More Family Values Republicans…
Wisconsin state Sen. Randy Hopper’s (R) wife has signed a recall petition against him, according to New York magazine.
She also tells the Fond du Lac Reporter Hopper doesn’t even live in the district as state law requires of lawmakers. Instead, he lives with his 25-year old mistress.
More Buyer’s Remorse with the GOP Governor in Ohio….
I do hope the tied is turning and lasts through the 2012 elections…
Elections have consequences and we are seeing them now with the out of control GOP Governors and House….
There are two things particularly notable in the crosstabs on all of these questions. The first is that non-union households are supportive of the public employees. 54% support their collective bargaining rights to 36% in opposition and 44% say they would vote to repeal SB 5 to 38% who would let it stand. Obviously that level of support is not nearly as high as among union households but it still shows that the workers have even most of the non-union public behind them.
The other thing that’s worth noting is the independents. A lot of attention has been given to the way what’s been going on in Ohio and Wisconsin is galvanizing the Democratic base, but it’s also turning independents who were strongly supportive of the GOP in the Midwest last year back against the party. 62% of independents support collective bargaining for public employees to 32% opposed and 53% support repeal of SB 5 to 32% who would let it stand.
All of this is having an absolutely brutal effect on John Kasich’s numbers. We find him with just a 35% approval rating and 54% of voters disapproving of him. His approval with people who voted for him is already all the way down to 71%, while he’s won over just 5% of folks who report having voted for Ted Strickland last fall. Particularly concerning for him is a 33/54 spread with independents.
Voters in the state are having significant buyers remorse about the results of last fall’s election. In a rematch 55% say they would now vote for Ted Strickland to just 40% who would vote for Kasich. Because this is a sample of all registered voters in the state and not just those who voted in last fall’s Republican heavy electorate the self identified 2010 vote of this sample is 49% for Strickland and 46% for Kasich but that still suggests a 12 point movement toward Strickland among those surveyed over the last four months.
Filed under Elections, Politics, Polls, The Economy
Interesting Poll results out today from the Washington Post/ABC News.
In summary, everyone thinks government is broken, many more people trust President Obama to handle the economy than the GOP and people have lost faith in the Republicans on the economy.
Serious Buyers Remorse on the GOP Congress….
The early battles in Washington this year have cemented the public’s disapproval of the political system and the country’s leadership, with confidence in congressional Republicans sagging and majorities disapproving of how President Obama is handling top domestic issues, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
In a sweeping indicator of dissatisfaction with Washington, just 26 percent of Americans say they are optimistic about “our system of government and how well it works,” a low point in polls dating to 1974. This gloomy assessment is shared by Democrats and Republicans, even as they agree on little else.
AND
When it comes to dealing with issue No. 1, the economy, Obama has an advantage: 46 percent say they put more faith in the president, 34 percent say so about congressional Republicans. Obama has a similar 12-point lead on the question of who better understands the economic problems people face, and a nine-point edge on dealing with the deficit.
via Poll: Budget impasse cements public’s disapproval of Washington – The Washington Post.
Filed under Elections, Politics, Polls, The Economy
Again, I ask: “Why are people putting up with this?”
These new radical Republican Governors are cutting the Corporate Tax rates while screaming about budget shortfalls. That’s irresponsible.
Then they are cutting services for women, the poor, minorities, public employees and students. That is immoral.
I think we are going to see more people in the streets- like in Wisconsin- before this is over. Of course, the GOP will probably just call out the National Guard to clear them out…
And to my fellow North Carolinians: Our new GOP Legislature is trying to figure out how to get some of these policies past our Democratic Gov….
From AlterNet:
As we’ve been documenting, several conservative governors have proposed placing the brunt of deficit reduction onto the backs of their state’s public employees, students, and middle-class taxpayers, while simultaneously trying to enact corporate tax cuts and giveaways. Govs. Rick Scott (R-FL), Tom Corbett (R-PA), and Jan Brewer (R-AZ) have all gone down this road.
Following suit, Gov. Rick Snyder (R-MI) has proposed ending his state’s Earned Income Tax Credit, cutting a $600 per child tax credit, and reducing credits for seniors, while also cutting funding for school districts by eight to ten percent. At the same time, as the Michigan League for Human Services found, the state’s business taxes would be reduced by nearly $2 billion, or 86 percent, under Snyder’s plan:
Business taxes would be cut by 86 percent from an estimated $2.1 billion in FY 2011 to $292.7 million in FY 2013, the first full year of the proposed tax changes…Taxes on individuals from the state income tax would rise by $1.7 billion or nearly 31 percent, from an estimated $5.75 billion in FY 2011 to $7.5 billion in FY 2013, the first full year of the tax changes.
As the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found, the practical upshot of Snyder’s tax increases is to place even more of a burden on Michigan’s poorest residents, who will see a bigger hike than those at the upper end of the income scale:
Filed under Elections, Politics, Tea Party, The Economy
When will the Democrats learn to at least attempt to fight before surrendering?
This James O’Keefe guy is a pathological liar, yet the press still accepts his “films” as evidence against first Acorn, then Shirley Jackson, then Planned Parenthood and now NPR.
I’ll be even more blunt: He is lying, manipulative scum and has been proven so on numerous occasions. CNN did a relatively good expose’ on him when he tried to take down one of their reporters.
Why is anyone paying attention to him?
