Posts Tagged ‘Obama’
Poll: Blunt has narrow lead over Carnahan; Obama’s numbers are “horrible”
Saturday, July 24th, 2010
By: Tony Messenger St. Louis Post Dispatch
Fueled by voter dissatisfaction with President Barack Obama’s administration and the economy, Republican Roy Blunt leads Democrat Robin Carnahan in the highly charged Missouri race for U.S. Senate, according to a Post-Dispatch/KMOV-TV (Channel 4) poll.
The poll, conducted July 19-21, asked voters if they would support Blunt, a congressman from Springfield, or Carnahan, Missouri’s secretary of state. Blunt was backed by 48 percent of the respondents, compared to 42 percent for Carnahan. The remaining 10 percent were undecided.
The two are expected to sail through their party primaries on Aug. 3 and face off in the general election in November.
“Outside of the metro areas, he’s killing her,” said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, the firm that conducted the poll.
Carnahan leads in the more populated St. Louis and Kansas City areas, which tend to vote Democratic. But Blunt leads every other region of the state by a healthy margin, the poll found. In the Republican hotbed of southwest Missouri, where Blunt lives, the seven-term congressman leads nearly 3 to 1.
Pollsters conducted telephone interviews at random with 625 registered Missouri voters who said they cast ballots regularly in state elections. The poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
Coker pointed to the unpopularity of Obama, especially among independents, as a key reason Blunt is faring better with Missouri voters. Blunt has made tying Carnahan to Obama a staple of his campaign. While the poll was in the field, he was running a television ad highlighting Obama’s recent appearance at a Carnahan fundraiser.
In the poll, 57 percent of respondents disapproved of Obama’s performance as president, compared to 34 percent who approved. Among independent voters — those who didn’t identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans — 63 percent disapproved of Obama’s performance.
Obama, who narrowly lost Missouri in the 2008 election, now has “horrible” numbers in the state, Coker said, especially compared to the rest of the U.S.
A CNN poll taken the same week as the Post-Dispatch poll, for instance, had 50 percent of national respondents disapproving of Obama’s job performance and 47 percent approving. A Fox News poll a week earlier had the president’s disapproval rating at 48 percent.
Coker said it’s possible that Blunt’s television ad skewed the Missouri results somewhat, but he said the overall unfavorable ratings voters gave to Obama — and Carnahan’s lack of strength with independent voters — were stronger factors.
The poll found that the top issue on voters’ minds was the economy. Government spending and health care came in second and third. Those issues simply don’t line up well for Democrats this year, Coker said.
“The voters are on the Republican side on all three issues,” he said.
Read more at stltoday.com……
Political Cartoons: Michael Ramirez
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
Obama’s Latest Monstrosity
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
By: John Berlau The American Spectator
The 2,315 page Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill that President Obama will sign today should not be called “financial reform.” Instead the bill, which passed the Senate 60-39 last week when Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown joined Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to grant cloture, should be called what for what it is: pages and pages of massively costly, counterproductive and possibly unconstitutional mandates on nearly every type of business except for those government-sponsored enterprises at the root of the crisis. And while the bill claims to crack down on excesses on Wall Street, its harshest impact will likely be on Main Street businesses that had nothing to do with the meltdown.
A front-page Wall Street Journal article this week noted that “far from Wall Street, President Barack Obama’s financial regulatory overhaul… will leave tracks across the wide-open landscape of American industry.” The Journal notes that “the bill will touch storefront check cashiers, city governments, [and] small manufacturers.”
But one thing it will leave totally untouched is the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which new research by Congress’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and other bodies shows was even more of a prime factor in the subprime boom than originally assumed. The Federal Housing Finance Agency now reports that Fannie and Freddie purchased 40 percent of all private-label subprime securities in 2003 and 2004. Indeed, according to Edward Pinto, housing scholar and Fannie’s former chief credit officer, millions of mortgages to borrowers with credit scores of less than 660, considered by prominent researchers to be the dividing line for subprime loans, had been labeled by Fannie and Freddie as prime going back as early as 1993.
