All the news the New York Times "forgot" - to print

Monday, December 31, 2007

Mitt Romney's Health Care Plan: is it Socially or Fiscally Conservative?

A look at Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health care plan that he passed in his last year as governor of Massachusetts.

What does Mitt Romney think about his health care plan?

First, he is very proud of it. As he stated in a early Republican presidential debate "I’m not going to give the Democratic legislature credit for the plan I helped build. So I want to let you know I’m very proud of what we did in Massachusetts, and I think it’s a model that other states can adopt in some respects."(link)

According to Co-Chairs of the Plan, Congressman Tom Price and Tim Murphy, "More than any other presidential candidate, Governor Romney actually has a record of putting conservative principles to work in health care." (link)

Oh really. Let's take a good look at Governor Romney's health care plan and judge how conservative the plan really was.

  • Problem one: what happens if you don't want to pay for health care? Well, well... "As for the requirement on individuals, those who don't get coverage would first lose their personal income tax exemption. Eventually, they could face a yearly fee to the state equal to half of the lowest-cost available insurance plan." (Boston Globe, April 4, 2006, Mass. bill requires health insurance)
Conservative huh? Methinks not but let's move on.
  • Problem two: Romney's plan mandates wasted money through useless mandates and drives up the cost of health care. Congressman and presidential candidate Duncan Hunter said regarding Romney's Mass. Health Care plan.
"I think the Governor’s plan goes in exactly the wrong direction, because while it allows for private health insurance, it has lots of mandates. He has a good piece of those 1,000 or so mandates that drive up the cost of health care.That means that every single plan in the governor’s state has to have certain things. It’s got to have, for example, fertility coverage. Well, what if you’re 90 years old? We may appreciate Governor Romney’s optimism … but you may not need fertility coverage. Those 1,000 mandates that we have throughout the States, where we do have mandates health insurance plans, is driving up the cost of health care by about 35 percent."
  • Third problem. Romney's health care plan gives a $50 copay for those seeking to have an abortion murder their child. Click on the image below to see the provision in the plan that mandates this. So in effect, Romney mandated that Massachusetts taxpayers fund abortions. When did killing babies become a conservative principle?

In closing, Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan research organization said in 2007, "Democratic candidates are going for proposals that have broad resemblance to the Massachusetts plan."(link)

No wonder....

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NFL Draft Order Released

The Patriots get the seventh overall pick in the 2008 NFL Draft since they acquired San Franscisco's first rounder in last years draft with a trade. Here's the tentative list of the draft order. The Raiders, Falcons and Chiefs will have to flip a coin to determine which team will pick in the third, forth & fifth first round draft slot.

Another NFL note; Ravans head coach Brian Billick was fired today by team management. The Ravens had a 5-11 record in the 2007 season after a 2006 year when they finished as the AFC's second seed with a 13-3 record.

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Huckabee Pulls Negative Ad

Mike Huckabee announced today that his campaign would not run a negative ad against Mitt Romney that was scheduled to being airing this afternoon. The ad attacked Romney on the issues of abortion, capital punishment, spending and the deposit that Romney left Massachusetts in. Whether the decision to not air the ad will hurt or help Huckabee won't be known until January 3d, but, Huckabee has committed himself to telling American's why he should be president - not why someone else shouldn't.

Hopefully the voters in Iowa will look past Mitt Romney's deceptive attack ads and instead look at the candidates records. In my view, Romney doesn't have a record to be proud of, that's why he's attacking all the other candidates so viciously. If the race was just about qualifications and records, Mitt won't even be part of the discussion. On Gun Control, Abortion, Health Care to the Homosexual Agenda he's been consistently on the wrong side of the ship.

Going back to the positive Huckabee campaign; here's two new ads that Huckabee will be airing in Iowa.

