[THEHILL] Hollywood is pouring money into the midterm elections, with A-listers such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Barbra Streisand all coughing up blockbuster bucks.
The donations are largely aimed at keeping the Senate in Democratic hands. Republicans, who have the political winds at their backs, need to pick up six seats to win control of the upper chamber.
Streisand, a longtime Democratic donor, opened her checkbook in several competitive Senate races, according to Federal Election Commission data collected and analyzed by The Hill.
In addition to a $10,000 donation to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and $2,600 to House Minority Leader Nancy San Fran Nan Pelosi Congresswoman-for-Life from the San Francisco Bay Area, born into a family of professional politicians. Formerly Speaker of the House, but it's not her fault they lost. Really. Noted for her heavily botoxed grimace... (D-Calif.), Streisand gave $1,000 to the campaigns of Democratic Sens. Mark Udall (Colo.), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Jeff Merkley, (Ore.) and Mark Begich (Alaska), all top GOP targets.
One of the biggest recipients of the entertainment industry's dollars is Kentucky Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, whose is in a tight battle against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R).
Her donor list reads like a who's who of Tinseltown: producer J.J. Abrams, Ben Affleck, comedian Jack Black, "Avatar" director James Cameron, Nicolas Cage, Danny DeVito, Cameron Diaz, DiCaprio, Jennifer Garner, director Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Jerry Seinfeld, Mike Myers, and "Mad Men's" Jon Hamm all giving $5,200 each, the maximum amount an individual can give to a single candidate in a two-year election cycle.
Other Grimes donors include DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, Woody Allen, Ted Danson, America Ferrera, Leonard Nimoy, Streisand, "West Wing" writer Aaron Sorkin, Ben Stiller and Chris Rock.
While the Bluegrass State race has attracted lots of attention, less-headline-making political matchups also caught the eye of some famous names. Louis-Dreyfus, who plays a fictional vice president on HBO's "Veep," waded into the real-life political world with a $2,600 donation to Rep. Lois Capps's (D-Calif.) campaign coffers.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
In addition to a $10,000 donation to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and $2,600 to House Minority Leader Nancy “San Fran Nan” Pelosi...
I think economists refer to this sort of thing as 'misallocation of resources'.
#2
Stop purchasing their products. Don't go to the movies. Don't watch TV. Find something else to do for entertainment.
Ask your reps and senators to repeal the Clinton era Hollywood tax breaks for entertainers.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
08/14/2014 5:23 Comments ||
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#3
End the de facto royal patents the Founders despised. Bring back the original 14 year copyright period, with one extension to the 'individual' artist, not corporations or fronts set up to avoid that limitation. Watch that culture suck wind.
#4
Someone once referred to TV as the "vast wasteland." They had no idea what it was to become. At one time there was some morality on TV and few commercials. When cable first was available, there were no commercials. I guess the thought was that you were paying for TV, you shouldn't have to endure commercials. That gradually morphed into what we have to day; incessant commercials and not much program. I swear, I think TV is inducing this epidemic of ADD/ADHD that kids today seem to have. Movies, not much better. Hollywired/Hollywierd tries to "raise (or maybe lower) our consciousness" with their B.S. morality. The movies are vapid and boring for the most part--little story or plot--not much acting--all special effects.
#5
JohnQC, I've timed the commercials on some of the movie channels. They give you 10 minutes of movie then five minutes of commercials. There are some channels that don't do that. I don't watch the ones that do. I can't. It grates that badly on me. I like watching old episodes of cowboy and detective shows. Some of the premium channels border on pr0n. But then, some of the channels at the high end of the dial really are pr0n. I guess you have to pay extra for them but I never really checked. Reading a book is better.
[TOWNHALL] Former New York City Mayor Michael Nanny Bloomberg's dollars have been defeated again, this time in Wisconsin. Despite Bloomberg dumping $150,000 into the Democrat primary for Milwaukee County Sheriff on behalf of anti-gun Milwaukee Police Lt. Chris Moews with a goal of defeating pro-self defense incumbent Sheriff David Clarke, Clarke was victorious last night. Clarke defeated Moews 52 percent to 48 percent. The race was called Wednesday morning after results were too close to call Tuesday night.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2014 00:00 ||
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Good for Sheriff Clark. The guy understands the 2nd Amendment. Bloomberg is a meddlesome nudnik with a lot of money to try to impose his wishes on the rest of us. Whether it be himself, diet, sugar, or guns. A royal pain in the arse.
