Race and America

Democrat dirty tricks?

It seems there is a TEA Party candidate who came out of nowhere, is known by no one in the TEA Party movement and is bad mouthing the Republican candidate for the House of Representatives. It appears the Dems are up to no good.

"There also seems to be concrete evidence of Democrat chicanery at work here. DeStefano collected 237 signatures for his candidate petition. Asked if he had campaign staff or volunteers, he said his son is helping him.

Republicans said it was troubling that longtime allies and donors to Adler had signed DeStefano's petition. They include Marshall Spevak, who has worked for the Camden County Democratic Committee, pollster Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, Adler's 2008 congressional campaign, and Adler's state Senate office. He works on the campaign of Chris Coons, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate in Delaware."

BTW, Adler is the Democrat candidate. Expect more of this type of thing as the Democrats in a panic over the coming election resort to subterfuge to try to get reelected.

http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2010/07/sneaky-dems-plant-phony-tea-party.html

Racism and Journalism

An interesting story here about how the mainstream media attempted to bury the story and the consequences of the Rev Wright scandal when Obama was running for office.

"In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by
changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote,
“Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.” . . . Thomas
Schaller, a columnist for the Baltimore Sun as well as a political science
professor, upped the ante from there. In a post with the subject header, “why
don’t we use the power of this list to do something about the debate?” Schaller
proposed coordinating a “smart statement expressing disgust” at the questions Gibson and Stephanopoulos had posed to Obama.

“It would create quite a stir, I bet, and be a warning against future behavior of the sort,” Schaller wrote."

http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/20/documents-show-media-plotting-to-kill-stories-about-rev-jeremiah-wright/


I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting the feeling that the charge of racism has been thrown around so much and so recklessly in the age of Obama that it is losing it's power. The left needs to reread the tale of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." And when it comes to talking points evidently it is the left who has made it into an art form.


Is the Health Insurance Mandate a Tax?

Yesterday the Justice Department laid out it's argument that the mandate on Health Insurance is constitutional because it is a tax and the government has the power to tax. But it appears some lawyers tend to disagree.

"In brief, the argument is: The tax is not an excise tax, and it could not be
a constitutional excise tax because it is not uniform. The tax is not an income tax, and it could not be a constitutional income tax, because it is not a tax on derived income. Accordingly, the tax must be a capitation or direct tax. Article I, section 9 provides: “No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid,
unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be
taken.” The tax is not apportioned, and therefore is contrary to Article I, section 9."

http://volokh.com/2010/07/20/of-constitutional-decapitation-and-healthcare/

Polling information

Republicans now hold a 9 point lead on Democrats in the generic congressional poll.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot

Obama is a -17% in the strongly approve/strongly disapprove poll. He's done worse but this appears to be the territory he is in.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

And here's Rasmussen's summary of what the polls told us last week.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/weekly_updates/what_they_told_us_reviewing_last_week_s_key_polls