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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2010

BEYOND OUTRAGEOUS – AT 8:38 P.M. ET:  Governments are sure creative these days...at least in ways to punish citizens.  But this is beyond the pale.  From Fox:

As local governments strain against declining revenues, many have turned to a controversial -- and legally dubious -- way to raise money: They're charging accident victims for municipal services that are already covered by taxes. And the biggest proponents of these “Accident Response Fees” -- also known as "crash taxes" -- often are not good government groups and economists, but debt collection agencies looking to expand their business.

Every time a local public safety service (police, fire, ambulance, hazmat) responds to an emergency call, a bill gets sent to the person who receives aid...

...In Florida, if a fire chief shows up at your accident, it'll cost you an extra $200 an hour. Need a Jaws of Life rescue in Sacramento, Calif.? Add $1,875. In Chico, Calif., going into a ditch could cost as much as your car, because a complex rescue goes for $2,000 an hour, plus $50 per hour for each rescue worker. And if there is gas or oil to clean up, the hazmat team will bill another $100 per hour per team member. In San Francisco an ambulance ride will cost $1,642 under a new proposal there.

And...

While the popularity of "crash taxes" is rapidly growing in cash-starved city council chambers, the fees have sparked strenuous opposition from insurance companies, small businessmen, tourism associations and outraged citizens, who see the bills as a double tax.

Many also see an unholy alliance between local governments and the chief backers of the practice: debt collection companies, who they say often try to collect on debts in a heavy-handed and threatening manner -- even though most of the enabling statutes involving accident fees make them uncollectible from all but insurance companies.

COMMENT:  Read the whole piece.  This is insane, probably illegal, and disgraceful.  I suspect this kind of double tax will last only for a short time, until public outrage puts a stop to it.

September 9, 2010      Permalink

MAYBE IT'S THE BATTERIES IN THE CALCULATOR – AT 8:05 P.M. ET:  At least, that's what the brains in the White House must be thinking as they look at today's report from Rasmussen, which makes a neat little package with the post just below this one:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 23% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-seven percent (47%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -24 (see trends).

The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve...

...Today's Approval Index rating is the lowest yet recorded for this president. Overall Job Approval matches the lowest recorded number, and the number who Strongly Disapprove matches the highest yet recorded.

The approval index essentially measures passion, something Mr. Obama once felt from the electorate.  What a difference a trillion dollars makes.

President Obama continues to earn Approval from 74% of Democrats. However, 88% of Republicans disapprove. So do 63% of those not affiliated with either major political party.

That independent figure is a disaster.  It means that the highest number of independents who approve is 37%.

We caution once again that daily tracking polls can be volatile, but there's been a downward trend for Mr. Obama in the Rasmussen surveys recently. 

Overall, 41% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. Fifty-eight percent (58%) disapprove.

COMMENT:  Mr. Obama is two points away from slipping into the thirties.  If that point is reached it will, by definition, prompt massive amounts of political commentary and heavy snickering. 

During his presidential campaign Mr. Obama was saved by the economic collapse of late September, 2008.  Voters inevitably turned to the alternative to the party in power.  We'll just have to wait to see if any new salvation lies around the corner.

September 9, 2010      Permalink

ELECTION UPDATE – AT 9:07 A.M. ET:  "Ah," sane Democrats must be dreaming, "to have FDR, Truman or Kennedy at a time like this."  Trouble is, those guys wouldn't recognize today's Democratic Party.

There's more bad news for the Dems this morning.  At some point, one begins to have sympathy.  Not too much, but some.  From The Politico:

Democrats are already expected to lose seats in the November midterm elections, but now there's even more bad news for the party that controls Congress and the White House.

A study released Tuesday shows Republicans boast a voter turnout record so far this cycle that, compared with Democrats, is unprecedented for a midterm election in the past 80 years.

A higher average percentage of Republicans than Democrats turned out for their respective statewide primaries this year for the first time in a midterm election since 1930, according to Curtis Gans, the director of American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate.

Gans is a well-regarded guy.  I'd take him seriously. 