Wisconsin has a 'Closed' primary wherein voters can only select candidates from their designated party. Any vote 'across' the parties would be void.
I'm hearing that about 30,000 (maybe more) typically GOP voters turned out and voted for 'Clarke only' in this election, and didn't bother to enter any Republican votes (which would have voided their whole ballot).
That's how p*ssed they were about the nasty attack ads the Dem county establishment ran against a good sheriff from their own party, all the Bloomberg money and anti-gun stuff, plus the $100K+ Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele personally dumped into the campaign for Clarkes' challenger.
Abele and Clarke were at odds with each other before, and this will just 'cook' that relationship even further.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/14/2014 15:59 Comments ||
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[DAILY-TIMES] In June, in a sparsely populated county in northern New Mexico, a primary election surprisingly unseated an incumbent County Commissioner. No one seemed to notice. But, apparently, high-ranking Democrats to the north were paying attention.
The northern New Mexico county is Mora. The high-ranking Democrats: from Colorado. The election upset was about Mora County's oil-and-gas drilling ban.
In April 2013, the Mora County Commission voted, 2 to 1, and passed the first-in-the-nation county-wide ban on all oil-and-gas drilling. It was spearheaded by Commission Chairman John Olivas—an environmental activist. Since then, two lawsuits have been filed against the little county because of the anti-drilling ordinance.
Olivas didn't just lose in the Democrat primary election, he was, according to the Albuquerque Journal, "soundly beaten" by George Trujillo—59.8% to 34.2%. Trujillo campaigned on a repeal of the ordinance and has said he is open to a limited amount of drilling in the eastern edge of the county.
Mora County's ban on all drilling for hydro-carbons, not just fracking, was incited by an out-of-state group: the Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), which has also been active in Colorado.
In Colorado, a Boulder-based Democrat Congressman and environmental activist, Jared Polis, has worked hard to collect thousands of signatures—spending, according to the Wall Street Journal, "millions of dollars of his own cash to promote the measures"—to get two anti-oil-and-gas initiatives on November's ballot.
Polis' proposed initiative 89 would have given local governments control over environmental regulations under an "environmental bill of rights"—which mirrors language promoted by CELDF and used in Mora County. Polis also backed ballot measure 88 that would have limited where hydraulic fracturing could be conducted.
The presence of 88 and 89 on the ballot, sparked two opposing measures: 121 and 137. The first would have blocked any oil-or-gas revenue from any local government that limits or bans that industry—an idea also proposed, but not passed, in the New Mexico legislature. The second would have required proponents of initiatives to submit fiscal impact estimates.
On Monday, August 4, Polis and Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper held a news conference where they pushed for a compromise to avoid a "messy ballot fight." Instead, they are proposing an18-member task force to issue recommendations to the Colorado Legislature next year on how to minimize conflicts between residents and the energy industry. Later in the day, an agreement was reached and both sides pulled the opposing measures.
Hickenlooper said the suggested restrictions, if passed, posed "a significant threat to Colorado's economy"—which they would. However, ars longa, vita brevis... given the history of the lowly New Mexico county commissioner, the compromise may be more about "a significant threat to Colorado's" Democrat party.
A November 2013 Quinnipiac poll found that most Coloradans support fracking—only 34 percent oppose it. Noteworthy is the political divide: 80 percent of Republicans support fracking, only 9 percent oppose it. More Democrats oppose fracking, 54 percent, while only 26 percent support it. But the numbers indicate that Republicans are most likely to come to the polls in November to insure the economically advantageous activity is not curtailed—and this scares Democrats such as Hickenlohooper and Senator Mark Udall, who are both up for reelection in November. Udall's 2014 Republican opponent Congressman Cory Gardner points to the economic benefits of fracking, as seen in North Dakota and Texas.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2014 00:00 ||
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[MANKATOFREEPRESS] MANKATOd, MN — After a hard-fought primary battle, Jim Hagedorn of Blue Earth pulled off a upset victory Tuesday night over endorsed Republican candidate Aaron Miller of Byron to become the challenger to face 1st District Congressman Tim Walz of Mankato in the November election.