Rather than wait for Congress’s own Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to issue its report in December to examine the role of the GSEs and other causes, Congress passed a bill that will not prevent future bubbles and imposes untold costs that will put the country in danger of slipping back into a recession.
New collateral requirements on derivatives could cost U.S. companies as much as $1 trillion in lost capital and liquidity, according to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. And as the WSJ piece notes, these costs would hit not just big banks, but farmers who use derivatives to hedge the price of their crops and fuel for their tractor. The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could also hit retailers that issue credit tangentially related to their business, such as small stores that offer layaway plans.
On the other side of the retail ledger, some of the biggest retailers also got an unjustified mandated benefit with the Durbin amendment that puts price controls on the interchange fees they pay to process credit cards. This corporate welfare for fat cat merchants will mean higher costs to consumers, community banks, and credit unions.
In addition, the bill contains provisions that will empower special interests at the expense of ordinary shareholders and that may exceed the limits of the U.S. Constitution. The bill’s “orderly liquidation” authority will allow the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department not only to bail out firms whose failure is deemed to be a threat to “financial stability,” but to actually seize firms that are not even asking for a bailout.
Read more @ The American Spectator…….
Obama’s Hollow Shell: A.K.A. “Financial Reform”
Friday, July 16th, 2010
I don’t have time to go into the financial reform bill that was passed by the Senate yesterday, so I just wanted to weigh in briefly with my opinion of the latest Obama Outrage.
This bill is 2,300 pages long and I assume that the same diligence was pursued by Members of both Houses of Congress as was pursued when they were crafting the monstrous Health Care “Reform” Bill that was somewhere between 2,300 and 2,700 pages long….in other words, I assume no one read this bill either.
The bill is nothing more than the “shell” in which multiple new bureaus will be housed. These new government flunkies will have sweeping new powers to further hamstring our financial system. I do recognize that problems existed in our financial system, but adding many new layers of government is not the answer.
Keep in mind that most of the problems we witnessed in the Meltdown of ’08 were the result of the failure of regulators to recognize the excesses and to properly police the system using existing legislation.
As with All Things Obama, the knee-jerk reaction to any problem is 5 or 6 new bureaus, 15-20 new czars, a $ Trillion in new spending, a round of golf, a White House concert that blows another $ million, two staged townhall meetings and then cap all that off with another vacation.
So, is this a great country, or what?
~~John Cronin~~
Obama, Hitler and Lenin Share New Tea Party Billboard
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
By: Carl Franzen AOL News Surge Desk
(July 13) — Look, up in the sky: It’s Hitler, it’s that guy who came before Stalin, it’s Obama the socialist!
At least that’s the scene set by a controversial new roadside billboard in rural Iowa that puts the president literally right in the middle of two of history’s most infamous totalitarian leaders, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin.
Put up last week, the display has already drawn numerous complaints, including from other national tea party leaders, who say it does not adequately convey their goals or message, notes The Associated Press. Even some of its backers have conceded that it might be overkill, but have made no plans to take it down anytime soon.
“The purpose of the billboard was to draw attention to the socialism. It seems to have been lost in the visuals,” said Bob Johnson, a co-founder of the North Iowa Tea Party, which rented the space for the sign. “The pictures overwhelmed the message. The message is socialism.”
While billboards attacking the Obama administration and signs depicting him as Hitler are in themselves nothing new (both having materialized occasionally around the country since last year’s tense health care reform debate), the latest display is perhaps the most prominent instance to date where the two anti-Obama memes have met in such an explicit, spectacular and an unavoidable fashion.
