ATLANTA (AP) — Federal officials and trade groups are asking construction workers to take a break for safety as temperatures increase across the South.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is conducting a one-hour “safety stand-down” in Alabama, Georgia and other Southern states on Tuesday.
The federal agency says the break is meant to increase awareness about the dangers of working in summer heat. It’s asking employers to voluntarily conduct safety briefings focusing on the symptoms of heart-related illnesses during the stand-down.
OSHA has developed educational materials on heat illness in both English and Spanish to use in workplace training.
At the Races from Rollcall.com has dubbed six Congressional seats “White Whales” because incumbents of the “wrong” party continue to hold them. Georgia’s 12th District and incumbent Democrat John Barrow continue to elude Republicans. Given President Obama carrying only 44% in the district, Barrow’s 7-point victory margin was pretty much a trouncing of Republican Lee Anderson.
Gay marriage: “On the ‘open-minded’ issue … [w]e will face serious difficulty so long as the issue of gay marriage remains on the table.”
Hispanics: “Latino voters … tend to think the GOP couldn’t care less about them.”
Perception of the party’s economic stance: “We’ve become the party that will pat you on your back when you make it, but won’t offer you a hand to help you get there.”
Big reason for the image problem: The “outrageous statements made by errant Republican voices.”
Words that up-for-grabs voters associate with the GOP: “The responses were brutal: closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned.”
“[The] Republican Party has won the youth vote before and can absolutely win it again,” the report says, pointing to presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush who were competitive with that demographic. “But this will not occur without significant work to repair the damage done to the Republican brand among this age group over the last decade.”
The report is based largely on two national surveys of 800 registered voters each, ages 18-29, and six focus groups of young people, including Hispanics, Asian-Americans, single women, economically struggling men and aspiring entrepreneurs in Ohio, Florida and California who had voted for President Barack Obama — he cleaned up with 60 percent of the youth vote — but were considered “winnable” for the GOP.
Turning to a key talking point during the election, the report found that while Republicans during the 2012 cycle invoked jobs and the economy at every turn, the younger age group was put off by the way the GOP presented those issues.“Policies that lower taxes and regulations on small businesses are quite popular. Yet our focus on taxation and business issues has left many young voters thinking they will only reap the benefits of Republican policies if they become wealthy or rise to the top of a big business,” the report says. “We’ve become the party that will pat you on your back when you make it but won’t offer you a hand to help you get there.”
Last cycle, Rep. John Barrow stunned Democrats and Republicans by holding on to this conservative district. Until last cycle, Barrow had survived four re-election battles, often with a comfortable margin of victory, despite the GOP’s best efforts to oust him.
In 2012, Barrow sought re-election in redrawn, more conservative territory. Outside groups dumped $3.2 million to defeat him.
But Barrow held on, beating Republican nominee Lee Anderson by 7 points. Obama received 44 percent on the same ticket.
What’s Different This Cycle?
Privately, Republicans said Anderson was a lackluster candidate to challenge Barrow. They argue that with a better candidate in the race, they can defeat the Democrat.
All are spayed (black spay tattoo). age estimate is 5-7 yrs. weight estimate is 30 lbs for the smallest and 35 lbs for the largest. As typical of beagle types, they love to eat and it shows!
Sadly, the family didn’t even leave their names.
They have been housed at the shelter since 4/2/13. This facility is in a county with a population of 20,000 and very few adoptions. The ACO is begging for someone to take them as he loves them and doesn’t want to euthanize them.
On a pilgrimage to Ronald Reagan’s presidential library, Rand Paul prodded Republicans Friday to become more inclusive.
“When the Republican Party looks like the rest of America, we will win again,” the Kentucky senator told a crowd in Simi Valley, Calif. “When we have people with tattoos and without tattoos, with ties and without ties, with suits and in blue jeans, then we win nationally.”
“If we want to win nationally again, we will have to reach out to a diverse nation and welcome African Americans, Asians, Latinos into our party,” he said. “Latinos will come to the GOP when we treat them with dignity, when we embrace immigrants as hard workers who are an asset to our country.”