Despite losing the Republican endorsement to Miller in April, the race was called at about 10 p.m. for Hagedorn. With 76 percent reporting, Hagedorn earned 57 percent of the votes, or 9,429 votes, compared to Miller's 43 percent, or 7,171 votes.
"I'm very honored and humbled by this opportunity. I look forward to working with all Republicans to take back this (district) and take back our country," Hagedorn said.
Hagedorn's victory is a big surprise for many longtime Republican party activists and a strong rebuke of the Republican endorsement system, especially give the many hurdles Hagedorn faced during his return.
He lost the endorsement race, conceded and called for Republicans to support Miller, but re-entered the race in May. He accused Miller of failing to campaign hard enough to effectively challenge Walz, a Mankato Democrat. Miller called the claim a "fabrication."
Hagedorn said his victory was due to the sheer amount of travel time he spent meeting Republican voters all over the district. He said the heavy focus on shaking hands and talking in person was critical to his run. He said he also heavily focused on rural areas, especially in the western side of the district, that are often overlooked by campaigns.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2014 00:00 ||
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[REUTERS] A long-shot proposal to break Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, into six separate states would also divide rich and poor, according to a legislative analysis released on Wednesday.
Oh tut tut. They're the poorest regions now, so rather than cutting loose and trying to fix things they should keep doing what they're doing? That's kinda the definition of Caliphornia politix, ain't it?
It would formally relieve the wealthy in Silicon Valley from supporting all the poor folks, and you can bet that they'd pull their support in a New York minute...
The plan, which supporters hope to put before voters as a ballot initiative this November, is backed by Silicon Valley billionaire Tim Draper, who submitted 1.3 million signatures in favor of his proposal to Secretary of State Debra Bowen last month.
"At least initially - and perhaps for many decades after their creation - the six proposed new states would have widely varying income levels," said the report by Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor.
The wealthiest of the proposed new states would be "Silicon Valley," comprised of the affluent, pricey tech hub near San Jose, along with the Socialist paradise of San Francisco ...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964...
That state would have a per capita income of $63,288, twice that of the poorest region and a third higher than Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,'s current per capita income of $46,477. A state of Silicon Valley would bring in $2,168 per person annually in income taxes, the report showed.
The poorest of the new states, to be carved out of the agricultural Central Valley, would have a per capita income of $35,510 and bring in $472 in income taxes per resident. Jefferson, to be carved out of the northernmost Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, region near the Oregon border and named after the third U.S. president, would have per capita income of $36,147, and garner income tax of $463 per person per year.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2014 00:00 ||
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And it would give the Dems 10 more senators. Oh joy.
#2
I'm not sure about that. I believe California is much like Washington where there are blue cities which are, in effect, driving the politics over the Red rural areas.
#3
It would formally relieve the wealthy in Silicon Valley from supporting all the poor folks, and you can bet that they'd pull their support in a New York minute...
True. However, it would also allow the poor folk to keep their water rights rather than forking them over for the rich people's lawns and pools. These 'rich' people can track the flow of money, but seem rather dense about the flow of water and electricity. Them poor folks are about to get as many Senators as them rich folks own.
#4
Think San Francisco and Los Angeles. That's where the donks are. And I'm thinking that when they don't have the rest of the state to help pay for their socialist policies they might start wishing they hadn't done this. You can talk about their per capita income all you want but unless you factor in the extremely high cost of housing in those areas you're not getting the true picture. And then you have the homeless who are actually subsidized in San Francisco...the panhandlers who pee and poop on the sidewalks. Hey, I'm ready to divorce San Francisco. Bring me the papers. I'll sign 'em. That way I won't have to feel like I'm responsible for the likes of Boxer, Feinstein and Pelosi. Spit.
#5
There are some overpopulated blue counties and then there is the rest of the state.
I could be wrong but I suspect the pension crisis that is threatening California would hit the blue areas far worse than the rest.
I also suspect fraking which is the only way to save the state budget would be denied to the blue areas so they'd really have no way out of the financial bind.
Which is why it'll never happen in a nut shell. El Lay and the Fey Area will be committing suicide if they relinquished control of their extremely long distance lifelines.
#10
I suggest Cali liberals put their money where their mouth is and divide into 7 states with Hamasylvania being the seventh. It only needs to be 28 miles long and 7 miles long to house all of Gaza residents. I suggest as close to San Fran or LA as possible.
[CBSNEWS] Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, praised a group of National Guard troops as the "tip of the spear" in the fight against cartels and gangs as they prepare to deploy to the U.S. border with Mexico.