It is located in Mason City, “at the southern junction of U.S. Highway 65 and State Highway 122,” reports Radio Iowa.In case you couldn’t see in the image, the billboard features three head shots of the leaders side by side and their various “brands” of socialism: First up, Nazi German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, who of course ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945. He appears under the banner “National Socialism.” Second, U.S. President Barack Obama, under “Democrat Socialism.” Finally Soviet Russian Chairman Vladimir Illyich Lenin, who led the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Russian S.F.S.R. (what would become the Soviet Union) from its founding until his death in 1924. He appears under the label “Marxist Socialism.”
All three leaders are flanked by their respective party logos, and the words “Change.” Beneath them reads a warning: “Radical leaders prey on the fearful & naive.”
Read more at aolnews.com……
A Quick Rebuttal on NAACP Tea Party Comments
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010
Tea Party members have used “racial epithets,” have verbally abused black members of Congress and threatened them, and protestors have engaged in “explicitly racist behavior” and “displayed signs and posters intended to degrade people of color generally and President Barack Obama specifically,” according to the proposed resolution.
“We’re deeply concerned about elements that are trying to move the country back, trying to reverse progress that we’ve made,” NAACP spokeswoman Leila McDowell told ABC News. “We are asking that the law-abiding members of the Tea Party repudiate those racist elements, that they recognize the historic and present racist elements that are within the Tea Party movement.”
[Editor's Commentary: I have not joined any Tea Party organization, but I am very supportive of their agenda to follow the Constitution, scale back the size and reach of the federal government, cut taxes and provide for a strong military defense of this country.
I attended the first St. Louis Tea Party Rally on April 15, 2009 and reported on it for our SolidPrinciples.com Podcast. There were over 8,000 participants at the rally and I can PERSONALLY ATTEST to the fact that there were no racial epithets or racially demeaning posters used. There were African/American conservatives there, contrary to what the MSM would have you believe and although the attendees were in large part middle-aged and beyond, there were also teens and 20-somethings in the crowd as well.
When I came across this piece from ABC News, I just had to post a rebuttal. That is the great strength of the Citizen’s New Media. We no longer have to sit idly by while these elitists broadcast their propaganda. Now we have a voice.
~~John Cronin~~
Political Cartoons: JFK vs. Obama
Sunday, July 11th, 2010
Fat Cat Democrats Raise Big Bucks in K.C.
Friday, July 9th, 2010
Wowie Zowie, so who knows from a recession in the Democrat Party! Obama was in Kansas City Thursday to raise money for Robin “Rubberstamp” Carnahan and the price tag per plate for the dinner was………$30,000!!!
Your eyes are not deceiving you and that was not a typo. $30,000 for the chance to schmooze with the party of the “little guy,” the party of the “working man,” the party of the “disenfranchised.”
How about the party of the “Gulfstream liberals,” the party of the “limosine liberals” or the party of “hypocracy.” Do you think all those Democrat fat cats were there just because they were interested in good government?
I wonder what the chances are for the MSM to go into high dungeon over this latest outrage of the undue “influence of money in politics?’ Zero? Less than zero?
I don’t want to give the lefties in Washington another bad idea, but do you think the folks who shelled out 30 large for the K.C. shindig might need a federal bailout after that kind of an outlay?
~~John Cronin~~
WHITE HOUSE GOES WEST: Obama Set to Drive Down Candidate’s Poll Numbers
Thursday, July 8th, 2010
President Obama and Vice President Biden are both on the campaign trail today, boosting a lucky group of four candidates between them. Obama will attend two Kansas City fundraisers for Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan’s Senate campaign before heading to Las Vegas for two events at the Aria Resort and Casino with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Biden, meanwhile, starts his day in Portland, Ore., campaigning with Rep. Kurt Schrader and then travels to California to campaign with Sen. Barbara Boxer.
[Editor's Commentary: "A lucky group of four candidates," who do you think you are BSing? A visit from President "Oil Slick" will only drive down the already anemic poll numbers of these stiffs. Carnahan is losing by 5% against Roy Blunt and Sharron Angle has been up by as much as 15% against Harry "The Undertaker" Reid. Give us a break with the shilling, already.
