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I have a new piece up at Powerline, on the death of one of my mentors, producer David Brown, an outstanding man.  For those interested, it's here.

THURSDAY,  FEBRUARY 11,  2010

IRAN UPDATE – AT 8:48 P.M. ET:  The Iranian regime survived February 11, which was looked to in the West as the day when democracy demonstrators would flood the streets.

It continues to be difficult to get good information out of Iran, but it appears that the regime's early attempts to suppress the opposition, which we reported early this morning, succeeded during the entire day.  The regime is intact.  As for the jolt that the West was supposed to receive on February 11th, that apparently did refer to Ahmadinejad's announcement that Iran was now a "nuclear state," whatever that means.

The strongest American statement came from the normally marshmallowish State Department, which declared that the putting down of democracy demonstrations by the Iranian security services further delegitimizes the regime.  No such statement came from the White House, leading Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman to express dismay over the president's silence.   They should know by now.  Democracy isn't a major cause for Barack Obama.  It ranks below the drive for clearer rules for Monopoly. 

Charles Krauthammer pointed out the contrast between the president's insistence on calling Iran "the Islamic Republic of Iran," and the chants of some demonstrators, calling their country "The Republic of Iran."  The president is, as his his habit, far too deferential.

There has been some hope in the West that the regime could be toppled, and replaced by a much more reasonable group.  That hope seems to be fading tonight, putting the focus on sanctions as the last means we have of, possibly, forcing Iran to alter its nuclear program – the last means, that is, short of military action.

February 11, 2010   Permalink

AND ANOTHER POLLING OUTRAGE – AT 8:08 P.M. ET:  Am I paranoid, or are liberal news outlets commissioning polls that they know will go in their direction? 

Added to the useless poll described in our 7:45 post is a new one released by the Washington Post and ABC News.  What does it tell us?

...the new poll shows that the political standing of former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who was the keynote speaker last week at the first National Tea Party Convention, has deteriorated significantly.

Huh?  This does not match other measures that we've seen, and it certainly doesn't match what we feel, something rather important in politics.  Palin's stock has risen considerably, and she's even getting praise from liberal columnists like David Broder for her recent appearances.

Although Palin is a tea party favorite, her potential as a presidential hopeful takes a severe hit in the survey. Fifty-five percent of Americans have unfavorable views of her, while the percentage holding favorable views has dipped to 37, a new low in Post-ABC polling.

And get this one:

Palin has lost ground among conservative Republicans, who would be crucial to her hopes if she seeks the party's presidential nomination in 2012. Forty-five percent of conservatives now consider her as qualified for the presidency, down sharply from 66 percent who said so last fall.

That finding should have set off red lights in the polling office.  It just doesn't make sense.

Ah, but why does it not make sense?  Once again, the last line of the story reveals all:

The margin of sampling error for the for the full poll of 1,004 randomly selected adults is plus or minus three percentage points.

Randomly selected adults.  Again.

Why would anyone take a political poll among randomly selected adults?  The purpose of political polls is to predict election trends.  Once again, the real polls are taken among likely voters.

Ignore this poll, unless the results are affirmed by another, more carefully selected sample.

February 11, 2010   Permalink

USELESS POLLING – AT 7:45 P.M. ET:  The New York Times reports the latest Times/CBS News poll, but winds up looking amateurish.

The poll, we are informed, shows that President Obama still commands greater support than the Republicans.  Oh, there are vulnerabilities, the Times concedes, but the Democrats are fighting back.

Then you get to stuff like this:

The boisterous Tea Party movement that has grown out of the strain of discontent so far commands relatively little public support; 18 percent of respondents said they considered themselves supporters of the movement, while 55 percent said they had heard little or nothing about it.

I love the term "boisterous," don't you?  As opposed to what?  The scholarly Democrats? 

Look, when you have a poll that says 55% have heard little or nothing about the Tea Party movement, you have a defective poll.  That movement has been all over the tube for months. 

So what is the problem here?  This is the problem, but you have to wait until the last line of the story to be told it:

The nationwide telephone poll of 1,084 adults was taken from Feb. 5 to Feb. 10, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all adults.