Moreover, Perry said that U.S. officials should "stop calling these criminals nice names like cartels and gangs" and start calling them "what they really are: these are narcoterrorists."
Perry announced last month that he was activating up to 1,000 National Guard troops to send to the border to assist the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) in fighting narco mobs. They are also meant to help bolster the U.S. presence as Border Patrol agents are overwhelmed with the responsibility of apprehending and holding the more than 60,000 unaccompanied children who have come to the U.S. since last October.
"As the Border Patrol is spread even thinner and thinner with this high influx of the illegal aliens, the gaps in the border have become bigger and you now are the tip of the spear protecting Americans from these cartels and gangs," Perry told troops at Camp Swift Army National Guard training center in Bastrop, Texas. "They are spreading their tentacles of crime and fear, so your message and your mission is very clear: To be that visible presence, to deter the criminal activity, contribute those additional eyes and ears to assist law enforcement and Border Patrol agents along the border."
He said more than 2,000 soldiers had volunteered for the assignment even though he only requested 1,000.
Perry did not say how long the deployment would last, except to call it a "stopgap measure" undertaken because the federal government has failed to secure the border.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2014 00:00 ||
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All the more reason to secure the border, regardless of where you stand on the immigration mess.
#2
You say that like some sort of armed, organized bloodthirsties aligned along a pourous border could be, especially with the help of inserted agents and potential volunteers as well as a divided central government, some sort of threat.
[WASHINGTONTIMES] The White House is facing new questions about underestimating the threat from Islamic State forces of Evil in Iraq with the surfacing of a speech in 2011 by John Brennan, then President B.O.'s counter-terrorism chief and now CIA director, in which he dismissed the danger of an Islamic caliphate as "absurd."
"Our strategy is ⦠shaped by a deeper understanding of al Qaeda's goals, strategy, and tactics," Mr. Brennan said on June 29, 2011. "I'm not talking about al Qaeda's grandiose vision of global domination through a violent Islamic caliphate. That vision is absurd, and we are not going to organize our counterterrorism policies against a feckless delusion that is never going to happen. We are not going to elevate these thugs and their murderous aspirations into something larger than they are."
Two years later, the Islamic State declared a caliphate in a territory covering northern Syria and northwestern Iraq. And while the forces of Evil don't meet Mr. Brennan's definition of "global domination," they are enough of a growing threat to Iraq and the West that Mr. Obama last week ordered air strikes and a humanitarian mission to blunt the terrorist group's swift progress.
Mr. Brennan's remarks are similar in their dismissive tone to an interview that Mr. Obama gave in January to the New Yorker magazine. The president described the Islamic State as amateurs.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2014 00:00 ||
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These people also downplayed OBL and crew, until the morning of 9/11 when they couldn't ignore it anymore. One of Bush's mistakes was not to make public examples of those who contributed to the failure of the security of the nation, pour encourager les autres!
#2
Strange, very strange:
Obama’s “administration” now suddenly refers to the jihadists invading Iraq as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant [or Islamic Caliphate], rather than the common translation of the abbreviation ISIS that includes Syria.
[my comment in brackets]
#4
"The Nazi party was a feckless bunch of artists and socialists" History is full of fools underestimating their enemies. Brennan is and was always a strategic fool. They have a complete and deep understanding of AQ, sure, but then they only do because they underestimated them at WTC bombing 1, Kobar towers, USS Cole, 911, etc... Now he is saying the same about the more radical islamic threat. I guess he never read Sun Tzu or understands Clausewitz. He knows neither the US or the threat.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/14/2014 11:46 Comments ||
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If you don't think the Islamists are worth considering as a lifelong enemy, read Col. Tom Kratman's "Caliphate". I think it's still free on either Baen or Amazon. Good book, and all too realistic.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/14/2014 16:07 Comments ||
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Our strategy is � shaped by a deeper understanding of al Qaeda's goals, strategy, and tactics
#7
Let's see, epic failure of job, spying on Congress, lying about it... And still has his job? CIA needs to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up.
