Wednesday, September 22, 2010


Black Panther case roars back to life


It appears there is more than a little hanky panky going on in the Obama Justice Department.
Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights, is in big trouble.



Much more can and will be said about the gold mine of information unearthed
by Judicial Watch, which continues to press for the release of more documents.
For now, this much is clear: The department's claim that political appointees
were not involved in the case appears to be false. If so, Mr. Perez should be
held to account for his sworn statements to the contrary.



Liberals becoming more disenchanted with Democrats, USA Today/Gallup poll finds


Ominously for Democrats, the poll shows they are facing a problem from key elements in their base, those who define themselves as liberal or very liberal. A year ago, an absolute majority of the very liberal and close to half of the liberals approved of Congress, but now a majority disapproves.Though Democrats tend to enjoy an enrollment edge over Republicans, GOP voters tend to be more enthusiastic and more likely to vote, according to most polls. That is especially true this year, when conservative candidates have ridden the popular discontent and anger to capture GOP nominations in half a dozen states. Democrats have yet to offset that "tea party" movement enthusiasm edge.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-congress-liberal-disapproval-20100921,0,5295847.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Fpolitics+%28L.A.+Times+-+Politics%29


Economists: Extend Bush tax cuts for everyone





NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- With income tax rates set to go up on Dec.
31, Congress is hotly debating what to do next. But most economists agree: Keep
them where they are.



One option, to let the tax cuts passed during the Bush
administration expire for only the richest 3% of taxpayers while renewing them
for everyone else, is popular among Democrats and the choice of the Obama
administration.


But a majority of a panel of leading economists surveyed by
CNNMoney.com said that the tax cuts should be renewed for everyone.




Here's a fact you're not likely to see on tonight's evening news broadcasts: According to a recent poll, Arabs living abroad are more likely to be opposed to the "Ground Zero Mosque" than the American media are.



According to a recent survey by the Arabic online news service Elaph
(Arabic version
here), 58 percent of Arabs think the construction should be moved elsewhere. And according to a Media Research Center study released last week, 55 percent of network news coverage of the debate has come down on the pro-Mosque side.

The MRC study also found that on the question of whether opposition
to the mosque demonstrated a widely held "Islamophobia" among Americans, 93
percent of network news soundbites answered ion the affirmative. In
contrast, when asked whether the United States is a "tolerant" or
"bigoted" society, 63 percent of Elaph respondents chose the
former
.




Sarah Palin more in touch with real voters than Obama


Fifty-two percent (52%) of Likely U.S. Voters say their own views are
closer to Sarah Palin’s than they are to President Obama’s, according to a new
Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.


Just 40% say their views are closer to the president’s than to
those of the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential
candidate.

Among the Political Class, however, 68% say their views are
more like Obama’s, while 63% of Mainstream voters describe their views as more
like Palin’s.



With the Democrats and Obama you have slick packaging which the MSM has touted over and over again. The problem is the dogs don’t like the dog food. With Sarah Palin you have the opposite case. The MSM has absolutely castigated her, yet her message hits home with a majority of Americans. So they don’t like the package, but they do like the dog food.


The TEA Party Challenge


There is a lot of chatter these days about the effect of the Tea Party movement on American politics. In the short term, the answer is blindingly obvious: It’s a huge boost for Republicans. The energy and enthusiasm the Tea Party movement is generating will work for GOP candidates and against Democratic candidates in almost every race in the country. Democrats are on course to be administered an epic defeat, one that will exceed, perhaps by a sizeable margin, even the one they experienced in 1994.


For starters, Republicans say they will try to withhold money that
federal officials need to administer and enforce the law. They know that even if
they managed to pass a wholesale repeal, Mr. Obama would veto it.


“They’ll get not one dime from us,” the House Republican leader, John
A. Boehner
of Ohio, told The Cincinnati Enquirer recently. “Not a
dime. There is no fixing this.”


Republicans also intend to go after specific provisions. Senator Orrin
G. Hatch
of Utah, a senior Republican on the Finance Committee, has
introduced a bill that would eliminate a linchpin of the new law: a requirement
for many employers to offer insurance to employees or pay a tax penalty. Many
Republicans also want to repeal the law’s requirement for most Americans to
obtain
health insurance.

Alternatively, Republicans say, they will try to prevent aggressive
enforcement of the requirements by limiting money available to the
Internal
Revenue Service
, which would collect the tax penalties.




Senior Democrats are reluctantly concluding that it's time to hit the
panic button. They understand that it's not a characteristic of a tsunami to
make a U-turn, and the hour is growing late.


Cautious Republicans are rightly wary of "peaking too soon," which
haunts the dreams and wishes of every candidate and campaign consultant, but the tsunami seems to be still building, already capable of crushing everything in
its path. You could get testimony to this from both Republicans and
Democrats.



Suddenly it's fashionable in certain skeptical precincts to start being nicer about the "tea party."



Not what the Democrats were hoping for



Republican Joe Miller has opened up a commanding lead in the Alaska
Senate race, even with defeated Republican Lisa Murkowski joining the contest,
according to a new Rasmussen
poll. Some Republicans had feared that
Murkowski's decision to launch a write-in bid would split the GOP vote, paving
the way for Democrat Scott McAdams to squeak by with a victory. In fact, the
poll suggests that Murkowski is actually taking more votes from the Democrat
than she is from Miller.


In the poll released this morning, Miller is the choice of 42
percent of Alaskans polled, Murkowski is at 27 percent, and McAdams is at 25
percent. In a two-way
poll taken at the end of August, Miller was at 50
percent and McAdams was at 44 percent.


http://spectator.org/blog/2010/09/21/rasmussen-miller-has-double-di


Unemployment rose in 27 states last month

Most of the decline was due to the loss of temporary census jobs




WASHINGTON — More than half of U.S. states saw their unemployment
rates rise in August, the largest number in six months, as hiring weakened
across the country.



The jobless rate increased in 27 states last month, the
Labor Department said Tuesday. It fell in 13 and was unchanged in 10 states and
Washington, D.C. That's worse than the previous month, when the rate increased
in only 14 states and fell in 18. It's also the most states to see an increase
since February.


Nevada, plagued by a vicious housing slump, reported the nation's
highest unemployment rate for the fourth straight month, at 14.4 percent. That's
a record high for the state.


The next highest rates were in Michigan, with 13.1 percent, and
California, at 12.4 percent.


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