Any poll taken among all adults – not even registered voters – is going to skew Democratic.  Most of those who don't bother even to register are found in sub-groups that tilt toward the Democratic Party.  The best polls, like Rasmussen, are taken among likely voters, the best possible sample. 

I have no idea why The Times and CBS News would poll only among "adults."  Maybe the cost of refining the sample is a factor.  But I wouldn't take this poll too seriously.

February 11, 2010   Permalink

CLINTON RECOVERING – AT 7:40 P.M. ET:  Bill Clinton is in New York Hospital, recovering from a surgical procedure on a heart artery.  He reportedly came through the procedure well. 

The former president, who is 63, had the surgery after experiencing chest pains.  He has had heart surgery before.

Hillary Clinton is coming to New York this evening to be with her husband, and I assume, to keep him from the nurses.

February 11, 2010   Permalink

SPEAKING OF EUROPE – AT 10:09 A.M. ET:  Since we're piling on the elites of Europe this morning – see story just below – let's continue.  It is so much fun, and they deserve every bit of it.

David Ignatius, in the Washington Post, argues that what Europe needs is a tea party:

At the risk of taking contrarianism to extremes, let me offer this suggestion: The global economy needs a "Tea Party" movement in Europe to lobby for fiscal conservatism there...

...these conservative populists do perform the useful function of focusing American political attention on the need for fiscal responsibility. They make a good point, for example, in arguing that we shouldn't add a major new entitlement program for health care until we've figured out how to pay for the entitlement programs we've already got.

But the Europeans have no such movement:

Europe, by contrast, lacks this sort of potent conservative movement to constrain government spending...

...Europe is in many respects an economic never-never land. It has a central bank to run a coordinated monetary policy, and a single currency, but it has several dozen finance ministries pursuing separate fiscal policies, many of which can be summed up as: spend, spend, spend. In fiscal terms, "Europe" is often a riderless horse.

Europe was spoiled by decades of not having to pay much for its own defense.  The United States defended Europe, and the European left replied to our generosity by calling us militarists.

The success of fiscal conservatives in recent political races in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts means that U.S. politicians must pay closer attention to debt and deficit issues to survive. President Obama seems to recognize the potency of this issue among mainstream voters, with his pledge for a commission to tackle the long-run problem of entitlement spending.

But I see no similar political pressure in Europe. European leaders, for the most part, are still trying desperately to avoid the political day of reckoning. Few Europeans, political or conservative, seem willing to give up their share of the entitlements package that is part of the modern social-democratic compact.

COMMENT:  It's unlikely Europe will ever learn, and it may not have to.  Europe is not future-oriented.  The birth rate in some European countries, like the Netherlands, is so low that those countries may just fade away, or effectively be taken over by militant Muslim minorities. 

The welfare state is a permanent sleeping pill.  Most Americans seem to sense that.  Europeans don't want to face it.

February 11, 2010   Permalink

GEE, THANKS GUYS – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  The European Union, one of the lesser ideas to come along in the last century, has rejected a critical security agreement with the United States:

BRUSSELS (AP) -- The European Parliament on Thursday strongly rejected a deal that would have allowed U.S. authorities access to European bank transfers -- a vote the United States said disrupted an important source of information for anti-terror investigators.

EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France, voted 378-196 against the deal with 31 abstentions. The parliament's president, Jerzy Buzek, said the assembly wants more safeguards for civil liberties and believes human rights has been compromised in the name of security.

The prissy Europeans do it again.  Stick it to the U.S.  Claim moral superiority. 

The U.S. mission to the EU said it was ''disappointed'' with the EU move, calling it ''a setback for U.S.-EU counterterror cooperation.'' The vote came after lawmakers were contacted in recent days by several top U.S. officials -- including Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner -- ''about the importance of this agreement to our mutual security.''

European governments now must renegotiate the deal with the parliament, which would allow data sharing for nine months while the EU seeks a longer-term deal with the U.S.