~~John Cronin~~
President Obama’s Fairy Tale Bedtime Story
Thursday, July 8th, 2010
Hat Tip to “AggiesChip” for giving me the heads up on the article below.
But there was President Obama in a highly revealing speech on June 30 in Racine, Wisconsin, congratulating himself for having saved America from another Great Depression. He said, “Now every economist who has looked at it has said that the Recovery Act [stimulus bill] did its job,” starting a passage that will soon be memorialized as another chapter in Aesop’s Fables. As Obama said those words, on the very same day in the Wall Street Journal was a commentary by Allan Meltzer, Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon University, entitled, “Why Obamanomics Has Failed.” Maybe Obama just hadn’t read the Journal yet that day.
But Obama continued in Racine, “[The stimulus bill] put a brake on the collapse of the economy. We avoided a Great Depression. We are now growing again.” (Emphasis added.)
Instead of avoiding a Great Depression, however, President Obama is leading us into one. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) scores the recession as officially starting in December, 2007. Now 31 months later, with unemployment still near 10% and the work force still declining, NBER says it still cannot determine an official end to the recession. The longest recession since World War II previously has been 16 months, with the average being 10 months. By next month, the period since the last recession started will be twice as long as the previous postwar recession record.
Yet, now we hear talk of another, double dip, downturn, reflected in the newly declining markets, where the S&P 500 is now lower than the price of gold for the first time in history. The comprehensive Obama tax rate increases scheduled for next year stand poised to pour napalm on this developing bonfire. For all the talk of how uncertainty is hurting the economy, the certainty of those tax rate increases once they become effective will be far worse.
A renewed, double dip, downturn, 31 months after the recession started and with unemployment already near 10%, would be a depression scenario, far worse than I have been predicting here and elsewhere for over a year now. While I have discovered from my sojourns on “progressive” talk radio (“progressive” is a polite word for socialist) that the Left is now denying history. For hundreds of years Western economies have been plagued by the business cycle, with the economy falling into downturns, and then naturally recovering. Since 1945, there have been 12 such downturns in the U.S., with the economy recovering sans Obama pixie dust within 16 months at the longest.
By this standard, the recovery was overdue a year ago. Moreover, the sharper the downturn, the stronger the recovery. But compared to the last downturn of similar magnitude, the 1981-1982 recession, the renewed economic growth today President Obama has been so vigorously trumpeting has been less than half what it should be. The positive economic results Obama can and does point to are way too little, way too late.
Two Christmases ago, I feared that by now Obama and his socialist policies would be riding the wave of inevitable recovery, before his policies crashed the economy in what I later called The Coming Crash of 2011. But politically as well as economically, it is all disintegrating faster even than during the Carter Administration, where 1978 was a hopeful year for conservatives that mostly didn’t pan out. President Obama is on the same trajectory as President Carter, times some multiplier of Keynesian foolishness.
With the most productive now scrambling to produce as much as they can before next year’s sweeping tax rate hikes, the double dip will probably be delayed until 2011. I privately told some major political players at the beginning of this year that the unemployment rate in November would be 9%. That may turn out to be right on the money. But if the unemployment rate does turn north again before then, which can well happen just from workers returning to the labor force to search for work, you can turn out the lights for the Democrat party.
The stock market, which tends to look 6 months ahead, seems to be predicting that Coming Crash of 2011. There is not enough upside compared to the double dip downside to be playing the stock market now even for short-term gains. That will change, however, the moment the market comes to believe in the regime change scenario. The great 1990s stock market boom began on Election Day, 1994.
Romney Blasts New Start Treaty
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
Until now, Republicans have been relatively muted in their assessments of President Obama’s arms control treaty with Russia. But former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, the once and likely future presidential candidate, came out Tuesday with a blistering assault on the treaty and called on his fellow Republicans to block its ratification.
