court said in an opinion issued Tuesday. “In the end, reliance on tax-return preparation software does not excuse petitioners’ failure to review their 2006 tax return.”

Geithner, who now oversees the IRS, testified during his confirmation hearing in January that he prepared his own returns when he worked at the International Monetary Fund in 2001 and 2002, using TurboTax, an Intuit Inc. product. He said his failure to pay taxes owed on some income during those years wasn’t flagged by the software.

He told the Senate Finance Committee he accepted responsibility for failing to pay almost $50,000 in taxes, saying his errors were “careless.”

Geithner paid some of the money after being audited by the IRS and the rest shortly before he was nominated to the Treasury post.

Anonymous said...

The chasm between the political elite and the people continues to grow wider. And the sheeple continue to sleep.

Anonymous said...

Pelosi: Ted Kennedy Died? Great! PATTERICO

She didn’t say that, but it seems to be what she’s thinking.

Earlier DRJ told us about Robert Byrd’s plea that we rename health care legislation after Ted Kennedy.

It bears noting that Byrd was not the only Democrat to cynically exploit Kennedy’s death before the corpse had cooled to room temperature:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office sent an email to reporters at around 2:30 a.m. today, just hours after his death, calling for the passage of health care overhaul. “Ted Kennedy’s dream of quality health care for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration,” the statement read.

I encouraged readers not to make today be about remembering Kennedy’s role in the death of Mary Kopechne, or his lies about Robert Bork, or his numerous personal failings.

There will be time for all that, but the day of a man’s death should not be about politics. Pelosi would have done well to remember that.

Anonymous said...

Obama Still Reading Book He Read a Year Ago PATTERICO

Obama is one slow reader.

The commander in chief’s list of beach books for his Martha’s Vineyard vacation includes an environmental best seller that he bragged about reading almost a year ago on the campaign trail.

Obama was so taken with Thomas Friedman’s “Hot, Flat and Crowded” that he quoted it at a rally last September in Flint, Mich., and one media outlet described it as the book that was currently on the then-candidate’s nightstand.

He’s famously smart.

Kevin Gregory said...

7:17 I couldn't agree more with this comment: "The chasm between the political elite and the people continues to grow wider."

Anonymous said...

...Democrats want to deny my family what they deem “non cost-effective” medical treatment...

An absolute lie, supported by nothing in any of the bills under consideration.

Anonymous said...

Health care fit for animals

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/
opinion/27kristof.html?_r=1

Anonymous said...

...if you're interested in proof, prove she (Rhoda Holman) isn't ("a vicious religious bigot who daily spews hatred against the *groups* she hates"). What were the topics of her blogs for the last 60 days...

Here they are, John, since you're too lazy to look them up yourself, or (more likely) aren't interested in doing so because they show that you're full of it. John or any anyone else: Cite one example of "hate" in her posts if you can.

http://blogs.kansas.com/
weblog/author/rholman/

Anonymous said...

Great story on SacBee.com on how Rep. Doris "The Dumb Dem" Matsui chickened out of any townhalls and will do a phone townhall!! Man, she is getting burned at the stake by forum commenters. It don't get any better!

Anonymous said...

McClatchy stock once again drops below $2 a share. Gary and his drones once again will be doing some fast stock manipulation to pump it up. Or can they?

Anonymous said...

Glenn Beck's Fox News cable ratings are going up and up and up big time! They should blow out Greta in that time slot and give it to Beck. He's much more entertaining.

Anonymous said...

Beck is kicking serious ass in the cable news ratings. Here's Monday's viewership numbers (second runs are not counted). You can see how Fox is blowing MSNBC and CNN right out of the water!

Fox News O’Reilly 3,440,000
Fox News Hannity 2,937,000
Fox News Beck 2,810,000
Fox News Greta 2,450,000
Fox News Baier 2,066,000
Fox News Smith 1,860,000
MSNBC Olbermann 1,114,000
CNN King 1,063,000
MSNBC Maddow 885,000
CNN Cooper 827,000
MSNBC Hardball 640,000

Anonymous said...

And Beck doesn't even air in prime time when there is a much larger available viewing audience!

Anonymous said...

If my math is correct, O'Reilly has SIX TIMES the viewership as that moron Chris Matthews on MSNBC. Matthews must have a real hard time accepting the cruel truth.

Anonymous said...

STIMULUS BILL WORKING.....

Found great shovel ready project today.

Big Ted in Big Hole.

Well worth the money.

Anonymous said...

...Hot,Flat and Crowded...How about married into wealth and don't really give a damn about what the common man needs!

Friedman's great wealth is a frame for his window on the world. The Washingtonian reports that "his annual income easily reaches seven figures." In the Maryland suburbs near Washington, three years ago, "the Friedmans built a palatial 11,400-square-foot house, now valued at $9.3 million," on a parcel of more than seven acres near Bethesda Country Club and the Beltway.

ow about "Air Conditioned, Leveled and Room to Spare".


Throughout his journalistic career, Friedman has been married to Ann Bucksbaum -- heiress to a real-estate and shopping-mall fortune now estimated at $2.7 billion. When the couple wed back in 1978, according to The Washingtonian article, Friedman became part of "one of the 100 richest families in the country."


Ask the Hawaiians on Kauai how they like the Ward Village shopping mall.
General Growth Properties is building the store on a 6-acre site as part of a mixed-use project that was also to include a multi-level parking garage, nearly 100,000 square feet of additional retail space, and a 17-story apartment building. Pier 1 Imports is the only original tenant still at the site.

http://www.starbulletin.com/business/20081017_Ward_project_activists_seek_impact_study.html#fullstory

But it seems as if General Growth is up against a swell of opposition from various community groups, many of which have protested redevelopment plans by HCDA at one time or another.