COMMENT:  Don't you love it when the Europeans assert their wonderfulness?  Next time the EU needs assistance with a terror threat, maybe they should call the ACLU or Amnesty International?  We might just be out to lunch.

Wasn't Obama's election supposed to change all this?  Hmm.

February 11, 2010   Permalink

WOW! – AT 8:08 A.M. ET:  Senior and revered liberal columnist David Broder, of the Washington Post, has three cheers this morning for...Sarah Palin.

I'm serious.  This is not a joke.  It is not available in stores.  Broder gets it.  He understands why Sarah, like her or not, think she is presidential material or not, is such a powerful and appealing force. 

The snows that obliterated Washington in the past week interfered with many scheduled meetings, but they did not prevent the delivery of one important political message: Take Sarah Palin seriously.

Yup.

Her lengthy Saturday night keynote address to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville and her debut on the Sunday morning talk show circuit with Fox News' Chris Wallace showed off a public figure at the top of her game -- a politician who knows who she is and how to sell herself, even with notes on her palm...

...What stood out in the eyes of TV-watching pols of both parties was the skill with which she drew a self-portrait that fit not just the wishes of the immediate audience but the mood of a significant slice of the broader electorate.

And...

More important, she has locked herself firmly in the populist embrace that every skillful outsider candidate from George Wallace to Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton has utilized when running against "the political establishment."

And Palin's political future:

...in the present mood of the country, Palin is by all odds a threat to the more uptight Republican aspirants such as Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty -- and potentially, to Obama as well.

That of course is the key to it.  Palin comes off as natural, a reflection of the heartland.

Palin did not wear well in the last campaign, especially in the suburbs where populism has a limited appeal. But when Wallace asked her about resigning the governorship with 17 months left in her term and whether she let her opponents drive her from office, she said, "Hell, no."

Those who want to stop her will need more ammunition than deriding her habit of writing on her hand. The lady is good.

COMMENT:  We have a number of reader comments on Sarah Palin at our latest Angel's Corner, sent out last night.  Most are favorable.  However, there are still nagging doubts about Sarah's gravitas, her knowledege of the issues, her ability to hold her own in debate against the superficially impressive, but incompetent, Barack Obama.

Broder's endorsement, though, is significant.  He doesn't give it easily.  He's a serious, thoughtful columnist, whether you agree with him or not.  That end line, "The lady is good," will be widely quoted. 

By the way, an interesting note, I think:  Every e-mail that Urgent Agenda has ever gotten about Sarah Palin has come from a male reader.  Do any of you have any thoughts about that?  I'd love to have them.  Please send.

February 11, 2010   Permalink

THE TRUTH COMES OUT – AT 7:58 A.M. ET:  Now we know who saved Iraq.  It's Obama.  Pass it on.  How do we know?  Joe Biden says so. 

Biden appeared with Larry King.  Andrew Malcolm at the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket blog, has the choice quote:

I am very optimistic about -- about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.

I spent -- I've been there 17 times now. I go about every two months -- three months. I know every one of the major players in all the segments of that society. It's impressed me. I've been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences.

COMMENT:  We're so moved to learn that Iraq is an accomplishment of the Obama administration. 

The lack of graciousness here is just remarkable.  Who does Biden think he's fooling?  He's working for a president who opposed the Iraq mission from its first day.  Now Obama wants credit for it?  You'd think a gesture of appreciation for President Bush and Vice President Cheney would be in order, would be the grown-up thing to do.  But not from this crowd.

No class.  Not much talent either.

February 11, 2010   Permalink

IRAN – AT 7:45 A.M. ET:  It is difficult to get information out of Iran today, but it appears that the mass opposition rallies have either failed to materialize, or were put down very quickly by security forces.

In addition, although Iran's supreme leader promised some kind of major jolt today, none has occurred.  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proclaimed Iran a "nuclear state" – no surprise there – and that was that, at least so far.  The esteemed president said that Iran was capable of producing weapons-grade uranium but chose not to do so.  We'll see about that.