Mr. Romney said the so-called New Start treaty could be Mr. Obama’s “worst foreign policy mistake yet” in an op-ed column in The Washington Post and argued that “as currently drafted, New Start is a nonstarter.” He wrote that “the Obama administration has been badly outnegotiated” and gave away too much to Russia.
The column is significant for two reasons. First, Mr. Romney, not known for his foreign policy prowess, is clearly trying to burnish his credentials as a plausible commander in chief should he run against Mr. Obama in 2012. And second, it could embolden conservatives who have been tentative in deciding how strongly to push against ratification of the treaty.
Mr. Romney predicated his opposition on the notion that the treaty would impede American missile defense plans. He argued that even before signing the treaty, Mr. Obama had already agreed to “the abandonment of our Europe-based missile defense program,” which is not precisely true; Mr. Obama did abandon President George W. Bush’s architecture for missile defense but substituted another version using a different set of interceptors designed to knock down short- and medium-term missiles that Iran has or is developing rather than the long-range missiles it doesn’t have.
Mr. Romney also criticized the treaty because “its preamble links strategic defense with strategic arsenal” and the text of the accord “explicitly forbids the United States from converting intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos into missile defense sites.” He also noted that Russia “has expressly reserved the right to walk away from the treaty” if the United States expands its missile defense capacity.
He is correct that the preamble notes the relationship between offensive and defensive weapons, but it is a general, nonbinding statement and imposes no limits on either party. The treaty does ban the conversion of ICBM silos, but the Pentagon general overseeing missile defense has said he does not want to convert them, so that is not a problem. And Russia can withdraw, just as the United States can, which is normal for treaties.
The treaty requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate to go into effect, and so the White House needs at least eight Republican votes. Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, has signaled support, as have Republicans like the former Secretaries of State Henry A. Kissinger and George P. Shultz and former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger.
Other Republicans, like Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and Jim DeMint of South Carolina, have expressed more opposition to the treaty, arguing that it could be risky to national security. The administration had hoped the Senate would vote by the end of summer, but it may be postponed.
Read more at……http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com
The Fat Lady is Singing
Monday, July 5th, 2010
There is an old cliche that says “the Opera isn’t over until the fat lady sings.” When you get the Boston Globe publishing opinions like the one excerpted below, she is on stage front and center and the performance is coming to a close.
~~John Cronin~~
the bostonglobe.com
Did you know this is supposed to be Obama’s “summer of recovery” for the economy? If we are an ailing patient, our condition has gone from stable to critical. The Dow, consumer confidence and housing are all headed in the wrong direction while unemployment and taxes are trending upwards. Not to worry. When Speaker Pelosi is dethroned and Senate Leader Harry Reid is defeated, we will see the Fall and Winter of Recovery.
Obama Down 20% in Rasmussen Poll
Saturday, July 3rd, 2010
Don’t You Have Enough On Your Plate?
Thursday, July 1st, 2010
The above image was from 2009, even then it showed the Obama Administration taking upon extra curricular items without considering the existing agenda it vowed to take on. Now in 2010, with an Oil Spill, increasing the Afghan War, allegations of White House involving in the Blago Trial, the Kagan hearings, Sestak Job offers, Financial Overhaul, now Obama wants to add Immigration Reform to the mix?
Let’s get something cleared here, even if you don’t agree with the President, you still expect them to fulfill their role without going off the rails. When you have world leaders at the G8/G20 saying you need to tighten the belt and Obama encouraging more spending, then you have a President that lacks understanding consensus and a comprehension of economics.
The decision to add Immigration Reform to the Obama plate is disastrous. Whomever is advising this President needs to be given their marching orders. If Obama made this decision on his own accord, then his advisors are only for qualified for being ‘Yes-Men’.
The America public have never been patient with incompetence. Especially when a date with the ballot box is near, courting hot button issues is political suicide. For some reason, Obama has the naivety to think he is immune to it but those facing the Mid-Terms wont see it that way.