The study shows that Republican turnout averaged 10.5 percent in statewide primaries — the highest it has been in a midterm election since 1970. Meanwhile, Democratic turnout was about 8.3 percent in statewide primaries — the lowest percentage on record for an election year in which there was not a presidential contest...

...Not only did a higher percentage of eligible GOP voters cast their ballots in statewide primaries, but 4 million more Republicans than Democrats voted in those races so far this year. Of the 30 million people who have voted in 35 statewide primaries so far this cycle, more than 17 million were Republicans and almost 13 million were Democrats.

COMMENT:  Primary participation is a pretty reliable guide to turnout on election day.  It's universally assumed that Republicans just have far more enthusiasm this year than Democrats, and more incentive to go to the polls. 

What can change this outlook is a fear campaign by Democrats, targeted at their base.  People can be scared into voting.  Even the dead can be scared into voting, as Chicago shows us.  "They'll take away your mother's Social Security" is the opening gun of most Democratic fear campaigns.  Watch it get fired in the next few weeks.

September 9, 2010      Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 8:49 A.M. ET: 

MACON, Ga., Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Officials in a Georgia county said they would consider changing the name of a street called Lustful Court if neighbors sign a petition.  Bibb County Commissioner Lonzy Edwards told the commission Tuesday that he has received complaints about the name of the road, WMAZ-TV, Macon, Ga., reported Wednesday.

Wait, wait.  Didn't the people who moved to Lustful Court know the name of the street before they bought the house?  There's just no financial education anymore.

September 9, 2010      Permalink

DECLINE OF A DEMIGOD – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  Nile Gardner is one of those astute British writers who understood the reality of Obama right from the start.  He was not among the believers.  Now he chronicles the decline of the president, even among those who have worshipped:

Democrats in Congress are no longer asking themselves whether this is going to be a bad election year for them and their party. They are asking whether it is going to be a disaster. The GOP pushed deep into Democratic-held territory over the summer, to the point where the party is well within range of picking up the 39 seats it would need to take control of the House. Overall, as many as 80 House seats could be at risk, and fewer than a dozen of these are held by Republicans.

Political handicappers now say it is conceivable that the Republicans could also win the 10 seats they need to take back the Senate. Not since 1930 has the House changed hands without the Senate following suit.

And...

For most of the year, America’s political and media elites, including the Obama team itself, have touted the notion of an economic recovery (which never materialised), significantly underestimated the rise of the Tea Party movement, and questioned the notion that conservatism was sweeping America. It is only now hitting home just how close Washington is to experiencing a political revolution in November that will fundamentally change the political landscape on Capitol Hill, with huge implications for the Obama presidency. What was once a perspective confined largely to Fox News, online conservative news sites, or talk radio is now gaining ground in the liberal US print media as well – historic change is coming to America, though not quite the version promised by Barack Obama.

COMMENT:  It's been pointed out that even the late-night talk-show hosts, who once gave Obama a free pass, are now taking aim at him.  Midterm elections are a verdict on the president in power, and the verdict thus far is decidedly negative. 

Obviously, the Democrats can come alive.  Good campaigning, as Obama himself has demonstrated, can take the electorate beyond reality.  But Mr. Obama has been a disappointment, a disappointment at a time when Americans desperately need effective leadership.  He's have to run some spectacular campaign to reverse the tide that's built over the summer.

September 9, 2010      Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:25 A.M. ET:   There was a time when television outlets had standards.  Sometimes, they'd even have a whole office devoted to enforcing them.  That was then.  Now is represented by MSNBC, the sewer of the left, where there are no standards, and no taste.

One of the worst offenders at MSNBC is a relatively new liberal bomb thrower named Ed Schultz.  Consider his latest offering.  From RealClearPolitics, video included:

They're against it because you see, 'he's a black guy, he's in the White House, we don't appreciate him, we don't want him, he's not supposed to be there, this is all about power,'" Schultz said. Schultz makes several jokes about "tan man" Rep. Boehner (R-OH) for using a tanning bed.