From Fox:

TEHRAN, Iran — Security forces dispersed opposition protests as hundreds of thousands of government supporters massed Thursday in a central square of the Iranian capital to mark the 31st anniversary of the revolution that created the Islamic republic.

Authorities clamped down hard to prevent a major show of force by the opposition amid one of the country's most important political occasions. Tehran residents also reported Internet speeds dropping dramatically and e-mail services such as Gmail being blocked in a common government tactic to foil opposition attempts to organize.

It's now late afternoon in Tehran.  The day is not yet over.  So far, though, the security forces have, sadly, done their job very effectively.

February 11,  2010   Permalink

WEDNESDAY,  FEBRUARY 10,  2010

IRAN UPDATE – AT 8:49 P.M. ET:  CNN is reporting that, in anticipation of tomorrow's pro-democracy demonstrations in Tehran, the regime is taking unprecedented measures to cut Iran off from the outside world:

(CNN) -- Iranian authorities have imposed a virtual information blockade after opposition leaders issued a call for supporters to take to the streets during an important government anniversary on Thursday, people inside the country are saying.

Residents of the Iranian capital said Wednesday that text messages on many messaging services have been blocked and Internet speeds have slowed to a crawl.

The Internet "comes on only a few minutes each day, but you never know when," one Iranian wrote in an e-mail to CNN, which he said took seven hours to send. "This has been going on for more than four days now. I contacted my Internet provider and they said it is out of their control."

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Islamic republic has announced "a permanent suspension of Google's e-mail services," and that a national e-mail service would soon be available.

And...

More ominously, human rights groups and opposition Web sites have reported widespread arrests targeting journalists.

According to the Paris-based journalism watchdog Reporters Without Borders, at least eight journalists were arrested Sunday and Monday, bringing the total number of reporters now in prison to at least 65.

"They have arrested everybody," said Nooshabeh Amiri, a journalist who fled Iran five years ago and now writes for the Persian Web site Rooz online from exile in Paris. Amiri said some of her former colleagues are trying to flee Iran.

Suppression is even occurring in the United States.  Planet Iran, the best American website for pro-democracy news from Iran, is being hacked repeatedly.  Its technical people are fighting to keep it on the air.

COMMENT:  President Obama says he's still open to a deal with the Iranian leaders.  After all, who are we to criticize their cultural choices?

February 10, 2010    Permalink

IRAN – THE CRITICAL HOUR – AT 7:17 P.M. ET:  It's already February 11th in Tehran, although dawn is hours away. 

February 11th is the day when the West has been promised some kind of punch by Iran's supreme office manager, or whatever he is.  It's also the day when mass democracy demonstrations may come off.  We say may because the regime has been arresting democracy leaders for months, and executing some of them.  (You'll notice the uproar from "human rights" advocates.)  We hope the demonstrations do get mounted, and help to weaken the mullahs still further.

In the meantime, the United States has taken some baby steps to show "toughness" toward Iran, as Fox reports:

The Obama administration is imposing new sanctions on several affiliates of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, targeting one person and four companies for penalties over their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction.

The White House on Wednesday slapped new sanctions on several affiliates of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corp. in response to Iran's defiant move to bolster its uranium enrichment program to levels capable of producing an atomic bomb.

The new sanctions target one person and four companies for penalties over their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction.

The Treasury Department announced Wednesday that it would freeze the assets in U.S. jurisdictions of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Rostam Qasemi and four subsidiaries of a construction firm that he commands and was hit with U.S. sanctions in 2007. The sanctions expand existing U.S. unilateral penalties against elements of the Guard Corps, which Western intelligence believes is spearheading Iran's nuclear and missile programs.

President Obama said he's "bent over backwards" to engage Iran in "constructive" dialogue and the U.S. will push the United Nations to sanction the country. Iran told nuclear inspectors on Wednesday that it will begin higher-grade uranium enrichment within days, Reuters reported.

COMMON:  That's one small step for a man, and a nothing leap for mankind. 