Taxes


Our Values

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Sunday, December 30, 2007

Undefeated




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Saturday, December 29, 2007

Going for 16 & 0

Will it happen? Will Brady and Moss and the Patriots offense smash the record books? You can watch some of the game live here (or on CBS, NBC or the NFL Network)

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Friday, December 28, 2007

Earnest the Pig

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Dogging it Out to the Finish Line

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Thursday, December 27, 2007

Huckabuzz - Huckabee Leading In Iowa

A Los Angeles Times Bloomberg Poll was released today that shows Huckabee in first place in Iowa by 14% points over closest challenger Mitt Romney! I actually believe that the race is actually closer then what the numbers show but it's still very good news.

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Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Never Give Up

The Patriot Way

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Patriots 08 Schedule

Here's who the Pats will be facing in the 08 season. Dates of the games won't be released at least for two months. We have to play the AFC & NFC West divisions so that means a lot of traveling (four west coast games in fact).











*probable primetime game

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Monday, December 24, 2007

Busy as a Huckabee

Sorry for the lack of recent posts. I've actually been working pretty much all week on making sure Huckabee appears on the ballot in Rhode Island by collecting signatures. It's been a busy time... The Patriots move to 15 & OH! Oh Yeah. Only one more game till history in a lot of ways.

Ho, Ho, Ho! Merry Christmas and here's the main reason why I won't vote for Mitt Romney ever - even if he was against Hillary (you know who) in the real (you know when) election (you known where).

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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Pardon Me...

Mitt Romney's pardon problem.

First part of the article:

When he was 13 years old, Anthony Circosta shot another kid in the arm with a BB gun, which was not a nice thing to do.

And even though Circosta's shot did not break the kid's skin, Circosta was convicted of assault.

Which did not matter much as Circosta worked his way through college, joined the Army National Guard, went to Iraq and led a platoon of soldiers in the Sunni Triangle.

In 2005, while still in Iraq, Circosta petitioned then-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for a pardon so that Circosta could become a police officer when he returned home. And the state Board of Pardons recommended that Circosta receive that pardon.

But Romney refused. Twice.

Read the rest of the article here

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Sunday, December 16, 2007

Number 14


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Thursday, December 13, 2007

Going to be gone Fr. and Saturday

I have out of state debate stuff for the next two days so don't expect any posting unless Rex suddenly becomes inspired.

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Rasmussen: Huckabee Still On Top

Today's Rasmussen poll continues to show Mike Huckabee in first place among the Republican presidential primary candidates nationwide despite the attacks that have been hitting him since the beginning of the month. In fact, the daily tracking poll shows Huckabee with his greatest lead over former frontrunner Rudy Guiliani up to to this point.

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Barack And His Flock

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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Huckabee Stuff

A new Rasmussen Reports poll shows Mike Huckabee widening his lead in Iowa. According to the poll, Huckabee leads with 39% of the vote with the closest competitor being Mitt Romney with 23%. Romney just released a negative ad aimed at Huckabee that will air in Iowa presumably until the caucus, but it doesn't even appear like mud slinging will be powerful enough to turn around these numbers. Here's a few important and interesting endorsements from the last few days for Huckabee.

*Bob Feller, Major League Baseball Hall of Fame baseball pitcher for the Cleveland Indians.
*Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project.
*Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio and State Rep. David Rivera.

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Another FlipFlop From Romney Forthcoming?

Mitt Romney, 2005
"Most likely, we’ll all stay as governors or find other offices, but we need to make sure that we have a strong person who can take the baton from President Bush, and Gov. Huckabee is certainly one of those individuals. He’d make a fine president.”

Story Here...

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December 11



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Monday, December 10, 2007

New York Times/CBS Poll:Huckaboom!

As if there wasn't enough evidence that the Huckabee surge in the polls was for real, a nationwide poll released by the New York Times and CBS News today confirms that the Huckaboom is for real. In the poll, Huckabee only trails Rudy Guiliani by one percentage point! That's 22% to 21%!Poll specifics here

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Homeschoolers For Huck

ABC News has a story on how homeschoolers are helping propel Huckabee's poll numbers in Iowa. According to the story, "Thousands of evangelical Christians who school their children at home have found a candidate they can support in Huckabee, and they provide the former Arkansas governor's outsider campaign with hundreds of volunteers."