COMMENT:  The more extreme Obamans are now claiming that anyone who opposes Obama, the Ground Zero mosque, or is in favor of Arizona's new illegal-immigration law is a racist or a bigot.  It's a return to the 1960s by a certain group in American society that truly believes those were the glory days, and that tie-died jeans are the symbol of revolution.  Do you realize that these people are in power?

September 9, 2010       Permalink

REAL SENSITIVE GUY – AT 8:11 A.M. ET:  The chap behind the Ground Zero mosque is going public.  I'm not sure he's doing himself much good.  From Andrew Malcolm at the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket blog:

Just three days before the ninth anniversary of the deadly 9/11 attacks, the controversial Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf behind the proposed mosque and community center near New York's "ground zero" said Wednesday night he had no intention of seeking an alternative site, despite overwhelming public opinion opposition to his plan.

He said his resistance to such a suggestion was a matter of national security because to move the site would inflame radical Muslims abroad and endanger Americans and American interests. 

I think the term "blackmail" comes to mind.

At another point during the revealing CNN interview, however, the Imam said that "nothing is off the table."

Speaking exclusively with Soledad O'Brien on "Larry King Live," the imam said the proposed mosque site two blocks from "ground zero" could not be considered sacred ground because of the seamy nature of much of the surrounding neighborhood. "You can't say a place that has strip joints is sacred ground," the imam declared.

Does this man understand anything?  Just read that last sentence.  Apparently, the sacrifice of nearly 3,000 people would have meaning only in a better neighborhood.

He spouts on about peace and harmony, but will not move the site of the mosque, which would increase peace and harmony.

Hypocrite.

September 9, 2010     Permalink

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

YES, THEY DO HAVE A PLAN – AT 9:21 P.M. ET:  We've been warning for months that the Dems are not going to lie down and play dead.  They're developing a plan, desperate though it is, that has the potential to keep them in power.  From The Politico:

Democratic lawmakers can rest assured: Their party is thinking creatively about how to keep its majorities in the House and Senate. And it's working hard to hold as many governorships as possible.

There’s only one catch for incumbents. As the party faces the prospect of serious losses at every level of government, its best survival strategy may involve focusing on candidates who aren’t yet in office.

An emerging Democratic survival strategy depends on winning a handful of key congressional and gubernatorial races that could allow the party to retain power even in the face of widespread defeats. In the House, that means taking a small group of Republican-controlled seats—all within reach—that would allow Democrats to lose roughly 40 seats and still emerge with a slim majority.

On the Senate side, winning just two open GOP-held Senate seats—Missouri and Kentucky—could offset an otherwise awful Election Day and possibly prevent a Republican takeover.

COMMENT:  This not an unintelligent plan.  The Democrats are playing the numbers.  Many, many races being fought across the country are very close.  Some Republicans, even incumbents, are only leading by a few points in the polls.  So a targeted "triage" strategy makes sense for the Democrats. 

Many observers are assuming that the election will be about Republicans picking up Democratic seats.  But by concentrating on vulnerable Republican seats, the Democrats can provide themselves with a buffer. 

Races tend to tighten as elections draw near.  We will know a lot more about these midterms a month from now.  Don't be shocked if predictions become more cautious.  That is why Republicans must stop advertising their victories in advance.  President Dewey would think that's a bad idea.

September 8, 2010     Permalink

THIS IS BIZARRE – AT 7:35 P.M. ET:  Fox News is reporting a private UN meeting that is nothing short of chilling.  Never underestimate the conceit and arrogance of the UN.  From Fox:

After a year of humiliating setbacks, United Nations Secretary General Ban ki-Moon and about 60 of his top lieutenants — the top brass of the entire U.N. system — spent their Labor Day weekend at a remote Austrian Alpine retreat, discussing ways to put their sprawling organization in charge of the world’s agenda.

Ah yes, Austrian retreats.  Where have we seen those before?