A new group calling itself the Kakaako Coalition held a rally prior to Wednesday's public hearing, donning red T-shirts, and wielding signs calling for an environmental impact study.

Jim Frierson, spokesman for the group, said it was concerned about the development's impact on traffic congestion, the potential relocation of longtime Kakaako businesses as well as the loss of the community's character.
Nice use of pristine natural resources.


Yo Barry, I guess this is the kind of "TRIPE" you enjoy reading...TWICE...it really hits home for you.

Anonymous said...

ON A SIMILAR NOTE:

Bob & Valerie & Ted & Mary Jo PATTERICO

Editor and Publisher has compiled a list of where establishment media outlets placed the first mention of the Chappaquiddick accident in their obits of Ted Kennedy.

E&P claims they compiled a similar list of where news outlets first mentioned the Plame case in covering the death of Robert Novak, but failed to provide a link — and searches failed to find it. Out of curiousity, I decided to compare them myself.

The Associated Press mentioned Chappaquiddick in the 7th graf of the Kennedy obit; Plame appears in the 2nd graf of the Novak obit (which later had to be corrected regarding the Plame case).

Reuters mentioned Chappaquiddick in the 18th graf, but mentioned the Plame case in the lede. The New York Times mentioned Chappaquiddick in the 14th graf, Plame in the lede.

The Washington Post put Chappaquiddick in the 9th graf, Plame in the 2nd graf (and the second sentence).

The Chicago Tribune and the L.A. Times put Chappaquiddick in the 12th graf, Plame in the lede. USA Today put Chappaquiddick in the 19th graf, Plame in the 6th graf.

The Hill made no mention of Chappaquiddick, but put the Plame case in the second graf. Roll Call put Chappaquiddick in the 25th graf, Plame in the 12th. The NY Daily News put Chappaquiddick in the 13th graf, Plame in the 9th graf.

Not every media outlet followed the pattern. The Politico put Chappaquiddick in the 24th graf, but put Plame in the 30th.

The Wall Street Journal placed Chappaquiddick in the 6th graf, and Plame in the 11th. But these were the exceptions proving the rule.

WaPo media critic Howard Kurtz may have been surprised that Chappaquiddick was a trending topic on Twitter (and a number of the hottest searches on Google), but few in flyover country are likely to be surprised.

Chappaquiddick — in addition to its inherent tragedy — is a milestone in double-standards, both in American politics and the establishment media

SNIP

How bad is this double-standard?

As the two men were dying of brain cancer, Ted Kennedy was far kinder to Robert Novak in life than Novak’s media colleagues were to Novak in death.

Anonymous said...

Saluting Boston's BIG DIGGER.

Go Ted Go!!

Are you there yet??

Yea, it's usually that hot where you are.

Anonymous said...

Newspaper slump deepens as 2Q ad sales fall 29 pct AP

Newspapers' financial woes worsened in the second quarter as advertising sales shrank by 29 percent, leaving publishers with $2.8 billion less revenue than they had at the same time last year.

It's the deepest downturn yet during a three-year free fall in advertising revenue — newspapers' main source of income. The magnitude of the industry's advertising losses have intensified in each of the last 12 quarters.

The numbers released Thursday by the Newspaper Association of America weren't a shock, given the dramatic erosion mirrored the advertising losses that the largest U.S. newspaper publishers already had reported for the April-June period.

Still, the statistics served as a stark reminder of the crisis facing newspapers as they try to cope with a brutal recession and advertising trends that have shifted more marketing dollars to the Internet.

Anonymous said...

The way for newspapers to meet the competition of radio and television is simply to get out better papers.

Henry Louis Mencken


Epic FAIL for McClatchy!

Anonymous said...

Newspapers can’t die fast enough for me.

They stopped reporting the news, and they are now creating the news.

Nearly all are propaganda rags for the socialists in Washington.

They are untrustworthy.

Anonymous said...

The local newspaper monopoly, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, is disappearing day by day. The daily edition has shrunk from 60-80 pages to around 20, with 5 of that being auto ads.

Their subscriptions have declined to the point where they have to publish a "free" mini weekend edition (it just shows up in everybody's driveway, subscriber or not) just to get their advertising out in front of enough people to keep from losing all their advertisers.

Anonymous said...

The Dallas Mourning Snooze is a dollar a day now and $3 on Sundays. Twice the price of last year. NOT worth it.

Anonymous said...

Last night Glenn Beck cracked more than 3 million viewers!

Glenn Beck – 3,040,000 viewers.

And he edged O'Reilly for No. 1 in viewers aged 25-54!!!

How's that working for ya Obama White House???!!!!

Anonymous said...

I sure wish someone would estimate the medical expenses for Kennedy’s last illness.

Would that illness be his brain cancer or his occupation of a seat in public office?

Anonymous said...

Obama care

Cash for clunkers

Ted Kennedy


All SHOVEL READY!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous McClatchyWatch said...

Here's something you can do to stop Obama Care - send $10 to Tark. Then email your receipt to Harry Reid. Danny Tarkanian is already leading Reid by 11 points.


Or donate to Mike Berryhill and send the receipt to Dennis Cardoza!

http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2009/08/27/mike-berryhill-challenging-dennis-cardoza-d-ca-18/

CA-18 is a D+4 district that voted for Bush in 2004; incumbent Cardoza ran unopposed in 2008. Of course, that was before unemployment in Cardoza’s district hit double digits*, and why Cardoza’s yelling for help from the federal government, while treating Speaker Pelosi like the radioactive career-killer that she is. Mind you, Cardoza’s also ducking those inconveniently public town halls in favor of nice, controllable mass phone calls; which tells you everything that you need to know about his interest in his consituency. Or his personal moral courage.