Paul’s comments come as the party’s base remains leery of immigration reform, which they see as a pathway for amnesty, and Republicans in the Capitol markup draft legislation. Paul has said he would like to amend the bill being considered, which insulates him somewhat if the measure fails.
A new postmortem on the November elections from the nation’s leading voice for college Republicans offers a searing indictment of the GOP “brand” and the major challenges the party faces in wooing young voters, according to a copy given exclusively to POLITICO.
The College Republican National Committee on Monday will make public a detailed report — the result of extensive polling and focus groups — dissecting what went wrong for Republicans with young voters in the 2012 elections and how the party can improve its showing with that key demographic in the future.
It’s not a pretty picture. In fact, it’s a “dismal present situation,” the report says.
The 95-page study, which looked at the party’s views on social and economic issues, as well as its messaging and outreach, echoes a March report on the election debacle issued by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, which presented a devastating assessment of the party’s current state of affairs.
But in some ways the new report from inside the GOP tent is even more scathing and ominous — since it comes from the party’s next generation.
Titled the “Grand Old Party for a Brand New Generation,” the report is sharply critical of the GOP on several fronts. The study slams some Republicans’ almost singular focus on downsizing Big Government and cutting taxes; candidates’ use of offensive, polarizing rhetoric; and the party’s belly-flop efforts at messaging and outreach, even as the report presents a way forward and, at times, strikes an optimistic tone.
The sudden deluge of scandal which dominates the discussion around President Obama’s administration at the moment has handed a golden opportunity to Republicans. Yet if they aren’t careful, they’ll squander this opening completely by allowing their intense dislike of the president to cloud their judgment, missing the broader political lessons for the sake of personal point scoring.
Here’s the hard thing Republicans have to do if they don’t want this crisis to go to waste: they have to ignore their id, the temptation of the sugar high of partisan point-scoring. They must willfully set aside Obama’s presence in the fray, leaving the short term personalized attacks on the table, and go after the much bigger prize. Obama isn’t running for office again. Liberalism is. Making this about him is a short term boost to the pleasure center of the conservative brain. Making this about the inherent falsehood of the progressive project will help conservatism win.
In my opinion, the purpose of political parties is to amass groups of voters who have a common vision for our country. Individuals in that party who demonstrate leadership and a fundamental knowledge of our Republican Democracy are encouraged and their campaigns are funded by the group (party) to seek public office with the intent of continuing our basic principles of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The candidate represents the people of the party as a Republican or Democrat.
I use these two parties because they make up the majority of the people who are active in politics. Once elected, the elected individuals are obligated to vote and express the positions and beliefs of the group of people that they represent and worked to get their candidate elected. This is not the case today.
People who have never attended a Republican meeting, convention or worked in the party show up and pay their qualifying fees and sign a statement that they are a Republican. The people of the Republican Party for the City, County, District or State have never seen this person before. But they have money or backing from some PAC that will supply the money to get them elected. So the Republican hierarchy falls all over themselves to welcome these individuals with open arms just to be able to say that they have another Republican elected to office.
But what about the people down here at the grass roots who attend the meetings and put out signs and go door to door with the belief that they are doing something worthwhile for their country. It doesn’t take long for the grass roots people to realize that they have been betrayed.
Mike Lowry is a GaPundit morning email reader who sent me some comments, and they were so well-thought out and written that I asked if I could post them as a Guest Editorial.
The Republican Message
After considerable effort to recruit others to the GOP and to activate them politically out of their apathy, I have come to believe there are only 2 things that will motivate the apathetic:
1. They perceive a substantial, near-term personal threat, or
2. They perceive a substantial, near-term personal opportunity.
Otherwise, they are more concerned with their tee times or tennis match. Anything short of these two forces will not be likely to move them significantly. The following items are intended to give substance to this concept.
What is the Republicans’ compelling value proposition?
I spend a significant amount of time working with startup ventures to help them get organized, funded and reach the point of revenue generation. The single most frequent discussion point, regardless of the type of venture, is the ability to clearly, concisely state their value proposition. For the GOP, I suggest:
