News and Comments

Inconsistency from the Left

Both sides of the aisle (left and right) have discontinuities in what they say when they take opposite sides on similar issues. For instance, when it comes to being pro-life, leftist generally support abolition of the death penalty unless you haven't been born and then it's Katie bar the door. In the meantime right leaning people generally oppose abortion, but see no problem in using the death penalty. Of course being from the right I see less than 40 executions in the USA per year while 820,121 abortions were performed in 2005 (the latest year I could find information on). Moral equivaleny here is being stretched to the maximum.

The left right now is looking to raise the taxes on gasoline and even any carbon energy people may use. They see this as a way to decrease the useage of these fuels. When the left deems something bad, they want to tax it to cut back on people doing a particular behavior. Hence we have "sin" taxes on tobacco, liquor, and now the left is looking to add carbon to the plethora of sins we tax. Now I agree with them about taxing these items having an effect of decreasing demand (I believe in the supply and demand curves). But these same leftist deny any relationship between cost and demand when it comes to raising the minimum wage.

More People Angry with the Obama Administration.

At the TEA Party protest in Denver, I talked with a number of the anti-TEA Party protestors. They were unhappy with Obama because he wasn't leftist enough. I heard anger from these people that Obama didn't institute a single payer system and was forcing people to subsidize a private industry (insurance industry).

And today online we read that the White House press corps (that is pronounced "core" not "corpse").

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs met with a delegation from the White House press corps for 75 minutes on Thursday in an effort to improve frayed relations between the two sides.

Ed Chen, a White House correspondent for Bloomberg News who is president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said he asked for the meeting “to clear the air because in my 10-plus years at the White House, rarely have I sensed such a level of anger, which is wide and deep, among members over White House practices and attitude toward the press.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35944.html#ixzz0lT5w0CF7

Politics by the Numbers

Much is being said about the lack of a bounce by the Democrats after passing the Healthcare legislation. One of the arguments the Democrats put forward to their members was that once the bill was passed the American people would embrace it and the popularity numbers of the President and the Democrats would go up.

The President's numbers.

After the passage of Healthcare, strong support for Obama grew about 5 to 7 points. From about 25% strongly supporting the president this went up to 32%. However those strongly opposed to BHO went stayed pretty much the same about 42%. However just recently the president's numbers have dropped back to about 27%.

Healthcare numbers.

Three weeks after Congress passed its new national health care plan, support for repeal of the measure has risen four points to 58%. That includes 50% of U.S. voters who strongly favor repeal.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters nationwide finds 38% still oppose repeal, including 32% who strongly oppose it.

Congressional Democrat's numbers.

Finally, the congress has basically stayed the same.

For the second straight week, Republican candidates hold a nine-point lead over Democrats in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 45% would vote for their district's Republican congressional candidate, while 36% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. This is virtually unchanges since the Democrats passed the healthcare bill as 43% would vote for the Republican then and 35% would vote for the generic Democrat.

In short, the Democrats have not helped themselves with the Healthcare bill.