[WEEKLYSTANDARD] Fresh off a trip to India and Australia, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel addressed a group of Marines in San Diego, Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, Tuesday, and may have delivered a line that will show up in Republican campaign ads this election cycle. After updating the troops on some issues in the Pacific region and the Middle East, Hagel took questions from some of the Marines and gave a stark assessment of the global security situation: "The world is exploding all over." The remark came in response to a question about the B.O. regime's realignment of the military towards the Asia-Pacific theater.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Maybe Obama Gun and Obama Earmuffins will bring World Peace. /sarc
#2
cause->effect. Doesn't really exist in the Left's alternate reality. It's called insurance, boys and girls. You pay it because someday the house may burn down or be severely damaged. When nothing like that happens after a generation or two, some people think they can skip on the insurance and spend it on something else. This is called 'gambling'. When you lose, you lose big, if not everything.
[BREITBART] A startling new political science study concludes that corporate interests and mega wealthy individuals control U.S. policy to such a degree that "the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy." The word you're looking for is "oligarchy."
The startling study, titled "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," is slated to appear in an upcoming issue of Perspectives on Politics and was authored by Princeton University Professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Professor Benjamin Page. An early draft can be found here.
Noted American University Historian Allan J. Lichtman, who highlighted the piece in a Tuesday article published in The Hill, calls Gilens and Page's research "shattering" and says their scholarship "should be a loud wake-up call to the vast majority of Americans who are bypassed by their government."
The statistical research looked at public attitudes on nearly 1,800 policy issues and determined that government almost always ignores the opinions of average citizens and adopts the policy preferences of monied business interests when shaping the contours of U.S. laws.
The study's findings align with recent trends, where corporate elites have aggressively pursued pro-amnesty policies despite the fact that, according to the most recent Rooters poll, 70% of Americans believe undocumented Democrats "threaten traditional U.S. beliefs and customs," and 63% believe "immigrants place a burden on the economy."
The solution, say the scholars, is a reinvigorated and engaged electorate.
"If policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened," conclude Gilens and Page.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2014 00:00 ||
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Why are "conservatives" echoing Occutard Propaganda?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/14/2014 0:14 Comments ||
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A startling new political science study concludes that corporate interests and mega wealthy individuals control U.S. policy to such a degree that "the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."
That's why its called an Oligarchy. It is not a republic or a democracy.
#5
I don't think the conclusion of the study is true. Look at the illegals and all their harpies who shill for them to get citizenship and free stuff. Seems to be working. Look at those who get free phones and benefits for burning a few convenience stores. Seems to be working. Look at the Dept. of Justice. It seems to be for sale to certain groups. Seems to be working if you protest, bitch enough and play the victim enough.
#6
Seems to be working if you protest, bitch enough and play the victim enough. It only "seems" to be working. Enlargement of the Free Lunch Army, aka the Permanent Democratic Supermajority, is the main tactic of the oligarchs. That part is working very well indeed.
#9
Interesting that not specifically mentioned are unions, single interest groups (environmentalists), other parasitic organizations and last but never acknowledged, the immense amount of foreign money illegally spent on our political system. Only the wicked capitalists, corporations and the uber wealthy are defined. Seems like a bias in the conclusion to ignore those money sources in the pollution of policy.
[PROGRESSIVESTODAY] civil rights hustler Al Sharpton ...Tawana Brawley's spiritual advisor... was in St. Louis Tuesday at the request of the family of the dear departed 18-year-old Michael Brown. Sharpton held a presser in front of the Old Courthouse in downtown St. Louis at 12:30 Tuesday afternoon. FOX 2 reported that Sharpton spoke out against the violence in Fergurson and other parts of the area. He also pushed for the arrest of the police officer who shot Brown.
Sharpton was heckled by Progressives Today news hound Adam Sharp on his informant past with the FBI.
Adam Sharp: Sir, the term "Snitches Get Snitches" was spray painted on the burned out QuikTrip. Since you are a federal snitch, sir, do you fear for your life?
Al Sharpton: I'm not a snitch. (Not true) But today I want to tell the feds about a cop that needs to go to jail.
Sharp: Are you in fear for your life being a federal informant andâ¦
Sharpton: I want to inform on this policeman today.
Sharp: Are you here to snitch on the rioters?⦠Are you here to work with your FBI partners?
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2014 00:00 ||
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Heard today that the cop who shot Brown was treated in the hospital for head bruises and contusions. No matter, it's an excuse to get a free big screen TV. The rush to judgement before the facts are known.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Nancy 
Michael 
[PROGRESSIVESTODAY] 