Now even his fellow pathological liar Glenn Beck has point out that O’Keefe doctors his videos and manipulates them to portray things that never happened.
Why isn’t he in jail or at least sued to the point of Bankruptcy?
From AlterNet:
It should come as no surprise that James O’Keefe is an unethical liar who produces deliberately deceptive videos to smear his political opponents. That’s been proven on many occasions. What’s surprising is that is that anyone in the media still pays any attention to him, much less takes actions based on his fictional accounts of staged events. Now even Glenn Beck’s web site, The Blaze, is confirming O’Keefe’s disreputability after having analyzed O’Keefe’s latest videos attacking National Public Radio.
via The Shameless Right-Wing Lies That Ousted an NPR CEO | | AlterNet.
Filed under Education, Elections, Media, Politics, Television
I’ve said many times lately, the biggest threat to the Democratic Party is the Democratic Party.
They don’t seem to know how to fight, how to get out a message or how to stand on principle.
So they look like they don’t have any fight, any message or any principles.
And they just don’t seem to get it….
Here is a great article from Mark Sumner at DailyKos on how, after being destroyed in the 2008 elections, the GOP came back to take control of the House in 2010.
And it may only get worse…
What happened in 2010? Poll after poll showed that Americans still held Republicans more to blame for the failure of the economy, still liked them less than the Democrats. The public agreed with Democratic ideas, favored progressive positions on issues across the board. Only that same public voted for Republicans.
Why? Because at least the Republicans seemed to know what they stood for. They weren’t afraid to put out their message and not treat it like a poor relative they were embarrassed to know. They didn’t volunteer to compromise their convictions before negotiations even started.
Compromise is not evil. America is built on the idea of compromise. But compromise is not a principle, it’s just a tactic. One that can be used wisely, or poorly. Democrats seemed willing to compromise on everything, which made it hard to believe that Democrats really believed in anything. Politically, that’s about as attractive as a possum that’s been run over by a semi.
More: Daily Kos: And have not love.
People really need to be paying attention…
Instead of taxing Millionaires and Corporations at an appropriate level, the GOP wants to decimate important Government programs.
Here is another list- on top of some of the other cuts I’ve already listed…
From Rawstory.com:
House Republicans recently passed over $60 billion in spending cuts from current levels for fiscal 2011, pitched as necessary to reduce the massive budget deficit.
From disaster relief funding to aid fr abused women, the GOP went after the government’s 2011 budget with a zeal it normally reserves for tax cuts. Though the Democratic-led Senate rejected the proposal, here are some of the most shocking programs Republicans voted to slash.
1) The National Weather Service
The bill stripped $126 million from the Natural Weather Service, the agency within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tasked with preparing us for natural disasters such as tsunamis, hurricanes, blizzards, floods and fires.
It’s the same agency that issued a tsunami warning Friday for people on the West Coast after an 8.9 magnitude earthquake devastated Japan. The measure cut a total of $454.3 million from NOAA operations, research and facilities.
2) Emergency Oil Reserves
The GOP budget plan slashed $120.2 million from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a critical source of emergency oil supplies in case flow is interrupted.
In the wake of the earthquake in Japan, President Barack Obama said the US is “prepared to tap” into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve “should the situation demand it.”
3) Assistance For Firefighters
$510 million was axed from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s grants for firefighters, part of a broader $1.5 billion cut to various FEMA programs.
4) Communication Among Emergency Responders
The Law Enforcement Wireless Communications office took a $70 million cut — it’s responsible for facilitating “secure, reliable and interoperable” communications to help with “counterterrorism, counterintelligence, law enforcement and emergency response.”
According to the New York Times, an improved capacity for public safety officers across different jurisdictions to effectively communicate with each other would have dramatically helped first responders on 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.
5) Oversight Of Financial Markets
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, tasked with overseeing derivative swaps and financial instruments, saw a $56.8 billion cut in the GOP plan. The financial crisis of 2008-09 is believed to have been caused by a lack of effective oversight. (President Obama wants to increase CFTC’s funding.)
6) Prosecution Of Financial Crimes
In the wake of Bernie Madoff, and after big banks apparently got away with suckering people into predatory loans, Republicans voted to cut $2.1 million from the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
7) Helping Women Escape Domestic Abuse
MORE: Top 10 most shocking spending cuts Republicans voted for | The Raw Story.
Run, Sarah, Run!
It would be a dream come true for Sarah Palin to be the GOP nominee.
By any poll numbers out there, she is not electable.
This would be the best thing that could happen for President Obama’s re-election campaign.
From former New Hampshire Republican Senator Judd Gregg in “The Hill”:
Because the nominating process has become so dominated by primary elections, with the vast majority of the delegates chosen by direct vote, it is entirely possible that with no presumptive winner or even favorites, a candidate who runs second or third in a great many primaries could go into the convention with a sizable block of delegates.
Who would this favor? Does Sarah Palin come to mind? Although she is not viewed by most as strong enough to win, she is viewed by many as a person worth voting for to make a statement. And primaries tend to be populated by people who go to the polls with the purpose of making a statement.
Finishing second and third isn’t really a big deal — until you get enough delegates to be the nominee. And picking a nominee who it seems would be easily defeated by President Obama might not be the best statement.
via GREGG: Sadly, the primary process might help Sarah Palin – TheHill.com.
Lost in the 21st Century 