Craig Edwards
Obama to Deliver Major Speech on Immigration
Thursday, July 1st, 2010
President Barack Obama hopes to rally new momentum behind the push for an immigration overhaul by explaining why he thinks a comprehensive approach is the only way to fix what he and others say is a system badly in need of repair.
Obama was laying out his rationale in a speech Thursday, his first as president on the issue.
UPDATE: Video of Speech now posted at CSPAN
Obama wasn’t expected to announce any new proposals or policy changes. But feeling pressure from a range of supporters, he was aiming to jump-start the effort he had promised to make a priority in his first year and which advocates had hoped would be completed by now.
The speech follows up on back-to-back meetings Obama had with advocates and lawmakers at the White House this week.
Obama has said a comprehensive solution means “accountability for everybody” — from the U.S. government meeting its obligation to secure the border, to businesses facing the consequences of knowingly employing illegal immigrants, to those who enter the country illegally owning up to their actions before they can begin the process of becoming citizens.
Read more at foxnews.com.
[Editor's Commentary: The system that is most in need of repair is our broken border law enforcement system. Obama and his liberal enablers only talk of "comprehensive immigration reform" as a code phrase for "let's naturalize 14-20 million lawbreakers and sign them up as newly minted Democrat voters to replace the 20 million votes we have lost because of our ruinious policies and legislation."
Make no mistake, if Barack "Oil Slick" Obama gets his way on Amnesty, he stays in the White House for four more years and you can only imagine what the country will look like after two full terms with this Corporate Fascist at the helm.]
Is Obama Un-Impeachable?
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
Remember the game KerPlunk?
Removing one straw sent the marbles sinking to the bottom and it was game over. Much like Ker-Plunk, it just takes just one item to impeach a President, such as knowing about a cover-up or lying under oath. In Obama’s case, he has several items which would certainly be capable of graduating toward Impeachment.
The Blagojevich Trial
How much involvement did Obama take in appointing his upcoming vacancy? The trial has heard Obama reached out for Union help in pushing Blagojevich to choose Valerie Jarrett. If this was another trial, any name mentioned in this manner during testimony would deem them a prominent participant. It’s also reason enough for a subpoena with their name on it, what does Obama know?
Sestak and Romanoff Job Offers
How much involvement did the White House take with Sestak and Romanoff, and why has it fallen off the radar?
2008 Campaign Donations
In the midst of the Obama media ‘love fest’, there was talk of Untraceable Donations, as well as allegations of foreign donors to Obama’s campaign. The FEC has been quiet on this front, no doubt it might be a slap on the wist but it has grounds for impeachment.
Birth Certificate
Is Obama eligible to be commander in chief? Why is the birther movement still portrayed as UFO conspiracy cooks? If Obama has nothing to hide, why did he send out press releases proclaiming to be Kenyan born when seeking the U.S Senate?
Would the Republicans really head towards impeachment with Obama? The last time the shoe was on the other foot was when prominent Democrats started hinting at possible Bush impeachment, they withdrew that threat leading into the 2006 Mid-terms. The possibility of Obama impeachment coming from the Democrats after being sorely humiliated this November will still be slim.
If the Democrats take on Impeachment, they are faced with the prospect of gaining President Biden. Plus the prospect of Hillary conducting a Lazarus like challenge on Biden in 2012, which still constitutes a vote of no confidence in Biden. Therefore, the Democratic hierarchy would hope to prolong an Obama impeachment, and just allow his lame duck status take him out of the White House altogether in 2012. After then, they look toward 2016, and hope for some other form of change.
Craig Edwards
Brown outpolls Kerry, Obama
Monday, June 28th, 2010
By Matt Viser and Frank Phillips
Most popular official in survey; For incumbents, message is mixed
US Senator Scott Brown, who only months ago was a little-known figure even within the tiny band of Republicans in the state Senate, not only catapulted to national stature with his upset US Senate victory, but is today the most popular officeholder in Massachusetts, according to a Boston Globe poll.