These are small, symbolic actions.  No one in Iran will go broke over them.  As for the UN, there are now reports that China may agree to "some" form of sanctions.  But unless sanctions are overwhelming, and threaten the regime, they'll have no real effect.   There are already sanctions on Iran.  Their nuclear program has not changed.  And China, an ally of Iran, will never agree to significant sanctions.

Next move?  Administration officials are already talking about things "taking time."  In other words, kick the can further. 

Obama certainly knows that only serious action – a naval blockade, massive sanctions that cripple Iran's economy, even a direct military strike – are the only things that can produce the effect we want.  But Obama is Obama, a profoundly left-wing ideologue who has no stomach for anything that actually works.

February 10, 2010    Permalink

SOCIAL NEWS – AT 5:33 P.M. ET:  Just to make sure that your social calendars are up to date, we present the following items. 

From the New York Post: 

Disgraced former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has reportedly proposed to his baby mama -- and plans to buy a posh, $3.5 million beachfront home where they can live together.

Edwards popped the question last month at the same time he told his ex-mistress Rielle Hunter that he had issued a statement confirming that he indeed fathered her 2-year-old daughter Frances Quinn, The National Enquirer reported today.

Hunter said "yes" when Edwards asked her to be his bride, the newspaper reported.

An Edwards spokesman denied the report.

We'll go with the National Enquirer on this.  They've been right on everything Edwards.  You might wish to start thinking about gifts.  Small, token things, like a yacht.

Also from the New York Post:

AN Arab ambassador has annulled his marriage after discovering his veiled wife-to-be had a beard and was cross-eyed.

The diplomat had only met the woman a few times, during which she had hidden her face behind a niqab.

Local media reported that after the marriage contract was signed, the man tried to give his new wife a smooch only to find she had facial hair.

The ambassador told an Islamic Sharia court in the United Arab Emirates that he was tricked into the marriage, as the woman's mother had shown his own mum pictures of her sister instead of her, the report said.

You mean, he didn't even get a little looky-loo before the marriage?  Why, bless these old-fashioned girls.

Now watch, this guy will soon be running his country's intelligence service, and Janet Napolitano will be depending on his information.  Dig your shelter now.

And from London's Daily Mail:

The internationally celebrated historian and TV presenter Niall Ferguson has broken up with his wife of 16 years after a string of adulterous affairs.

The 45-year-old Harvard professor has left former newspaper editor Susan Douglas, with whom he has three children, for his mistress, the Somalian-born feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Ms Hirsi Ali, 40, is a lawyer and former Dutch MP who wrote the script for a controversial film that criticised Islam and resulted in the assassination of its director. She is currently living under police protection in America.

Oh my, oh my.  This presents Harvard with a major crisis.  Hirsi Ali is a great feminist, but the feminist movement doesn't accept her because, although she is "of color," she doesn't follow the script.  She's taken on radical Islam and never caught Bush Derangement Syndrome. 

They must be meeting at Harvard to decide what to do with her when Niall brings her home.  If there's a left-wing etiquette columnist, she will undoubtedly be consulted.

There is the latest social news.  Now you can go to any party and talk.

February 10, 2010    Permalink

NEW YORK JUSTICE – AT 5:16 P.M. ET:  This, from the New York Daily News, shows why it's so risky to have the mastermind of 9-11 tried in New York, with a New York jury:

A Manhattan grand jury voted Tuesday not to charge a Muslim jail chaplain with trying to sneak razors into a city jail, his defense lawyer said.

An ex-con who served time for a 1976 murder, Zulqarnain Abdu-Shahid told a grand jury that he'd forgotten the potential weapons were in his duffel bag, his lawyer said.

Abdu-Shahid, 58, was busted when a metal detector revealed he had straight razors and scissors in his bag as he reported to work at the Manhattan Detention Complex last week.

COMMENT:  Yes sirree.  Every man carries straight razors and scissors in his bag.  We all know that. 

Well, at least the D.A. tried to indict him.  You know the old saying, "A prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich if he wants to."  Apparently, not in New York. 

I'd love to know the makeup of the grand jury.  You'd have thought that any common-sense grand jury would have indicted the ex-con, and allowed the case to go to trial.  Apparently, we must not offend.