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CNN Poll: Huckabee Second Nationwide

In a poll released today by CNN News (poll was conducted between the 6-9 Dec.), Mike Huckabee has pulled into essentially a tie nationwide with Rudy Guiliani. According to the numbers, Rudy leads with 24% to Huckabee's 22%. This is the first credible, non-daily tracking poll, to show Huckabee with over 20% support nationwide. It seems to indicate that even after all the attacks Huckabee has taken since around December 1st, more and more voters are deciding that he is their guy. Here are the full results and documentation of the poll.

Also, looks as if there is a big fundraiser coming up for Huck in the lone star state that could raise up to perhaps as much as $250,000!

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New Huckabee Ads

You can view them here. Starting today, they will be airing in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

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Sunday, December 09, 2007

There Was A Debate Tonight?

Believe it or not, there was a Republican presidential primary candidate debate tonight.(you can find the long transcript here) Most Americans will never really find out what was said however because the debate was being translated in Spanish live... And I don't know about you, but my Spanish is just about as good as my French, German, Chinese and Arabic (all four of which I am a native born fluent speaker and reader...). My best hope was to read their lips - which lasted about 30 seconds before I decided to give up. From what I've read from unqualified sources, no one said anything that totally destroyed their campaign... although, every time Romney speaks, his staff is biting their finger nails and sitting on the edges of their chairs...

Interesting note: GOP frontrunner - for a spot on the worst presidential campaign ever, Tom Tancredo, decide to boycott the debate because he saw it as pandering to the Hispanic community. My question: what else does a politician do other then pander. Of course Tancredo is the one exception.

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South Carolina & Iowa Poll Numbers

A new McClatchy - MSNBC poll came out yesterday showing some really good numbers for Huckabee in two key primary states, Iowa and South Carolina. First the Iowa poll. According to the poll, Huckabee leads Romney by 12 points. Even though the numbers aren't as earthshattering as the Newsweek poll (the real numbers are probably somewhere in between, the Newsweek one polled a larger number of people) , it just confirms that Iowans like Mike.
Poll info: 400 likely Republican caucus participants were interviewed by telephone December 3-6, 2007 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc. of Washington, D.C. The margin for error is plus or minus 5%.

In the South Carolina poll, Huckabee leads Guiliani with 20% of the vote compared with Rudy's 17%. Romney comes in third with 15% and Thompson forth with 14%. The numbers for Huckabee should go up after he wins Iowa and finishes well in New Hamshire (4th thru 1st).

Poll info: 400 likely Republican primary voters were interviewed by telephone December 3-6, 2007 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc. of Washington, D.C. The margin for error is plus or minus 5%.

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Saturday, December 08, 2007

Attack of the Pigs!


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The Situation Room

Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu may be out for tomorrow's game vs the Patriots with a knee injury. This would be a big blow for the Steelers if he indeed doesn't play. The Steelers are number one in the NFL in pass defense but they haven't played the Patriots and Tom Brady/Moss/Welker/Stallworth/Gaffney/Watson yet... One thing to keep in mind though is that the Steelers are already predestined to win.

No predictions as to what the score is going to be tonight (or most likely tomorrow) . I would guess that the game will probably break some viewing records as all the Patriot haters tune in to cheer for a loss. Rodney Harrison must be heartbroken. Go Patriots!

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The Making of a Sign

It started with an old Town Council race 8 by 4 sign everything comes off
forms and tapepainted the upper part of the sign bluethe bottom redlet the measuring begin!35 & 3/4tspainted over the forms peeled off the forms (the hardest part of doing the whole sign)and after some touchup work
off comes the tape and its done!


Remember to visit www.MikeHuckabee.com!

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The Huckaboom Hits Michigan

The Huckaboom has hit Michigan according to a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted on December 4th. In the poll, Huckabee comes in first place with 21%, Mitt Romney comes in second place, trailing by one 1% point.

Contrast the above with the pre-Huckaboom numbers in Michigan from a poll EPIC/MRA poll conducted in early November and August which showed Huckabee with only 9% points - badly trailing Rudy Giuliani (29%) and Mitt Romney (25%)!

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The next subprime meltdown...?

A few days ago I mentioned to someone that I thought student debt was going to be the next sub-prime meltdown.

Well, guess what WSJ's headline for tomorrow morning is:

"Student-Loan Problems Add to Debt Worry."


Perhaps having thousands of young people going up to their eyeballs in debt will finally begin to have consequences. God help us now!

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Friday, December 07, 2007

Newsweek Huckaboom

A BOMBSHELL Poll by Newsweek Mag!

According to a poll conducted on December 5 and 6th
(2007) by the Princeton Survey Research Associates International, Huckabee has taken a gigantic, 26% point, lead over Mitt Romney in the Iowa Caucus race!
The poll was is based on telephone interviews with 1,408 registered Iowa voters on Dec. 5 and 6. It has an overall margin of error of 3 percent.

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Todays Rasmussen Report...

... Shows Huckabee (22%) gaining another point over Guiliani (18%) nationwide! This poll seems to indicate that voters are not being negatively affected by the bogus Wayne Dumond hit job that was swarming the news-networks the last few days.

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Moving up in Nevada!

Huckabee is now in second place in the Nevada GOP primary presidential race! He trails Mitt Romney by only six percentage points he could easily make up if he wins Iowa. The Huckaboom continues…

American Research Group Nevada Republican Caucus

(the second number is for what the candidates poll numbers were in the state two months ago)

  • Romney - 29% (30)
  • Huckabee - 23% (2)
  • Giuliani - 17% (31)
  • McCain - 7% (11)
  • Thompson - 5% (9)
  • Hunter - 4% (1)
  • Paul - 3% (1)
  • Tancredo -1% (1)

Survey was conducted Dec 1-6 of 600 likely caucus goers and has an MoE of 4%.

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AP National Poll Shows Huck in 2nd

A new AP-Ipsos poll released today of Republican and GOP-leaning voters shows Mike Huckabee in second place behind Rudy Giuliani in the race for the GOP presidential nomination.

*Rudy Giuliani (26%)
*Mike Huckabee (18%)
*John McCain (13%)
*Mitt Romney (12%)
*Fred Thompson (11%)

Newt Gingrich: "[Huckabee] is doing an amazing job. The more people watch him, the more they believe in him. ‘He’s very comfortable with himself’ is the phrase I hear most often.”

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Over There: How Would Europe Vote?

According to a International Herald Tribune poll of Europeans, Europeans (not surprisingly) support Hillary Clinton most among the United States presidential primary candidates for president.

*Hillary Clinton (25%)
*Unsure (20%)
*Rudy Giuliant (15%)
*Barack Obama (13%)
*John Edwards (7%)
*John McCain (7%)
*Mitt Romney (5%)

The survey, conducted for the international news channel France24 and the International Herald Tribune, was carried out in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States. It polled more than 6,500 people from Nov. 1 to Nov. 14 about the importance of the 2008 U.S. presidential election and its impact on public opinion and foreign policy.

Additional stuff from the poll:
*93 percent of Europeans do not know who Mitt Romney is.
*61 percent of Italians and Germans would vote for Al Gore (assuming they could) if he ran for president.

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Thursday, December 06, 2007

Moss AFC Player of the Month

Patriots wide receiver Randy Moss was named the AFC's player of the month (November) today. In the month of November he caught 24 passes for 316 yards and five touchdowns. Ironically, this is his first such award of his career.

Note: Chad Jackson has been taking turns returning kickoffs in practice. Ellis Hobbs is the Pats main returner but Jackson also has a lot of speed and it will be interesting to see if he is used. He is actually a really good punt returner and if Wes Welker wasn't doing such a good job, Jackson would definitely be the Patriots primary punt returner.

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Vanish the Pig

...she set a record for the fastest escape from a pen in world history (3 seconds) and also about a two weeks ago escaped from a electric woven wire fence but won't tell how (our best guess is that she grew wings and flew).

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More South Carolina

The Huckabee surge continues...