After less than five months in Washington, Brown outpolls such Democratic stalwarts as President Obama and US Senator John F. Kerry in popularity, the poll indicates. He gets high marks not only from Republicans, but even a plurality of Democrats views him favorably.
The support for Brown, whose victory became a symbol of voter anger, is consistent with widespread sentiment that incumbents in Massachusetts and Washington “need to be replaced with a new crop of leaders.’’ That statement was supported by 50 percent of those polled, while 28 percent said they trust the incumbents.
Yet there’s one surprising consolation for Bay State Democrats who hope to defuse the voter backlash. When asked whether they will vote for a Democrat or Republican in their own congressional district in November, 42 percent of likely voters say they will vote for the Democrat and 27 percent will vote Republican.
While those polled tend to favor the nine Democratic incumbents running to keep their US House seats in November, Republicans can take hope in the state’s only contest for an open seat, being vacated by Democrat William Delahunt. Voters in the Southeastern and Cape and Islands communities that make up the district are evenly divided on whether they will vote for a Republican or Democrat.
The survey of 558 adults in Massachusetts, including 497 likely voters, was taken June 17-23 by the University of New Hampshire’s Survey Center.
Brown’s backers can be heartened by the depth of his support.
Asked their opinion of Brown, 55 percent of those polled said they view him favorably, only 18 percent unfavorably. His rating among Republicans is 79 percent favorable, 3 percent unfavorable. And 55 percent of independents — the majority of the state’s voters — say they like him, while only 11 percent have an unfavorable opinion. The poll has a margin of error of 4.2 percent.
Despite the fact that his election in January was a crushing blow to both the state and national Democratic party, 41 percent of Democrats say they view Brown favorably, and 32 percent, unfavorably.
In contrast, Kerry was viewed favorably by 52 percent of those polled and unfavorably by 37 percent of the respondents. And in a sign that Obama is a polarizing figure even in Massachusetts, 54 percent of the respondents view him favorably and 41 percent unfavorably, according to the polling data.
Read more at boston.com……
Confidence Waning in Obama, U.S. Outlook
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
By PETER WALLSTEN And ELIZA GRAY
Americans are more pessimistic about the state of the country and less confident in President Barack Obama’s leadership than at any point since Mr. Obama entered the White House, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
The survey also shows grave and growing concerns about the Gulf oil spill, with overwhelming majorities of adults favoring stronger regulation of the oil industry and believing that the spill will affect the nation’s economy and environment.
Sixty-two percent of adults in the survey feel the country is on the wrong track, the highest level since before the 2008 election. Just one-third think the economy will get better over the next year, a 7-point drop from a month ago and the low point of Mr. Obama’s tenure.
Amid anxiety over the nation’s course, support for Mr. Obama and other incumbents is eroding. For the first time, more people disapprove of Mr. Obama’s job performance than approve. And 57% of voters would prefer to elect a new person to Congress than re-elect their local representatives, the highest share in 18 years.
Read more at wsj.com……
Is U.S. Now On Slippery Slope To Tyranny?
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics.
Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler’s rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions.
“Useful idiots” was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.
Put differently, a democracy needs informed citizens if it is to thrive, or ultimately even survive.
In our times, American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it.
The president’s poll numbers are going down because increasing numbers of people disagree with particular policies of his, but the damage being done to the fundamental structure of this nation goes far beyond particular counterproductive policies.
Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere.
And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Many among the public and in the media may think that the issue is simply whether BP’s oil spill has damaged many people, who ought to be compensated.
But our government is supposed to be “a government of laws and not of men.”
If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion — or $50 billion or $100 billion — then so be it.
But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without “due process of law.”
Technically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama, but that is a distinction without a difference.
With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.
If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don’t believe in constitutional government.
Read more @ investor’s.com……