The jails are filled with radicalized Muslims, and we know that radicalization takes place through the work of outside visitors. 

Compare this please to the number of cases you've read about where kids are suspended from school, or worse, because they have aspirin in their bag or forgot that they had a screwdriver with them.

Would you trust a major terror trial to jurors like this?

February 10, 2010   Permalink

LITERARY NEWS – AT 10:54 A.M. ET:  From Fox:

A "tea bag" reference in a recent Captain America comic book that has angered the Tea Party movement will be removed by Marvel Comics in future editions, the story's writer told FoxNews.com.

In issue No. 602 of Captain America, "Two Americas, Part One," the title hero and The Falcon, a black superhero from New York City, stumble upon a protest rally in Boise, Idaho. They see scores of protesters carrying signs that say "Stop the Socialists!" and "Tea Bag The Libs Before They Tea Bag YOU!"

Captain America says the protest appears to be an "anti-tax thing," and The Falcon jokes that he likely would not be welcomed into the crowd of "angry white folks."

Ed Brubaker, who wrote the story, told FoxNews.com he did not write the "Tea Bag The Libs Before They Tea Bag YOU!" sign shown in the edition, insisting that the words were added by someone in "lettering or production" just before being shipped to the printer. It will be changed in subsequent editions, he said.

COMMENT:  What our children are reading.  The left is even targeting the comics.

February 10, 2010   Permalink

BARONE SURVEYS THE WRECKAGE – AT 9:45 A.M. ET:  Michael Barone examines the Obama nosedive and tries to find the reasons:

How could such smart people do so many stupid things? That question, or variations on it, is being asked in Washington and around the country about the Obama administration.

The same people who directed the campaign that defeated Hillary Clinton and routed John McCain, a campaign that raised far more money and attracted far more volunteers than any before it, have within a year come up with a legislative program that is crashing in ruins and that, to judge from recent polls, has left the Democratic party weaker than I have seen it in almost 50 years of closely following politics.

And the answers:

Some in Washington say that the problem is that Barack Obama has chosen to rely on his campaign staff rather than the wise old heads in Washington. But Obama and his team have had the benefit of advice from those wise old heads and from the smartest political strategist the Democratic party has produced in the past half-century, Bill Clinton.

A truly wise Washington analyst, National Journal's Jonathan Rauch, says the problem is one-party government. Presidents lead better, he argues, when they are constrained by the need to get bipartisan support.

There's something to that. Obama's three predecessors all had bipartisan initiatives: the 1990 tax package for George Bush 41, North American Free Trade Agreement approval for Clinton, the 2001 education bill and the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit for George Bush 43. Obama has had no bipartisan initiatives of his own.

And in that he reveals who he is – a hyperpartisan.  After all, Obama had the most left-wing record in the United States Senate.  That was conspicuously ignored by the MSM during the campaign, but now his real beliefs are coming back to haunt him. 

But Barone believes the problem is deeper:

Obama was faced with a fundamental choice. He could either chart a bipartisan course in response to the economic emergency, or he could try to expand government to Western European magnitude as Democratic congressional leaders, elected for years in monopartisan districts, had long wished to do.

The former community organizer and Chicago pol chose the latter course.

To the surprise of many who watched previous presidents present specific administration policies to Congress, he allowed Democratic leaders to design the stimulus package they rushed into law in six weeks.

One-third of the money went to state and local governments -- an obvious payoff to the public employee unions that contributed so much money to Democrats -- and much of it went to permanently increase the baseline spending of discretionary programs, a longtime goal of Democratic congressional leaders.

Finally...

Team Obama failed to realize they were no longer running in Chicago or in the Democratic primaries or facing an electorate fed up with Republicans. And, more important, they failed to realize that vastly expanding government goes deeply against the American grain -- and against the basic appeal of their successful campaign.

As usual, Michael Barone displays considerable common sense.  But the tone deafness in this administration continues to be remarkable.

Or maybe it isn't tone deafness.