Insider Advantage South Carolina GOP Primary

  • Mike Huckabee 23% (11%)
  • Rudy Giuliani 17% (16%)
  • Fred Thompson 17% (21%)
  • Mitt Romney 14% (16%)
  • John McCain 10% (16%)
  • Ron Paul 6% (3%)

Numbers in the parentheses are from last month. This Insider Advantage survey polled 670 LV’s.

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and in South Carolina...

According to the Rasmussen Reports, Huckabee has taken a seven point lead over Mitt Romney among GOP primary voters in South Carolina.

The poll numbers show
*Mike Huckabee with 25%
*Mitt Romney with 18%
*Fred Thompson with 18%
*Rudy Giuliani with 12%
*John McCain with 9%
*Ron Paul with 4%

Also, Huckabee has almost surpassed Ron Paul in Internet traffic to his website.


Rank Website Market Share
1. www.ronpaul2008.com 37.03%
2. www.mikehuckabee.com 36.12%
3. www.fred08.com 7.52%

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Uh Oh...

Alert! Red Alert!!! A second year non-notable defensive back for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Anthony Smith, has guaranteed that the Steelers will beat the Patriots when they play them Sunday. Smith said, "We're going to win. Yeah, I can guarantee a win..."


When Rodney Harrison was asked about Smith's comments he stated that he had, "Never heard of him". Well, he does now... I suppose this means that the Patriots are just going to have to fall over and let the Steelers beat them since it has already been predestined.

Update: More Patriots feedback

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Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Your Billion Dollar President

Presidential/not so presidential ringtones here... The Huckabee ringtone is the best overall and Dennis Kucinich (not surprisingly) has the weirdest one but my favorite actually is the Mitt Romney one. Check them out!

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Pats vs Ravans Most Watch Ever

According to ESPN, the Patriots Monday night victory over the Ravens was the most watched game in the history of cable television.

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And in North Carolina...

According to Public Policy Polling, Huckabee is really establishing a lead in North Carolina among likely Republican primary voters

* Mike Huckabee 33%
* Rudy Giuliani 17% (19%)
* Fred Thompson 16% (24%)
* Mitt Romney 9% (10%)
* John McCain 8% (8%)
* Ron Paul 3%
* Other 3% (14%)
* Undecided 10% (25%)

* Survey of 612 likely Republican primary voters was conducted December 3. The margin of error is +/- 3.9 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted November 5 are in parentheses.

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A New Leader of the Pack

According to Rasmussen's daily tracking poll, Huckabee has taken the lead in the GOP presidential primary race! In the poll, Huckabee has 20% of the vote with Guiliani trailing with 17%. Since the race real began, no GOP candidate has beat Guiliani in a national poll. The numbers appear to be consistent with all the other polls showing a Huckabee surge in the last few weeks.

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Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Luckly 12 - Patriots Almost Eaten by Ravans

27 to 24? Taking the lead with under a min. left in the game? Three quick factors that led to last night's game being so close.

1) The wind - it's hard enough to throw against the Ravans on a regular day with normal weather but throw in 30mph bursts of wind and that really makes passing the football more difficult. On Brady's first pass of the game, a short completion to Wes Welker, the football basically wobbled like a duck with a broken wing - not the normal lighting bolts he throws.

2) The Run Defense - Willis McGahee has always had good games vs the Patriots but this one was his personal best ever vs the Pats. The Ravans ran the football, and ran it often. On one drive it seemed like all they did in fact was run it and get at least eight yards on each attempt. Somewhere in the second half I believe McGahee tweaked his foot and that helped to slow him down for the rest of the game. The Patriots are going to stiffen up against the run for next weeks game vs the Steelers if they want to stop Willy Parker.

3) I don't have enough time to figure out a third but one thing every team playing the Pats is doing now is going of 4th down and not kicking field goals. Kind of annoying... and worst of all, the Patriots recently have been terrible on 4th down defense.

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More proof that the Huckaboom is for real

LA Times has Huckabee at 17% nationally, second only to leader by six points, Rudy Giuliani.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Huckaboom!

My guy, Mike Huckabee, is in second place in the nation in two major polls, USA Today and Rasmussen. The surge is working and is for real. So much for the days of being a second tier candidate.

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