Details concerning the two-day, closed-door sessions in the comfortable village of Alpbach were closely guarded. Nonetheless, position papers for the meeting obtained by Fox News indicate that the topics included:

-- how to restore “climate change” as a top global priority after the fiasco of last year’s Copenhagen summit;

-- how to continue to try to make global redistribution of wealth the real basis of that climate agenda, and widen the discussion further to encompass the idea of “global public goods”;

-- how to keep growing U.N. peacekeeping efforts into missions involved in the police, courts, legal systems and other aspects of strife-torn countries;

- how to capitalize on the global tide of migrants from poor nations to rich ones, to encompass a new “international migration governance framework”;

-- how to make “clever” use of new technologies to deepen direct ties with what the U.N. calls “civil society,” meaning novel ways to bypass its member nation states and deal directly with constituencies that support U.N. agendas.

COMMENT:  It's a far cry from the UN set up in 1945.  Now it's a "something for nothing" UN, run heavily by "third world" countries that cannot manage their own affairs.  And we know whose fault that is, don't we?  It's America's fault.  Oh, also Britain and Israel.

Ordinarily, the machinations of the UN are mostly a financial burden.  But the Obama administration, you may be sure, has plenty of foot soldiers who believe in every sentence of the UN agenda.  That is the danger – that things will be done and agreed to with little or no public approval.

September 8, 2010       Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 1:56 P.M. ET: 

BALTIMORE, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- A University of Baltimore professor said he is basing his English 333 curriculum around zombies.  Arnold Blumberg said his class will involve screening 16 zombie film classics, zombie comic books as required reading and the option for students to write a screenplay or draw storyboards for their ideal zombie movies as final projects, The Baltimore Sun reported Tuesday.  "Zombies are one of the most potent, direct reflections of what we're thinking moment to moment in our culture," Blumberg said.

And it's only $42,000 a year.

September 8, 2010     Permalink

CALIFORNIA, HERE WE COME – AT 9:51 A.M. ET:  Conservatives, I mean.  For the first time in a long time, the GOP has a shot at making strong gains in the once-golden state.  And Senator Barbara Boxer, once an institution, now may be ready for one, if the good trends continue.  Scott Rasmussen reports:

Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer and her Republican challenger Carly Fiorina remain in a dead heat in California’s race for the U.S. Senate.

The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters, including leaners, shows Fiorina picking up 48% of the vote, while Boxer draws support from 47%. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate, and three percent (3%) remain undecided.

These numbers show a slight shift from results with leaners found two weeks ago, when Boxer led Fiorina 49% to 44%. Leaners are those who initially indicate no preference for either of the candidates but answer a follow-up question and say they are leaning towards a particular candidate. From this point forward, Rasmussen Reports considers results with leaners the primary indicator of the race.

COMMENT:  Boxer, not considered one of the sharpest knives in the drawer, is pretty typical of the liberal California crowd in Congress.  Out of touch, out of their minds.  That used to be a New York delegation monopoly.

But the race with Fiorina is still a toss-up, and the Dems control much of the election machinery in California.  In close elections, votes have a way of appearing from nowhere.

September 8, 2010      Permalink

WHA? – AT 9:08 A.M. ET:  Even the heavily Obamafied Associated Press couldn't swallow this one whole.  Hillary Clinton, who knows better, but is doing her bit for her party, is boosting the Obama foreign policy as a huge success.  Hey, maybe it's equal to the moon shot:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asserted Wednesday that the Obama administration's approach to foreign policy is beginning to pay important dividends.

''We are advancing America's interests and making progress on some of our most pressing challenges,'' she said in remarks prepared for a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. ''Today we can say with confidence that this model of American leadership works, and that it offers our best hope in a dangerous world.''

Really?  Show me a success.  We're being kicked all over the place, and our traditional allies, having been humiliated by Barack Obama, have no confidence in his administration.  As noted, the AP couldn't swallow Hillary's line:

Critics question whether the administration's foreign policy efforts are paying off, given Iran's refusal to negotiate over its nuclear program, continued stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an uncertain outlook for a successful conclusion to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The administration also has made no discernible progress in getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.

Details, details.  These reporters are always so interested in details. 

But, alas, 'tis true.  Iran is a huge failure, and marches toward nuclear weapons.  Even the Europeans seem more serious about Iran than we do.  And North Korea?  The northerners recently sank a South Korean warship.  Notice the firm blowback from our iron-willed president. 

No, we're still looking for a major win in Obama's foreign policy. 

Maybe Hillary was just impressed by the batting practice.  Or maybe she's painting a bright picture to boost her own political future.  But the truth it ain't.

September 8, 2010      Permalink

ELECTION UPDATE – AT 8:45 A.M. ET:  From the horse's mouth.  One of President Obama's chief political advisers paints a dire picture for Democrats in the upcoming midterms.  From The Hill:

President Obama's top political guru said Tuesday that he believes 70 House races and 15 Senate races are in play this fall.

White House senior adviser David Plouffe — Obama's 2008 presidential campaign manager — said that a bevy of races were in play, from the national to local level.

"There are a lot of competitive races out there. There's going to be at least 70 House races in play, about 15 competitive Senate races, a couple dozen tough gubernatorial races," he said in a video to supporters of Organizing for America, the president's political arm.

Plouffe painted a picture of a dire electoral landscape in which, if Democrats were to lose the majority of those races, their losses would be massive.

The Democratic political guru encouraged party members to get out the vote this fall by helping to volunteer, and focus in particular on turning out first-time voters who supported Obama in 2008.

COMMENT:  Problem is, those first-time voters have become disillusioned.  Their political prince did not bring peace on Earth and good will toward men, the way he'd promised.  And the oceans didn't recede either.

But again, we note that the election won't be held today.  We get great encouragement from tracking polls, but they can be very erratic.  Last week's 10-point GOP lead in the generic Congressional poll, heralded in the political press, was erased by yesterday's Gallup poll, which showed the parties even at 46%.  It will change again I'm sure.  I'm much more impressed by individual state and district polls.

The real fight is just starting.

September 8, 2010       Permalink 

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:15 A.M. ET:  The usual religious suspects were out in force yesterday, holding press conferences to protest against a rising tide of American Islamophobia which, strangely, doesn't show up in any survey.  The Ground Zero mosque controversy is too much for these pious pipers:

WASHINGTON — Prominent Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders held an extraordinary “emergency summit” meeting in the capital on Tuesday to denounce what they called “the derision, misinformation and outright bigotry” aimed at American Muslims during the controversy over the proposed Islamic community center near ground zero.

“This is not America,” said Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the emeritus Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, flanked by three dozen clergy members and religious leaders at a packed news conference at the National Press Club. “America was not built on hate.”

This is totally outrageous.  I've seen very little hate in this national discussion.  In fact, according to FBI statistics, Muslims rank rather low, as compared, say, to Jews, in the number of hate crimes committed against them.

Most of the hate I've seen has been directed at those who, out of sensitivity to the dead and the mourning, oppose the location of the mosque.  They've been called racists, bigots, morons, fascists and warmongers. 

The great Andy McCarthy, who prosecuted the terorrists in the first World Trade Center bombing, replies with some blistering truth, at NRO:

For the better part of two decades, Americans have been murdered by Islamists and then lectured that they are to blame for what has befallen them. We have been instructed in the need for special sensitivity to the unceasing demands of Islamic culture and falsely accused of intolerance by the people who wrote the book on intolerance. Americans have sacrificed blood and bottomless treasure for Islamic peoples who despise Americans — and despise us even more as our sacrifices and gestures of self-loathing intensify. Americans have watched as apologists for terrorists and sharia were made the face of an American Muslim community that we were simultaneously assured was the very picture of pro-American moderation.

Americans have had our fill. We are willing to live many lies. This one, though, strikes too close to home, arousing our heretofore dormant sense of decency.

That is the quote of the day, maybe the quote of the year.

We are all for respect here.  We're perfectly prepared to show respect for Islam.  But to get respect, you've got to give some.  We're still waiting for the Muslim world, which this country has helped time and time again, without so much as a simple thank you in return. 

We wait, and we hear the silence, and we're told by the fashion plates of the American elite that it's all our fault.  No it isn't, and we draw the line.

September 8, 2010     Permalink