Maybe they know exactly what they're doing, and will push through as much neo-socialism as they can before the hammer falls this November, hoping their programs will be irreversible.

February 10, 2010   Permalink

FOR YOUR SCHEDULING CONVENIENCE – AT 8:30 A.M. ET:  Reader James Croak refers us to the following announcement from Washington:

The following Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearings have been postponed due to inclement weather this week:

- The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a hearing entitled, "Global Warming Impacts, Including Public Health, in the United States."

COMMENT:  Pay no attention to the iceberg, Captain Smith.  The Titanic is unsinkable. 

What is outrageous is the anti-intellectualism on the global-warming issue.  Despite the piling of evidence that the books were cooked and that measurements may have been wrong, the global warmers push on, not feeling any need to pause and study. 

The science is settled.  That's what we're told.  And we were once told that the world is flat, that the Sun revolves around the Earth, and that heart victims have to avoid all exercise.

Scientists who warn us that the global warming data is unreliable are dismissed as the equivalent of Holocaust deniers.  Apparently, the new definition of a true scientist is someone who agrees with Al Gore.

You can be sure that, if you really looked closely, you'd find a lot of money involved in this issue.  But the fashionable ones don't want to look too closely.

February 10, 2010   Permalink 

GOP GAINS DRAMATICALLY IN WAPO POLL – AT 8:13 A.M. ET:  Even a poll that generally tilts a bit toward the Dems picks up the national trend.  There'll be no happy sleigh riding at the White House today:

Republicans have significantly narrowed the gap with Democrats on who is trusted to deal with the country's problems and have sharply reduced several of President Obama's main political advantages, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll...

...Asked how they would vote in the November House elections, Americans split evenly -- 46 percent siding with the Democrats, 46 percent with the Republicans. As recently as four months ago, Democrats held a 51 to 39 percent advantage on this question.

Please note that the poll was taken among a random sampling of adults.  More precise polls, taken among likely voters, have tended recently to give the GOP an even larger advantage.

Obama's overall approval rating is holding steady, with 51 percent of respondents giving him positive marks and 46 percent rating him negatively.

See what I mean?  Other recent polls show Obama's approvals below the 50% "ship sinking" line.

A proper, cautionary note:

But there is about as much time between now and November as has elapsed since Obama held his June advantages. The president and his allies have started a new political offensive, seeking to rebound from the Democrats' loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat long held by the late Edward M. Kennedy and salvage their effort to enact comprehensive health-care reform.

The political story of the year, the march of the independents:

The question asking Americans how they plan to vote in House races, known as the generic congressional vote, is an imperfect predictor of elections, but the GOP gains here amplify the extent of the Democrats' slide since they won the House in 2006. Four years ago, Democrats led Republicans on this question by a wide margin.

Among independents who are registered to vote, it's now a 51 to 35 percent GOP lead on this question, a mirror image of the Democrats' advantage among this group of voters on the eve of the 2006 midterms.

COMMENT:  The dangers to our side:  Overconfidence, and a misreading of the polls.  The GOP isn't winning any popularity contests as a party.  And the political operatives in the White House haven't lost their right hands.  Further, the mainstream media will rejoin the Obama parade once the 2010 campaign really starts going.

We run as if we're 20 points behind.  It's the only way in volatile politics.

February 10, 2010   Permalink

SHAKE IT – AT 7:59 A.M. ET:  From Fox:

A rare moderate earthquake struck northern Illinois Wednesday morning, waking up residents in the Chicago area.

The 4.3 magnitude quake, centered 48 miles west of Chicago near the city of Sycamore, hit at 4 a.m. local time at a depth of about 3 miles, the USGS reported.

Geophysicist Amy Vaughn told the Chicago Sun Times the earthquake was "very widely felt" and the USGS phone lines were flooded with calls from residents asking about the shaking.

"It's mostly people who said 'we woke up and we thought we were going crazy,'" Vaughn said. "Mostly it’s rattling people awake."

COMMENT:  The White House says there are reports of former President Bush visiting earthquake workers this morning and telling one of them, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

February 10,  2010   Permalink